The previous post contained a letter from LiveWell owner Diane Beckett indicating her desire to meet with residents to answer questions about their proposed operation. On April 9th, I attended such a meeting along with seven or eight other residents, and my intent here is to summarize the information provided by Ms. Beckett and her colleague, Zack Fraley.

In my last post, I speculated that any meeting with LiveWell representatives would be more of an attempt to sell existing residents on this concept rather than to solicit community input and opinions. In regards to this meeting, I believe that assessment was correct. I will comment more on that point at the end of this summary.

(Please note: To keep this short, I will be paraphrasing what I heard during the meeting. I am also giving my summary impressions; all of which are based on numerous statements made by parties at the meeting. Many things were said by the meeting participants having to do with technical issues and terms related to the assisted living industry. I have related a minimal amount of that information here, but I cannot vouch for its technical accuracy. Lastly, I have tried to refrain from agreeing or disagreeing with this company’s strategies and claims; and I have kept editorial comments to a minimum.)

Nature of Facility

They said they have closed on the purchase of two cottages for a combined price of close to $1.0 million. But they also said that they are considering buying a third cottage.

It is to be an assisted living facility with each of the two cottages handling anywhere from four to six residents. Each structure is limited by law to no more than six people. They plan to have a minimum of one full time, 24/7 staff person per cottage; but possibly two. Staff will be Stage 1 CNA certified (Certified Nursing Assistant) and will be able to dispense medicines

Full meal services will be provided in accordance with state requirements for assisted living facilities. They mentioned that they liked the idea of possibly having the country club involved with the food service aspects of this operation. But their ideas in this regard were very preliminary and somewhat vague; and it appeared as if no serious discussions had taken place with the club. Bottom line, they are required to be capable of providing full meal services to all residents all the time.

Nature of Clients

This appears to be something they plan to consider on a case by case basis, so it was a little difficult to pin down. But the best description I picked up was as follows. They expect that their resident clients would be unable to live by themselves without some outside assistance. They do not expect them to be active seniors. Rather, it appears they expect their clients to be in between “being active” and “being bed-ridden”. They mentioned an age range of 82 to 95, but I got the impression that the client’s physical condition, and not the age, would be the primary determining factor.

Clients would possibly be using wheelchairs and/or walkers. But they did mention that there were regulations limiting the number of residents in a single structure that could use wheelchairs. They will possibly take in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. If there are a number that qualify in this respect, they might put those patients into one cottage. They claimed that tending to Alzheimer patients did not qualify as “skilled care”; meaning, I believe, that it does not require a Registered Nurse.

Client Source

They said they want their clients to come from Governors Club, because they believe they will be providing our residents an alternative service. Instead of having to leave the community to go to a large, outside assisted living facility, aging GC residents would be able to stay in this community.

However, that is simply their view and their desire. It is important to note that, while their desire is to obtain all their clients from within the community, that outcome cannot be guaranteed. They will always have the option and ability to take in clients from outside the community. In fact, Ms. Beckett admitted that they would seek outside clients if there were not enough interested clients within Governors Club.

Why Here?

They said they targeted this community because of its aging population. As they see it, they have to fill 8 to 12 spaces. Given the size of the aging population in this community, they feel they have a good chance of finding 8 to 12 people who will need assisted living arrangements and who will not want to leave the community. And those chances increase when considering the possibility of existing residents wanting to move one or both parents into such a facility.

In that regard, they made numerous statements which led to the following important and, I believe, very critical point. They seem to feel that, even if only a few people in our community want this type of service in this location, then everybody else in the community should be comfortable with it.

Ms. Beckett offered her view that traditional, large assisted living facilities represent “intentional age segregation” and will, in time, be considered “morally repugnant”. Furthermore, she believes these traditional facilities will disappear within the next ten years. I got the impression that they believe (and wish to convince others) that their model and approach is the future of assisted living facilities; namely very small facilities within residential neighborhoods that service the needs of those neighborhood residents. They claim that they are targeting other communities like ours to offer this service.

Cost of Services

This rather obvious question was raised by several residents at this meeting. In response, they said that aspect had not been thought through to the point of being able to offer cost figures. Just to clarify, they did not say they had figures and were unwilling to discuss them. They said they had no firm numbers to offer.

(Editorial Comment: If you are surprised by this, you are not alone. I believe most of the residents in this meeting were surprised. Assuming this company has closed on these two cottages for something around $1.0 million, one might expect them to have a reasonable business plan that included such information. And there is one other disconnect. These people have been talking to prospective users within the community; and I heard second hand that some had been given cost figures.)

