Interview with The Residence at Orchards Walk management, Lina Saba

What I love the most about it is that you know you make a difference every single day that you go in. My favorite part is definitely the relationships that we get to build with the residents who live in our communities, and just learning about their life stories and really developing quick friendships with a lot of them.

A lot of the staff who work in our restaurants and in housekeeping become like extended family with the residents, which I think is a really unique kind of job and kind of place to be. So certainly the relationships, the storytelling I really love, and the making a difference every day at The Residence at Orchards Walk.

It really was accidental, I think. A lot of people in the business kind of stumble upon this business. It’s not something that I think a lot of people in university or college or high school even think about. There’s this kind of idea that seniors' housing is just kind of like care homes. But there’s this whole other segment that is not care homes. It’s actually like a really fun place that I always joke I would love to live in. I would love to have my suite, my apartment, right now, cleaned once a week and have a meal service done by people who really care and are really good at cooking food so that I don’t have to do it.

I fell into it just because I knew somebody who needed help working for an association in Alberta. They needed help with their convention. I had no idea the convention of people who were going to be there, and it turned out they were all operators of independent and supported living in Alberta. That was kind of my start.

I did a number of years doing advocacy work in Alberta. Eventually, I wanted to run away from Alberta winters, so I moved to BC. I just slid right back into senior housing when I came to BC. I work for the BC Seniors Association, and through the connections and contacts you make in the business, I eventually started working with communities and marketing.

I came from communications, shifted to marketing, and worked for a couple of different operators in BC, and then eventually came back to this company, which is run by a colleague that I actually got to know in Alberta originally because they were running properties in Alberta. So that’s how I ended up working with The Residence at Orchards Walk. 

There are a few things that are unique about The Residence at Orchards Walk. First and foremost, it’s pretty unique to the Kamloops market itself. In the Lower Mainland, you can find independent living, but here it's rarer.

We've got full suites, like condos. You’ve got a full kitchen, which includes a dishwasher. You’ve got an in-suite washer and dryer. You’ve got everything. It’s the bigger-than-my-apartment type of living. There’s just a lot of thought put into open spaces and design so that you’re able to move freely and easily.

When you downsize from a larger space, you have some options on how you put your furniture in. There’s just consciousness in the design. There’s some of that for sure in the Lower Mainland, but that type of option in Kamloops is pretty unique.

The thing that’s really unique about The Residence at Orchards Walk is that it’s only been open for about four years, and we don’t offer care services there. There are no care aides on staff. To some people, depending on what they’re looking for in terms of service or what their needs are, that might not work for them.

It’s a very conscious choice not to have that service on site because we want to attract the very active resident, someone who doesn’t necessarily need those services. That’s not age-dependent. That’s very much lifestyle and essentially health-dependent.

There was an 89-year-old woman whom I met recently who just moved in three weeks before, at The Residence at Orchards Walk. I can’t believe that she's 89 years old. I can’t even imagine what kind of services she would need. She’s so active, she seems so healthy, she’s fit, she might never need care services.

We do offer the flexibility in knowing that if the time comes for some of our residents, that we’ll be there to facilitate what they need. But it’s not part of our original packaging.

We don’t have the care there. It’s really a hospitality-driven model. The things that the major focus is on food. We’ve got a food service offering; we’ve got a strong concierge with some services.

Let’s say somebody needs to get into an appointment; we’ll help to coordinate that for them. Or if somebody wants a grocery delivery, we’ll help them to coordinate that. Those types of things. 

For healthcare needs, we don’t have staff that are actually going to deliver those services. As people continue to age and as their needs might change, The Residence at Orchards Walk, through our service department, which isn’t healthcare, is hospitality-driven, would help to facilitate whether that’s access to a private home care operator that runs in Kamloops, or whether that’s to facilitate a meeting so that they can get home care provided through the health region. We’ll facilitate that. We won’t actually deliver the service ourselves.

Without sounding like it’s a bad thing, we keep the healthcare element out of our service offering consciously.

The menu is restaurant style. I know a lot of independent living, active living communities are shifting in that direction, and have been for a number of years. There’s no scheduled mealtime shift when everybody comes in and out. So that’s really important. Residents still, of course, call in to make reservations.

There’s a food feedback group, and that’s really primarily where we get our feedback in terms of our menu design and what we’re offering. There are a few staple items that people really love, that they would be upset if they weren’t on the menu. I think there’s a chili at lunch that’s one of the favorite things that are on the menu on a regular basis, for example. The menu is always based on resident feedback. That's how we design our menu on a regular basis at The Residence at Orchards Walk. And of course, within reason, we can’t have lobster on the menu every week or anything like that. 

When we want to do something a little bit different off the menu, we’ll build it around events. A few weeks ago, when it was still summer, they did a Hawaiian luau. They roasted a pig on the back patio that we have. They made in-house pineapple cakes, and they did all kinds of stuff, and then there was decor and costume and music and the whole nine yards.

