Those of us who have managed portfolios with both senior and “family” housing are all too familiar with the refrain that senior housing is the “easy” part of the job. Whether spoken or not, that has been the common perception within the housing management industry for decades. Of course, those folks that actually manage senior housing (or have done both) know the reality. Senior housing management, while rewarding in many ways, is full of challenges. And those challenges are increasing.
A case in point is the issue of bullying in senior housing. Last fall I was leading our new Certified Manager of Senior Housing program with a group from the Good Samaritan Society, a major national senior housing provider, when the issue came up. The group had a spirited discussion on the subject, with most in attendance agreeing that bullying was a serious problem that receives way too little attention.
As a result of that experience, my colleague Mark Alper and I researched and developed a webinar on the issue. Quite to our surprise, the webinar sold out. We have now conducted the webinar three times, and each time the attendance as well as the participants themselves has spoken volumes. Bullying is clearly an issue that managers across the country have to deal with, and for which they receive very little help.
Bullying isn’t the only challenge facing managers of senior housing. In the affordable housing world, many managers are faced with so-called “mixed pop” properties – communities that house seniors and non-seniors with disabilities. These properties bring with them issues related to lifestyle differences, inter-generational stereotypes, and similar challenges.
Even in cases where the housing is age-restricted, managers have to deal with a resident population that is much different than what it was just two decades ago. For example, today, as people generally live longer, the age differential in a senior property can be quite substantial, with some residents in their early 60s and others in their 90s or even 100s. This differential can mean that managers are faced with trying to satisfy a wide variety of service and lifestyle needs and expectations. Relatedly, as young seniors postpone their decisions to move to age-restricted housing, managers and their supervisors must adjust to new realities with respect to marketing their communities.
And while managers are dealing with the new complexities of attracting and “managing” the resident community they still have all the other responsibilities of their “family” housing management counterparts – complying with program and occupancy requirements, collecting the rent, overseeing the maintenance, supervising the staff, managing the finances, and the myriad of other day-to-day activities.
It is for this reason that NCHM has decided to return to its roots with the introduction of our new Certified Manager of Senior Housing program. I say, “return to its roots,” because the very first training and certification program offered by NCHM after its creation in 1972 was a two-week-long program specifically designed for managers of senior housing. That program, funded by both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a private foundation, was developed in recognition that the emerging field of senior housing was “different” and that it needed managers with a unique set of skills and knowledge. Those differences haven’t gone away but they have grown more complex and they have been joined by a new set of issues for senior housing managers. The world has also changed for NCHM. Budgets and time constraints don’t allow for two-week programs anymore. So our challenge is to design effective programs that address the essentials in two and one-half days. It’s a challenge we are up for and one that, hopefully, we have met in this case. Our goal is that our new Certified Manager of Senior Housing program can do what the old program did – help prepare managers to better tackle the complexities of their jobs and, as a result, preserve and expand the tremendously important resource that is senior housing.