Senior living trends highlight housing, tech, workforce

This article was originally featured in Rochester Business Journal on July 9, 2025

Halfway through the calendar year, we checked in with leaders from local senior living organizations and a nonprofit that supports older adults to find out what the current trends, challenges and points of excitement are.

Michael E. McRae

“I’ve been in the business for 37 years and the transformation that I’ve seen in senior living is just remarkable,” said Michael McRae, president and CEO at St. Ann’s Community. “It’s amazing how senior communities are really wellness hubs and how we’ve kind of pivoted away from a traditional model.”

From  summer concerts on campus to chefs replicating residents’ beloved family recipes for everyone to enjoy in the dining room, McRae says he sees more signs of vibrancy, life and engagement going on St. Ann’s campuses today than ever before.

“And, we have a tremendous number of volunteers,” said McRae, who notes volunteers from over 60 organizations – including schools – in the region have given their time at St. Ann’s over the past year. “We’ve had some of our elders engage with students and become mentors and preceptors who share their life experiences. It not only gives them such purpose, but also a rich knowledge base to the young people.”

“One of our challenges in senior care is the workforce,” McRae said. “And here at St. Ann’s, we’re in this for the long game. So, we are trying to engage school-aged children, to show them that if you want a job, you could work just about anywhere in America, but if you want a career, come to a senior community.”

St. Ann’s is also making major investments in their existing workforce, like offering St. Ann’s Academy – a program for emerging leaders from a cross-section of the organization, including nursing, maintenance, and dining.

“St. Ann’s Academy takes them on an eight-month, very deep journey around leadership and leadership growth,” McRae said. “They learn how to be the best possible leader and support the team around them. We find that people who graduate from the academy not only see higher rates of promotions, but they have longer lengths of stay in their careers.”

Ann Marie Cook, president and CEO of Lifespan, a regional nonprofit that provides information, guidance, and advocacy for older adults and caregivers, says that halfway into 2025, the number one reason people have been calling the organization remains the same as it has for the past several years: housing.

Ann Marie Cook

The number of occupied senior housing units in the U.S. reached a new record high in Q1 2025, according to Cushman & Wakefield, with net absorption outpacing supply growth by 2.5 to 1.

“I think we’re lucky in our community that there’s a plethora of options from affordable senior housing to high-end senior housing,” Cook said. “We’re very lucky. I will say that one of the most pressing issues that we see is affordability and in recent years, that’s been the number one reason people have called us for assistance – to find affordable senior housing.” Cook and her team help connect older adults and their caregivers to appropriate senior housing, as well as provide resources to help keep people supported in their own homes if that’s what they choose.

“People can call and talk to somebody here about any question they may have, whether it’s about senior housing and what’s available and the cost and services associated, or ways to stay more comfortable and safer at home,” Cook said.

Lisa Marcello, president and CEO of Episcopal SeniorLife Communities, said it’s a dynamic and transformative time for senior living thanks to a generation redefining what aging looks like and organizations shifting their residential and service models to meet the changing expectations of today’s older adults.

“Technology is playing a major role in this transformation,” Marcello said. “Assistive tools like voice-activated devices (Alexa, Siri), home monitoring systems, and electronic alert technologies are enhancing safety, autonomy, and peace of mind for both residents and families. These innovations aren’t just conveniences—they help people remain independent longer and feel more connected to their support networks.”

Recognizing how important technology is for staying connected, the organization assists residents and Neighborhood Program members through volunteer-led tech support and Cando Tech services, helping individuals navigate smartphones, tablets, email, telehealth and more.

Lisa Marcello

Marcello is also seeing more innovation and flexibility in dining; a growing emphasis on social connection, lifelong learning, and holistic wellness; and a meaningful cultural shift in how decisions are made within senior living communities, due in part to resident advisory councils and resident-led programming.

“And while there’s still a long way to go, we’re also beginning to see more diversity within resident populations,” she said. “More individuals from historically marginalized communities are moving into senior living settings, which is a positive step toward greater inclusion and representation in aging services.”

Compounding the issue, Marcello also notes that the workforce needed to support this growing population is simply not large enough to meet the demand.

“Episcopal Senior Living Communities has taken a creative and proactive approach to addressing the crisis in senior living,” she said. “We’ve developed middle-income housing opportunities by leveraging innovative financing strategies, fundraising efforts, and thoughtful design to keep costs manageable for residents.”

One example is Beatrice Place—the organization’s first moderately priced housing community, created by repurposing the former Our Lady of Mercy Church and School in Greece into seventy-four apartments.