That’s one of the ways that at The Residence they’ve been evolving the food services, with kind of exciting off-menu things, focusing it around an event as well.

Our philosophy is always that we want to make sure that we’re offering as much choice based on preference and also based on your health needs. If you do have dietary restrictions, you just need to get in touch with our Director of Culinary Services and have the conversation, and we’ll do everything we can to accommodate requests at The Residence at Orchards Walk.

A couple of weeks ago, for example, we hired a band. I think music is one of the favorite things at The Residence.

Our back patio is just beautiful, facing right down the Valley View corridor, with these beautiful hills on either side of us. It’s all glass that faces from our dining room, and there are doors on the side so you can go out. We’ve got this really beautifully designed overhang kind of protector so you can even be out there if the weather is a little bit shady. There’s an outdoor fireplace out there.

So one of the favorite kinds of events is setting up music outside. We’ll put the musicians under a tent, and then the residents all have outdoor furniture that’s outside. Then we kind of clear an area where they can dance. Then you’re surrounded by landscaped gardens and the kitchen is just right through the door, so the servers can come out with appetizers, glasses of wine, hot chocolate, coffee, whatever they want. 

A lot of the events that we have at The Residence at Orchards Walk are focused on entertainment, but that’s not like prescribed activity. Because we have this very active population, who are still going out golfing a lot of days, or some of them have second homes. A lot of them have cabins at the lake. They’ve got busy lives. They’re in and out doing the things that they want to continue doing. We wouldn’t at all be close to a traditional seniors community or even a traditional independent living community with a structured activity calendar. It kind of goes off of what the community likes.

We got recommendations for this local band, a blues duo who used to do the cruise circuit and are Kamloops-based. It turns out that they were connected to community members. Events are very, very resident-driven. We did cooking demos with our executive chef, and they kind of picked something that was aligned with the time of year. They did a cooking demo together, and they all ate together.

We’ve got a beautiful hobby room on the second floor, a huge open space. People can go in there, and they do whatever they want, whether it’s crafting or the pool table in there. That’s where the demo kitchen is. The library is just off the side there as well. From a service perspective, we respond to what people are interested in.

For example, there’s a woman who does genealogy. It’s her passion. We’ve started trying to facilitate times and spaces where she can explain what it’s all about and she can explain her process and involve other community members in it if they’re interested. It’s really about connecting the residents, finding out what people are interested in, and then again facilitating what they want at The Residence at Orchards Walk.

We’ve got a full gym on our lower level, with all the basic stuff that you would want in a gym. The treadmills are in there, the elliptical machine is in there, we’ve got mats, we’ve got free weights, kind of all the basics that you need. Mirrors are all around so you can check out your form to make sure you’re doing things right. People can use that at their leisure whenever they want.

Then there’s usually seasonal activity. Because there are lots of walking paths and it’s beautiful, there’s a walking group. There’s also outdoor yoga and those types of things.

Because we have such an active population, there are a lot of groups who are still out golfing on a regular basis during the season. That’s how they’re staying active. We allow pets, so a lot of people will get together with their dogs and go for walks with their dogs in the community.

The Residence at Orchards Walk is actually part of a master-planned community in Kamloops. It’s a brand-new development, that whole kind of area. There is a small community centre that’s been built actually just from the back patio; you can see it, it’s just right across the street.

They actually have a little mini putting green that our residents can access so they can go practice their short game. There’s actually some space in there that we’re hoping in the near future to offer additional fitness classes or meditation classes. 

I think that’s something that probably makes The Residence at Orchards Walk stand out as a bit as well, is that we do have a lot of couples and that active lifestyle. The ability for a couple to still do the things that they want to do on their own time and then also be able to come together for dinner at the end of the evening or whatever else is really meaningful there.

We actually also have a small woodworking shop downstairs that anybody can use. There’s just enough variety and enough things happening to really accommodate couples. We also have a salon on site, so men and women are getting their hair done there.

The other thing that is quite unique to The Residence is that we have a number of two-bedroom suites, which is just really not the norm. I think that’s a real challenge for people who are looking to downsize from a family home or even a large, 1,200-square-foot condo. Most couples don’t want to move into a one-bedroom, and even a one-and-a-den is pushing it.

We’ve got a good parcel of two-bedrooms in our property, and we’re actually just converting a number of one-bedrooms into two-bedrooms, and they’ll be open in January. That is a really big, attractive piece for couples to come in. In one room might be a library.

We have this couple; he’s like a retired, well, semi-retired, actually, mathematician, and he was a professor. He has a whole room full of books. Having a two-bedroom allows them a space to still have that. And then, of course you have all the common area, which is part of your home as well.  It certainly creates a different kind of vibe when you have that many couples in the community.

