Business Development
The Journey from Old Age Homes to Retirement Communities
By
Colonel (Veteran) A Sridharan, VSM
Pioneer and Managing Director
Covai Property Centre (I) P Ltd
www.covaiprop.com
A decade ago, old age homes were meant only for the destitute and the poor. Typically charitable institutions ran these. These were dwellings, which provided food and shelter and basic facilities for them to live and to be taken care of. While these old age homes did not suit the requirements and lifestyle of Middle and Upper Middle Income Group senior citizens, it gave the inmates abundant love and affection that they missed in real life. While these old age homes may not have been designed to suit senior living or lacked the ambience and the class that we see today, these were run efficiently and care was never found wanting.
The advertisements that were published to make people give charity, showed an old man or woman or both, withering with age and, who needed alms from others to make them live with minimum comforts. If you told your friends in your social circles that your parents were living in one such old age home, you would be looked down upon. Thus “old age homes” had a stigma attached and the Middle Class or Upper Middle Class citizens did not want to live in these homes
Around Year 2000, old age homes were re-modeled to suit the requirements of Middle and Upper Middle Class citizens. This process of change was due to various factors like break up of Joint Family System giving rise to nuclear families, children getting better education and moving far away for greener pastures. The parents could not move with the children as they missed their lifestyle in the place they lived their lives. They missed their friends, relatives and more importantly, their routine. They missed their independence and freedom. In effect living as one aged was a problem both for the parents and also the children who did not know how to fill this void between dependency and inter-dependency.
The initial retirement communities were modeled only for senior citizens and these were on stand-alone mode, away from the city centres and meant only for senior citizens. Athashri by Paranjpe Group in Poor was one such facility. Vanaprastha and Dhyanaprastha in Coimbatore at Vadavalli were other ones based on such a model. Covai Property Centre (I) P Ltd in Coimbatore set up their first Comfort and Retired Homes in 2004 called Soundaryam Comfort and Retirement Home” which was 14 kms from the city centre. Covai called it “Comfort and Retired Homes” in order to remove the stigma of “Old Age Homes from the minds of the residents.
These Comfort and Retirement Homes gave birth to Retirement Communities. The name “home” was also dispensed with. While retirement communities are extensions of real estate, the core competence lies in providing services and care to seniors with passion and compassion. With the passage of time, unlike in the Western countries, retirement communities in India have come a long way from the initial old age homes. These are not segmented but aim to provide independent, assisted, memory and palliative care to any senior from the time when a senior citizen moves into a retirement community until he or she leaves it. Thus the very definition of retirement community is a gated community where seniors can get services and care.
The operators of retirement communities set the trend in South India by creating new concepts for seniors and are graduating from mere independent living arrangements with basic medical facilities to communities offering lifestyle including modern care be it Assisted, Memory or Palliative. This has removed the apprehensions of seniors that whatever be their state of health with advancing age, guaranteed care would be available. Besides, this also enhances comfort levels of children living far away from home.
Covai Property Centre even offers a unique model for senior citizens with Special Children afflicted by Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Down syndrome or Spastics. The model takes care of the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) after the demise of their parents. This Company even offers Consultancy services for setting up quality retirement communities in different cities in India since the demand is far more than supply and seniors in many parts of India like NCR Delhi, Gujarat, Kerala, Goa, Chandigarh etc are looking at such retirement communities.
There are plans in Bengaluru where Ozone Group will have 320 dwellings for seniors operational by June 16 and are adding another 170 units to be ready by 2018. They have plans to bring quality Assisted and Memory care from the West and in due course develop the first Geriatric Village in India with over 1000 dwellings for seniors. South India also offers Home care – a segment, which is untapped until now.
What we see is a tend where from stand alone mode retirement communities are now part of large townships where there is a mixture of young and old....
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