Senior Assisted Living

Visit The Argyle in Denver, ColoradoSenior Living Where Happiness Comes To Life

www.TheArgyle.org

The Argyle Square

For over 100 years, The Argyle Square has been providing affordable assisted living to Denver area seniors. We have developed a program dedicated to care giving by promoting independence and preserving the dignity of residents.

At The Argyle Square, our warm and caring staff knows how to bring happiness to life, with a variety of fun entertainment, engaging activities and assistance with daily needs. We pride ourselves on making sure residents experience the highest and happiest quality of life.

The Argyle wants residents to be at their best, and with our superior staff and customized programs, residents are able to get the exact level of care they need.

The Argyle Square is a charming community offering 109 apartments all equipped with sit-down showers and emergency call systems. Feel free to enjoy your life with fun outings and activities, and let us take care of your laundry and housekeeping needs. Each day we serve three tasty and nutritious meals served in our Victorian-style dining room, to feel just like home.

Care for our residents is arranged on an individual basis, which ensures each receives the appropriate level of assistance. Care conference meetings are held at The Argyle Square and include all key staff members, with residents and families invited and encouraged to attend.

This pleasant community setting gives residents the opportunity to have family members and friends visit in a cozy living area and enjoy a variety of stimulating social, recreational and educational life-enriching programs. At The Argyle, happiness comes to life, in a comfortable space where you can be yourself and live the way you want to live.

Click here to read more about The Argyle and its commitment to providing quality care to all residents.

Trends In Assisted Living and Housing For Seniors

With the economy in a state of disarray during 2010 and 2011, the senior living industry and businesses in many areas were focused on survival. But as time heals wounds, we enter a new chapter that allows the senior housing industry to adapt to the influence of politics, economics and society. For example, senior living and housing providers see several trends unfolding now.

1. New Patients Are Sicker Than Ever Before. Providers are beginning to experience higher levels of debilitating sickness for their prospective residents. This elevates the risk of entrance and subsequently the cost of care.

Acuity levels are rising because many seniors have delayed the entry for economic reasons, and they’ve become more accustomed to utilizing family, technology, medicine and community support to remain in their current environment.

This may force government benefits programs into playing an even larger role in funding seniors’ care. It’s also possible that seniors may face discrimination for entry into facilities based on their sickness.

2. Community Evolution. As the profile of senior housing residents change, so will the types of senior care communities. For example:

• Independent Living Becomes More Like Assisted Living.

• Current Assisted Living Facilities will function more like Skilled

Nursing

• Dedicated Alzheimer’s care facilities will begin to re-appear in the next 12-24 months.

More Home & Community Based Services. Migratory trends for seniors are decreasing as the economic effects are more devastating than previously imagined, which leads to seniors remaining in their local communities longer.

However, the definition of “local community” is changing or better yet expanding. Before the definition of local community used to be defined a 10-15 mile radius, it now encompasses an expanded area of almost 100 miles, based on supply, demand and costs.

The lines between home health care, clinic, rehab centers to assisted living and skilled nursing facilities will blur more as the power of the network of care becomes greater, and once in the network, individuals may find themselves to be “customers for life.”

4. Communal Living and Multigenerational Housing. Concepts such as multi-generational housing, the Greenhouse Project, senior villages, co-housing, homes built with in-law apartments and other communal living solutions will continue appearing and evolving as individuals and families learn about the costs of senior housing. The elderly will increasingly move in with their families—or each other— as the economics of co-housing/co-habitation make a compelling case for multigenerational housing.

Those living in single-family homes will build additions and make improvements to accommodate their parents. Using home office spaces, basements, attics and other existing solutions will make

way for more formal renovations.

5. Politics and the Need for Affordable, Assisted Living. The election will bring sobering discussions about the future of health care and senior care. Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlement programs will be at the forefront of the campaign, as the country’s ability to pay its bills, both operating costs and debt service, is called in question.

Politicians are realizing that the aging demographics in America are an economic train wreck waiting to happen and are identifying the problem but not discussing any concrete solutions. Congress and state legislatures need to conceptualize and develop some kind of inter-agency solution to bridge the gap between housing and care.

