{"id":24287,"date":"2020-05-26T05:38:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T12:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=24287"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:33:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T23:33:40","slug":"changemakers-series-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/changemakers-series-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Changemakers Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changemakers is back for 2020 with a whole new class of senior living leaders!<\/p>\n

Published by Senior Housing News<\/a> (SHN) and sponsored by Yardi<\/a>, the series spotlights industry pioneers who\u2019ve taken unique approaches towards shaping the future of senior living. And this time around, these are also leaders who\u2019ve shown what it takes to safely navigate their communities through the current health care crisis.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Michael Schonbrun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the first inductee, meet Michael Schonbrun, founder and CEO of Balfour Senior Living<\/a>. Schonbrun got his start in senior living while researching communities for his mother to live in. He decided he wanted to build one that she herself would love. So in 1997, he founded Balfour in Colorado, and the company has grown steadily since. They now have nine locations, with three more under construction.<\/p>\n

Prior to senior living, Schonbrun had spent a decade in charge of National Jewish Health, a leading respiratory clinical and health care research center. That experience has helped position Balfour well for the pandemic. From the first signs of trouble, Schonbrun and his team have taken the coronavirus seriously.<\/p>\n

In this excerpt from the SHN interview<\/a>, see how Schonbrun\u2019s unique background and proactive measures have kept Balfour\u2019s residents and staff safe.<\/p>\n

How has COVID-19 impacted Balfour and influenced your thinking \u2014 and the industry\u2019s? Do you think people are going to see more value in having on-site health care?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answer to that last question is yes. My first 10 years after getting out of law school I spent in the public health and health care regulatory environment. I think one of the benefits of COVID-19 \u2014 if you want to call it that \u2014 is that there\u2019s going to be a willingness to invest in public health and to appreciate that, as much as an individualistic society America is, that there are things that the government alone can do.<\/p>\n

That means there will be more investment in that work and sector, whether it\u2019s totally a governmental one or through public-private partnerships. I think that\u2019s going to come. I think the COVID experience is going to mark permanent change in American life and investments.<\/p>\n

One of the interesting questions right now as we speak, and this may be dated by the time this is published, is whether folks are going to feel more safe in their own homes or more safe in a community that has care partners and that is taking the kinds of precautions we are with cleaning and isolation and preventing visitors from coming in or tracking in the virus.<\/p>\n

In terms of the specific question, we were very early implementing a series of steps ahead, frankly, of what the CDC was recommending. We did not allow visitors in, and in some cases, we had family members coming from out of state flying in to see their parents and unfortunately we were not able to reach out to them quickly enough to prevent them from making that trip. We had to turn them away at the door. [Early on, we had] our vendors leaving packages outside the building [and started] taking temperatures of the residents twice a day.<\/p>\n

At the moment, knock on wood, we have no cases in any of the Balfour communities, and none among our care staff. We\u2019ve made arrangements, I should say, for daycare for our care staff if they have young children at home, which of course many do, at our expense. Our new employees now immediately are getting health insurance coverage on day one rather than the beginning of the next month after they join us.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve actually been reaching out to local restaurants and hotels saying, \u201cIf you\u2019re losing hours or, in fact, have lost your job or been put on a cutback, consider coming to work for us.\u201d Because labor has been such a shortage in the industry, we\u2019re believing that we may be able to pick up some talent going forward, who would find that our work is more satisfying than where they were, and that our pay rates are comparable. We\u2019re making those steps.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re obviously still in the early stages of this. Who knows how it\u2019s all going to play out. I\u2019m hopeful we can keep COVID-19 away from any of our residents, but one has to be realistic. If every prediction is half the population in the country is going to come down with this, then it\u2019s hard to see how we\u2019re going to totally dodge the bullet. We\u2019re going to do our damn best to do that.<\/p>\n

Do you think senior living is changing fast enough these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n

COVID changes everything when you say \u201cthese days.\u201d I do think, as an industry, we have to recognize that the boomers are going to be a much more discerning group than the World War II Greatest Generation. Some things can be changed more quickly. Dining and transportation. People who have a 20-year-old building are going to be hard-pressed to change the bones of the building. It could be a challenge.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the amount of new construction that\u2019s come on has raised the question of, what does that do to the more obsolete buildings? They\u2019re maybe going to have to cut pricing and yet still have to pay more and more for their staff. They\u2019re in a hard place.<\/p>\n

We have some buildings that are 20 years old, we have some that are 10, and then there are ones that are just the last couple of years. So, we\u2019re going to be facing those challenges as well. We\u2019ve been refurbishing and trying to improve the dining experience, the transportation \u2014 those kinds of things that can be done even if the physical plant is a bit dated. I guess the question is, are people making those investments or not?<\/p>\n

Read the full interview<\/a> with Michael Schonbrun on SHN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Changemakers is back for 2020 with a whole new class of senior living leaders! Published by Senior Housing News (SHN) and sponsored by Yardi, the series spotlights industry pioneers who\u2019ve taken unique approaches towards shaping the future of senior living. And this time around, these are also leaders who\u2019ve shown what it takes to safely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":491,"featured_media":24296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_s2mail":"yes","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2952,3354],"tags":[2695,2808,2696,842,2438],"class_list":["post-24287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-senior-living","category-team-yardi","tag-changemakers","tag-covid-19","tag-senior-housing-news","tag-senior-living","tag-yardi-senior-living-suite"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nYardi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Changemakers is back for 2020 with a whole new class of senior living leaders! 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