Is This the Future of Senior Housing?

Last Updated: April 29, 2019

Surveys show that aging Americans want to live at home rather than move into senior housing. What if senior living care was more homelike, with familiar roommates and staff, however?

That’s the goal of the “Small Homes Project” at St. John’s Home in Rochester, New York, where administrators have converted a 455-resident high-rise into a series of mini-homes styled as penthouse suites for small groups of residents. Is this the future of senior housing? Read more.

A New Approach to Senior Housing

The six-year St. John’s Home conversion was inspired by Green House design, which uses freestanding houses and dedicated staffers to care for no more than 12 residents per home.

St. John’s tried the approach in a smaller community and found that the results included better social connections for residents and much lower turnover among caregivers.

Rebecca Priest, administrator of skilled services at St. John’s, gave a TEDx talk on the Small Homes approach and the future of senior care. In it, she describes residents’ and staffers’ food-gathering field trips into the nearby woods and even a hunting trip arranged for a resident during deer season near their pilot project site. Priest recently spoke with SeniorAdvisor.com about the high-rise senior living conversion project she’s also overseeing in Rochester.

Small Homes Senior Care

“In an ideal world, we could move our residents into freestanding houses,” Priest says, “but we’re in the middle of a city in a high-rise. So we have each floor configured like two penthouse apartments, each with room for 16 elders. When you get off the elevator, instead of seeing a nurses’ station, you walk into a lobby between the suites.”

The changes go beyond a more home-like layout. Each suite has its own dedicated direct-care staff and a schedule that accommodates residents’ needs. “Our residents told us they wanted to see the same caregivers every day and they wanted flexible mealtimes so they can, for example, sleep in without missing breakfast.”

The changes benefit staffers, too. Priest notes in her TEDx talk that the number of seniors needing care will double by 2040 while the number of caregivers stays about the same. The industry needs to retain its caregivers with better career development and pay, she said. This model is a way to do it, by training caregivers to take on more in-depth roles with a smaller number of clients.

Ways to Find Small Homes Senior Housing Near You

You can search for local Green House and Small Homes communities here. If there are none nearby, Priest says finding like-minded community members and community groups is the key to getting one going.

No matter what kind of senior living options you have, Priest states, “remember that nursing home care should be a partnership between the staff and your family.”

Learn more about senior living options in your area at SeniorAdvisor.com.

Casey Kelly-Barton

Casey Kelly-Barton is an Austin-based freelance writer whose childhood was made awesome by her grandmothers, great-grandmother, great-aunts and -uncles, and their friends.