Why has the Retirement Living Council invited Senator Anne Ruston, Opposition Minister for Health and Aged Care, to be the keynote speaker at their forthcoming national conference?
Reading the program for the conference (27 – 28 June), one is struck by the number of sessions that focus on the wellness and health support of residents. This is a significant pivot from the positioning of independent living, interpreted as ‘we provide you housing that makes it easier for you to age, but apart from that, you are on your own’.
It appears clear that the RLC board sees its future moving up the care pyramid of customer needs.
Inviting Senator Ruston as a keynote is a bold statement of this intent.
One program item has this two way bet explanation to balance its past with the future:
“This panel will explore how the retirement sector is already providing community-based care for residents at all stages of their care journey, investigating how we can do more to ensure that older Australians are living independently for as long as possible through care and wellbeing services.”
We have observed that there is increasing positioning of retirement villages not as housing but as social infrastructure. Another session is headlined and described in part as:
Redefining Investment: Retirement Villages as Social Infrastructure
“Concurrently, many retirement communities have evolved to deliver privately funded allied health and wellbeing services to residents.”
Social infrastructure has become the hot investment category for institutional investors, think superannuation and pension funds investing in affordable housing and disability housing.
With social infrastructure, lower returns are expected as the cost for supporting good work.
Retirement village operators need new sources of investors and investment funds to drive up their valuations and increase bank loans and other sources of cash. They need this new funding to be competitive in buying new development sites and renovating old villages.
From the program:
“How private investment supports governments in achieving better public health and infrastructure outcomes and investigate future growth and operational trends for the sector."
But providing care to village residents is not cheap. It requires significantly more staff than traditional villages and it significantly increases the compliance risk and the risk of simply being sued.
However it is a growth strategy in a sector that has had little growth under the existing model and funding sources.
Perhaps the most important thing is that there is a strategy, perhaps for the first time since the Retirement Villages Association morphed into the Retirement Living Council 12 years ago.
It will be fascinating to hear what Senator Ruston has to contribute to this discussion.