Safety

Some meeting attendees raised concerns about the suitability of the cottages for this type of operation; citing possible safety issues and concerns about the location. For example, some expressed the opinion that the outside areas around these cottages were not suitable for aging patients; especially those with Alzheimer’s disease and those with restricted mobility. Concerns were raised about the proximity of the golf course facilities, the lack of suitable walking and garden areas and the lack of suitable areas for activities.

And particular concerns were raised about being next to a large parking lot serving a commercial facility with relatively constant commercial car, truck and outside event traffic. In addition, concerns were raised about the potential frequency of emergency vehicle access.

One resident offered the view that people would probably not be that concerned if this small operation was located in a true residential neighborhood here in the community; but that it did not appear to fit well within what is essentially a commercial area.

The LiveWell representatives listened to all of this but appeared to believe that the concerns raised could either be addressed or were otherwise misplaced.

Experience of This Operator

Within the entire US, this company operates only one assisted living facility; and it is located in Chapel Hill. That is the sum total of the company’s experience in running such facilities.

It appears that a large part of the Chapel Hill operation is “memory care”; namely dealing with Alzheimer patients. And they claim to have a waiting list for that facility.

They said that it will take about a year to obtain the required licenses to operate this facility.

Community Support?

While possibly a touchy subject, I believe this should be addressed, because it was raised in this meeting.

I previously wrote that, when representatives of this company met with the POA Board in January, they said two things. First, that it was a preliminary presentation. Second, that they did not want to establish themselves in a community where they were not wanted (or words to that effect).

Dealing with the first, it appears to me that the purchase of these two cottages came as a surprise to the POA Board and the Country Club Board. This is simply my impression and is not backed up with formal inquiries and research. It appeared to me that people in the community were expecting them to come back with more concrete information. That never happened. Even at this meeting, these representatives could not offer logical reasons as to why the company needed to move so quickly and quietly on buying these two cottages.

They also claimed that LiveWell had met twelve times with various POA Board and Country Club representatives between November 2014 and the purchase of the cottages. I questioned that claim, because I knew of only two meetings; one with the POA Board in January (which I attended) and one with Country Club representatives (which I heard about second hand). In response to my question, I was told there was one private meeting with the POA President just prior to the January Board meeting; which would make sense. However, they could not offer details on the remaining nine meetings. Since they claimed that other company representatives could provide those details, I have asked them in writing for the dates of those meetings and the names of POA and Country Club representatives with which they met; but I have not yet received a reply. (Editorial Comment:  Frankly, I will be very surprised if any of these other meetings actually took place.) Please see update below.

Their actions in buying the cottages leads to their second claim and, in turn, to the obvious question; “Do these people really care what the community thinks of this idea or care whether or not the community wants this type of facility near the clubhouse?”.

At the start of the meeting, Ms. Beckett reiterated their second claim by saying that they did not want to “superimpose anything” on the community. But several of the meeting participants questioned her very bluntly on this issue. In essence, Ms. Beckett was asked the following; Would it matter to them if it turned out that, after hearing everything they said, an overwhelming majority of the residents was against the idea of a facility in this location? Put another way, if an overwhelming majority was against this idea, would they reconsider establishing the facility in this location?

In so many words, her response to both questions was “No”. Based on what I heard in this meeting, they want to convince residents that this is a good idea and a good location. But it was made clear that, at this point, they intend to move ahead irrespective of the views of the community.

Update on 4-13-15

I received a reply from Ms. Beckett (copied below) with additional information on the other nine meetings supposedly held with community representatives.  First, it has now been clarified as 12 to 14  “meetings or phone calls” between November through March. Second, most of these contacts were with various residents, and I presume these would have been parties who were possibly interested in the services to be offered.

There were no meetings with POA or Country Club representatives other than those I mentioned above.  Again, that essentially consisted of the initial presentation to the POA Board in January plus one meeting with the Country Club Board president and General Manager.  My understanding of the latter meeting was that it was quite short and, like the meeting with the POA Board, deemed very preliminary in nature.

Here is the full response dated 4-13-15; which came from Justin Beckett through Diane Beckett:

I wanted to follow up on the inquiry from Mr. Andrew Levin relative to the meetings with Governors Club representatives.
As I stated, between late October and mid March, we have had 12-14 meetings and or phone calls with various representatives and property owners within the Governors Club with whom we discussed our plans to acquire the cottages.
To be clear, the majority of the meetings/phone calls were with Governors Club property owners some of whom provided quotes which we have shared with Mr. Levin.
With that said, in addition to our meeting with the POA board, I also had separate meetings with Bill Colton, Sam Osborne and Doug Shifflet. Additionally, since we have closed on our acquisition of the cottages, we have collectively met and or spoken with at least another 20 Governors Club property owners.
I hope this clarifies the situation and should Mr. Levin and or any other property owner have any other related questions, please suggest that they contact me directly.
Thanks,
Justin
213 841 9622