“On the workforce front, we’ve always recognized that our employees are our greatest asset and have made strategic investments in their success,” Marcello said. “With support from public and private grants, we’ve addressed wage disparities and created clear pathways for career advancement.”

She believes Rochester is fortunate to have several collaborative, high-quality, and mission-driven organizations aimed at serving the needs of older adults by aligning resources, reducing duplication, and sharing expertise.

“We can collectively create better outcomes,” Marcello said. “Our goal is simple: to celebrate aging and ensure that older adults are supported on their terms.”

At the Jewish Home, Michael S. King, president and CEO, says the organization is already receiving many inquiries about its Lilac Grove development, which is under construction and will bring 90 new moderately-priced rental apartments for adults ages 62+ to its seventy-five-acre Brighton campus when it opens in May 2026.

“There’s a big need for housing for middle-income individuals,” King said. “ Rochester has the largest, fastest-growing older adult population in New York State, so we have to continue to find a way to meet the needs of our older adults.”

King also cites the challenges area hospitals are facing caring for a large, aging population and says the Jewish Home is thinking creatively to help, while enhancing services for older adults on its campus, such as with its new IV Center of Excellence.

“We trained almost twenty licensed practical nurses to be able to insert IVs to give fluids and medications,” said King, who explained that by implementing this service line that is not normally offered in senior-living medical care, the Jewish Home can provide residents the best approach for fluid-medication infusion, decreases the need for hospital transport for these services, and alleviates some of the pressure in local emergency rooms.

King says Medicaid reimbursement rates remain a constant battle industrywide and that the challenge didn’t get any better with the passage of the most recent federal budget.

Michael S. King

He explains that New York State Medicaid rates have not had any impactful increases for nearly two decades, although inflation has increased 45 percent over that time. This presents many challenges, including a workforce challenge statewide since senior-living facilities often struggle to provide a living wage to employees due to insufficient Medicaid reimbursement.

One way the Jewish Home is helping offset this is via an employee grocery store, which was opened on the center of campus last summer and is available to about 500 eligible-employees who are invited to fill two large bags twice a month with fresh produce, choice meats, dairy items, eggs, and all the fixings.

“The employee grocery store was created to alleviate some of the financial stresses on our staff,” King said. “For a while, we have recognized the need to help our long-term care workers who are struggling due to rising costs and meeting financial needs with their current wages.”

Tony Zaccaglino, vice president of senior housing at St. John’s, says finances can be challenging for older adults and is one of the reasons the organization has shifted from an all-inclusive resort-style pricing model to a la carte for things like dining, housekeeping, and transportation.

“Instead of having the high rent, all-inclusive package where you pay whether you use the services or meals or not, we’ve switched primarily to a la carte style,” Zaccaglino said. “We still do offer what we call a bundled package for those who do want the simplicity of just a standard bill, but the majority of our residents choose and do appreciate the a la carte style.”

This shift demonstrates what Zaccaglino is seeing as a trend in residents more often voicing their opinions and ideas when it comes to senior living today.

“Residents want to be very much more involved than they used to be, and that’s not a bad thing,” Zaccaglino said. “In the fourteen years that I’ve been here, I would say there’s a larger group of the population that wants to be in the know.”

Zaccaglino hosts weekly coffee hours in two different St. John’s neighborhoods called Coffee with Tony.

”They’re something we’ve done for probably 10 years or so, but they’ve really grown lately,” he said. “When they started at our Brickstone community, maybe 12 people would come each week, and now about 70 of the 120 people who live there that come every Friday.”

Tony Zaccaglino

The Coffee with Tony meetings are also livestreamed on St. John’s in-house community television channel, which illustrates another trend Zaccaglino is seeing: more interest and growing aptitude in technology from older adults.

“The newer residents coming in are very much more involved in technology than the previous residents were, and we’ve embraced that as well,” he said, pointing to offerings like live-streamed exercise classes, digital menu displays, and Rendever’s virtual reality programs.

An additional trend being seen at St. John’s is a growing interest in volunteerism among residents. In 2024, 130 resident volunteers and 20 community volunteers performed roughly 2,600 hours of service on and off campus, including giving tours of Mount Hope Cemetery and staffing the organization’s Briarwood Market.

“We wouldn’t be able to possibly have as many programs as we offer without the number of resident volunteers we have,” said Zaccaglino, who points out resident volunteers also help support appreciation initiatives for staff.

Author: Caurie Putnam, Rochester-area freelance writer.