In December 2020, Hanh Brown, host of the podcast Boomer Living, reached out to Andrew Meyer, a Vivant Senior Living manager, with a Q&A. The unedited text from the Q&A is published below.

1. What does "Senior Living" mean to you?

"Senior Living" is a broad term, so I can only answer from my lens. I'm a manager with Vivant Senior Living. We provide memory care in residential homes for seniors with dementia, including Lewy body dementia, Parkinson's disease dementia, and Alzheimer's, in Central Florida. When I hear "senior living," it means the elderly population we serve, the elderly with dementia. It is a much bigger, more complex world than I realized before I stepped into it.

2. What is a commonly held belief in the senior living industry that you passionately disagree with?

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the sentiment that assisted living facilities provide better care than you could receive in your own home. Each year, new facilities with impressive amenities are opening. These openings take immense effort and require a lot of hiring and training upfront. It is easy to lose focus and neglect the foundation elements like a comfortable, safe environment where a senior resident can receive needed social connection, food, and care. Historically there is no better place to acquire these foundational elements than with your family in your home.

3. What should everyone in the senior living industry STOP doing?

They should stop contracting with the big online referral companies like A Place For Mom and Caring.com. Companies like these two spend large amounts of time and dollars on content and ad marketing to ensure they show up at the top of search results. Historically, they asked us to pay up to 120% of the first month's rent and care as a referral fee. Instead of contracting with them and paying $7,000 or more for a referral, use the money to invest in your website's content and ad marketing budgets. 

4. What should everyone in the senior living industry START doing?

For a month each year, they should only eat what they are serving their residents. I don't want to be hypocritical, so I will be the first to admit that I have never eaten what we serve our residents for 90 meals in a row. But I feel very strongly that the meals we prepare for our residents are an essential piece and there is no better way to improve meals than by eating what you serve. I should note there are some large players out there with some fantastic kitchens. Our model does not support hiring a private chef for each home, but we strive to make excellent meals that our residents enjoy eating.

5. What impact are you making in the SL industry?

We are trying to provide a viable option to the large luxury and resort assisted living facilities by focusing on the foundation elements of comfort, safety, social, food, and care. We are working on building a scalable business model around six-bed memory care homes. Typically you think of mom-and-pop operators when you think of six-beds, but we are working on building, owning, and managing a network of six-beds in Central Florida. Recent pandemics show us the model's strength and how we can be a bit more agile than the larger facilities. Locally, a large facility operator acquired a chain of seven six-bed homes. We presume they acquired the small homes' chain due to the demand for small homes and seeing growth potential with the model.

6. What does "aging" mean to you?

Aesthetically, aging is my receding hairline, gray hairs, and other outward signs of getting older. However, some of that may be the result of having a toddler and going through 2020. But, for me, aging is synonymous with slowly letting go of the things I've held on to tightly that probably don't matter as much as I think. It is the painful but relieving understanding that we are ultimately not in control of the matter we are made of. I think that's why dementia can be so hard on our residents and their families because they are enduring the symbolic death of someone they once knew. Again, 2020 may have impacted me more than I am aware of. :)

7. What are your thoughts or plans for yourself and your loved one's senior living options?

I will respect my loved one's wishes for where they want to live and how they want to receive care. That is why it is crucial to have these conversations while your loved ones are healthy, well, and able to communicate these wishes. Think of it like drafting a will but one where you discuss it's content with your loved ones, so they don't open it one day and are shocked to read it's contents.

For myself, I prefer to be at home receiving care. I also want to see my loved ones frequently. They don't have to live with me, but I want to see them often.