As the senior housing landscape continues to evolve, becoming more complex, competitive and growing in demand, Front Porch, a nonprofit senior housing developer based in Glendale, works to follow suit.

With 18 communities across California and one in Florida, Front Porch creates and operates senior complexes with a range of care levels. Local L.A. County communities include Kingsley Manor in East Hollywood, Claremont Manor in Claremont and Villa Gardens in Pasadena.

The senior living space stands in an interesting state right now.

The industry simultaneously feels both the brunt of the baby boomer population aging into its facilities and experiences a slowdown in development activity despite the growing demand.

On a national level, the sector hit the lowest year-over-year growth ever recorded during the second quarter of this year at less than 1%, says Lisa McCracken, head of research and analytics at the National Investment Centerw. The L.A. Metro area in particular saw 0.6% growth for this period, though reported slightly higher construction rates than other major cities.

This trend is not specific to senior housing but rather aligns with development broadly due to the cost of capital, materials and construction and labor shortages, McCracken says. Nevertheless, these circumstances combined with changing attitudes and expectations for what senior living should be demand that providers get creative.

Exploring alternative routes to expansion such as mergers, redeveloping existing properties and prioritizing workforce outreach and community connection are a few of the strategies that Front Porch is honing to evolve alongside the sector.

‘More impact’ 

In a “Southern California Meets Northern California” deal, Front Porch merged with Covia Communities in 2022 with the hope of “creating an organization that could have a lot more impact than the two were already having,” Front Porch Chief Executive Sean Kelly says.

Joining Front Porch in 2023 meant Kelly had his hands full navigating the integration of two companies and finding joint culture, noting that each organization was dedicated to its own legacy.

“We really had to spend a lot of time hearing one another out to learn what was important, what were the things that were done previously that led to the things that were being done currently, and to give folks room to kind of release from what once was and get comfortable to talk about where we might want to go,” Kelly says.

McCracken is seeing this a lot in the sector with partnerships forming based on mutual goals or different strengths. With Front Porch’s footprint in SoCal and Covia’s in NorCal and a similar desire for statewide expansion, the merger makes sense. While merger activity is happening nationwide in senior living, McCracken says it’s especially prominent in California.

“It’s very difficult these days, particularly if you are a much smaller organization, to be competitive and have the expertise that you need to successfully operate, grow and be successful long term,” McCracken says. “I’m not saying that you can’t do it, but the business has gotten increasingly complex and there’s just many benefits from scale.”

Kelly too finds that consolidation works in the current landscape because of the way the sector is changing.

“The organizations in our space are becoming bigger and more sophisticated, more systematized and more efficient, so that we can continue to invest in the people and the programs that are in this incredible state of fairly rapid change in order to meet the new needs,” Kelly says.

Workforce worries

Along with the baby boomer generation adding to demand in senior housing, they’re also linked to the sector’s labor issues, as more of the workforce enters retirement.

“The pandemic exacerbated and accelerated the condition where we are in an incredible fight for people to come and do this work and grow with us,” Kelly says. “…It is a macro challenge that we have fewer people entering the workforce, and more people reaching the age of 65 every day.”

McCracken also points out that built-in family care is declining for seniors as 20% of baby boomers did not have children and 40% of divorces that happen these days occur in couples over the age of 55.

To attract new talent, Kelly says Front Porch is partnering with colleges, universities and health care institutions local to the communities where their developments are positioned. Part of this is educating students and young professionals about the different types of perhaps less obvious roles that come with senior living such as accounting and finance, real estate development, IT and coordinating events and activities. 

“These are dynamic, big operating companies that require every expertise under the sun in order to make them work,” Kelly says. 

Front Porch’s method of reaching out to schools is “fantastic,” McCracken says, who also finds that leaning into technology can help mitigate staffing challenges. This includes remote monitoring of residents and predictive analytics which can determine when someone is at risk of decline.

“Technology is a big part of the evolution of our space,” McCracken says. “…It’s more of an upstream look, as opposed to saying, ‘If they fall in, we’re here to pick them up.’ Now, we want to get them before they have fallen.”

Expanding existing communities

In the current market given challenges surrounding capital, McCracken advocates for alternative methods to manage costs and “still bring valuable assets, resources and housing options to seniors in the market.”

“Front Porch is certainly known as a progressive organization of thought leaders,” McCracken says. “One of the things they’re committed to is the redevelopment and reinvestment in their existing communities.”

Over the last year, Kelly says Front Porch has been evaluating each senior community in its portfolio and creating forecasts of areas for improvement and possible growth. 

“At some of our communities, we have these massive nursing homes that are being repurposed as independent living or as acute care assisted living,” Kelly says. “In some cases, we’re building out health and community centers that are designed to serve our people on a more wellness-based initiative.”

This allows for expansion to a degree without embarking on completely new projects based on where the market stands.

For example, for its Carlsbad at the Sea property, Front Porch is currently in the process of adding 20 new memory care units, which the facility currently doesn’t have, as well as some additional independent living units to meet demand.

Leaning into connection

A more thematic push for Front Porch has been dismantling the “old folks’ home” reputation that assisted living and senior housing facilities can have.

“These aren’t old folks’ homes,” Kelly says. “These are communities where people really do discover new people, new things, new learning, and … most of the world doesn’t really understand or appreciate that.”

To prioritize this conceptual shift, Front Porch created the chief culture and community officer position in 2024, selecting Anna Hall to lead those efforts. 

Front Porch also selects resident representatives from each of its communities and convenes them for monthly check-ins with leadership to receive feedback and updates.

While Front Porch has a statutory requirement to host town halls with its residents twice per year, Kelly says the team has made the practice their own refining the original, more stale process of information dumping to more informal practices with small groups, food and lively discussion.

Another priority is distancing its facilities from feeling like “enclaves” and instead, getting involved with community groups and organizations.

“This is really all about embracing the fact that more is possible as we get on, without ignoring that stuff will change and stuff will hurt and that there will be loss, but there’s still a hell of a lot more that’s possible for each person as they get older,” Kelly says.