6. Senior Care Technology. Technology will begin to become more mainstream both for aging in place and for those in communities. More applications (or “apps”) will be developed for a range of devices including laptops, PCs, tablets and smart phones.

Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS) will become more prevalent and blend in more with everyday life. Technologies for monitoring will begin to focus on habits and individual behaviors on mundane tasks that don’t require specific interaction with a device.

Monitoring pressure in beds, trips to the bathroom, turning on the coffee pot in the morning are examples of simple monitoring techniques that, when monitored for exception processing purposes, provide a means of monitoring without direct user interaction with any device.

For seniors, the television still is the primary electronic device that is connected in their home or their room in the community in which they live. Cable television operators have a strong position to deliver more tele-care and monitoring services through their networks.

7. Housing Location and Housing Discrimination. Home prices will continue to present challenges for senior housing communities across the U.S. in 2012. As the job market improves slightly during the course of 2012, the housing market will firm up and provide a solid bottom for housing prices in good markets. For markets that have an exorbitant amount of foreclosures, it will still be some time before those markets change.

Communities will still have a lag factor as many seniors that may want to move in will still be reluctant to sell their home at current market prices. Once the housing market recovery gains traction, there could be a surge in demand for independent living communities as capital is released after the sale of the home.

Land acquisition and development will become critical in 2012 as competition for prime locations intensifies. The good news is that low financing rates will help make the carry on the new acquisitions more palatable.

Locations acquired during the next 12 months will be the new communities starting in late 2013 and 2014. Municipalities need to address permits and application for new senior housing projects on these parcels as both a means to provide community support and an attempt to increase tax revenues for their communities.

Housing discrimination against seniors will gain national attention, as seniors are forced to downsize and change their lifestyles, landlords may begin to show delicate signs of age discrimination. Plus, seniors rarely support tax increases for public schools, which

people in some school districts find objectionable.

8. Financing For Senior Housing Communities – How Long Can Rates Stay Low? Interest rates will stay low through 2012. Senior housing providers will have a window of opportunity to lock in these low rates for the next 12-18 months that gives those who are building or renovating time to get their communities filled up.

Banks will continue to loosen up their underwriting requirements as competition heats up for established owners and operators, and more banks will look at smaller or less-experienced operators in an effort to expand their lending. Banks will become more interested in the details of the underlying operating model for each community financed, looking for functional and financial flexibility to change and adapt with supply and demand in the local marketplace.

9. Personal Finance Challenges & Long-Term Care Insurance. Declines in the net worth of most Americans presents multiple challenges to senior living. If the U.S. enters a new recession, it will do little for retirement savings for those who find it necessary to move into senior housing communities. Coupled with a continued challenged residential real estate market, the trend for improved net worth in the 55+ crowd seems unlikely in 2012.

As families move in together and more children are caring for their parents, the prospect of financial abuse looms larger and will create some societal challenges where lines are blurred as family members manage finances for their parents. Long-term care insurance is becoming more prevalent and will continue to grow in senior housing communities during 2012.

10. More Senior Living Professionals Needed for Growing Industry. No matter how well a community is constructed, the overall basis for a well-run community is the people that make it operate on a day-to-day basis. The senior living industry will see increased demand for qualified professionals that will provide more upward pressure on wages compared to the last two years based upon supply and demand.

With funding cut backs anticipated for both Medicare and Medicaid programs, government agencies at both the federal and local level need to provide more training and support funds to cope with the employee development challenges. Compounding the people crisis is the crack down on overtime regulations for home-care providers.

While private enterprise is good for competition and keeping rates competitive, the labor costs for senior care are going higher. Organizations will have to make career development a higher priority to attract and retain talent as part of their overall business plan. This task should not rest solely upon the responsibility of the management of communities but should filter down to its residents as well.

Senior Housing in Denver

Visit The Argyle in Denver, ColoradoSenior Living Where Happiness Comes To Life

www.TheArgyle.org