Based on just the leads that I see coming in through our different mechanisms, I would say the majority are the residents themselves who are looking. We actually just did some video interviewing with some of our current residents that we want to incorporate into testimonial stuff, so people can learn more about the residents on the residents' website. 

It’s really interesting to hear our residents talk. A lot of them speak to the fact that they wanted to make the decision before their kids got involved, probably for a number of reasons. You hear a lot that they don’t want to be a burden or that they don’t want to hear their kids start to nag them.

They're empowering themselves by saying, "I’m going to go start having a look now because I want to be the one that’s making this decision." Not that I think people don’t want to involve their family members.

What happens often is the potential resident themselves comes to have a look, and they’re like, "Hey, I actually think that this might be the right thing for me, this actually seems good." Then they’ll bring their kids to have a look and tell them what they think.

That’s nice, and that's what we want more of at The Residence at Orchards Walk. We want them to be the ones who are leading the decision-making. We want to be serving them and find out what they need so that they’re excited about it and then they get their kids to come and have a look. Our residents feel empowered in their decision-making, which is ideal.

It varies. Philosophically, because of the service philosophy at The Residence, communication is really focused on the residents themselves, and our communication is focused on them as the audience. They get regular newsletters, calendars, and resident meetings where they can talk one-on-one with the general manager or food committee.

If they want to share this information with their family members because that’s something that’s important for their peace of mind, then they can go ahead and do that, of course. There have been times when there are health concerns, but again, it would always go to that resident first. We would never go to involve a family member unless it was necessary. 

We want some family involvement. When we have events around Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or Grandparents Day or Christmas, Thanksgiving, all those things where you or I would involve our family members. But there's no automatic communication to the family members unless it was something that the resident themselves wanted.

Retirement living, independent living, and now active living has been so busy trying to define ourselves by what we’re not because there’s this stigmatized view of seniors housing. I think that we’re starting to see that there are more demanding people in our seniors' communities who are in their 70s or even 60s who are a lot more vocal about things that they like and things that they don’t like, both ways.

I think that’s been very helpful for us in going, "Okay, well, we need to think differently about the way we deliver service." And also, we need to think differently about why people are moving in. 

We’ve been such a needs-driven business for so long, even in retirement. Something’s got to happen for someone to consider it, like it’s got to be healthcare, or maybe there’s a fall. So I think that a lot of people in the business are now shifting their mindset to kind of go, "We need to find the people who want to move, not because they have to." We need to sell the lifestyle and the convenience that comes along with the lifestyle, and get them in the door so that they can see it for themselves and so that they can talk to some of the other residents.

Especially as that new generation of seniors is coming in, they want the best Wi-Fi with the fastest speeds. If they’re not happy with their food service, you’re going to clearly hear about it. If their dietary restrictions or limitations are not being met, you’re going to hear about it. 

I think it’s a combination of that new generation of seniors that’s telling us, even if we don’t want to hear it sometimes, that’s causing the change. Also, I think a lot of people in the business are thinking, well, I’m not too far away from that now, and going, well, how would I make it different so that it is a place that I want to move into?

There are a number of residents who are from Kamloops. The unique thing about Kamloops also is that it is a bit of a hub city. So we do draw on people who are living in surrounding communities. Williams Lake further north, Salmon Arm, some of those surrounding areas. We do have people who come from the Lower Mainland, from Richmond, and there’s another one who came from Vancouver. Some of them because they have family there, and others because they have some other connections to Kamloops.

It’s also just a lot more affordable than the Lower Mainland and the Okanagan, so you can get a certain level of lifestyle that you wouldn’t be able to get even close to for the same monthly rates. 

We’re also looking to try to draw more Albertans to come to Kamloops. Again, if people have family here or, like me, wanted to escape the winter. There’s still winter in Kamloops and there’s still snow, but it’s not -20 like it is in Edmonton and other parts of Alberta.

We’re right on Highway 5, which takes you within a few hours to the Lower Mainland. It’s actually not too far to get back to Calgary, as long as you’re a driver, which I am. So we do have a nice eclectic group of folks at the community in terms of sharing their own life history and their stories. It makes for an interesting group at The Residence at Orchards Walk. 

Go on tours. There are so many great people who work in the business, and the people who are working on-site are doing it because they love it. That’s definitely the norm, not the exception.

So it’s really about fit. You want to find a community of like-minded people that you want to go down to the coffee lounge and chat about whatever news is happening or interesting event the night before. The only way to do that is to go into the sites and go on as many tours as possible. You’re not committing.

Even the people who are touring you want it to be the right fit for you because they don’t want you moving in and out either. Go on the tours to get the feeling of what the place is like. Try to meet some of the other residents there and just ask them why they live there, why they moved there. I think that’s the really only way to do it.

A lot of people, and I’m guilty of it sometimes, are spending a lot of time researching online and going, okay, I’m going to make my pros and cons list. I think that’s great. But the best way to yay or nay is just go. Have a look. Meet the people.