MyRye.com is entering the podcasting business with a new weekly podcast hosted by former Rye Mayor Doug French. Available on all major podcasting platforms, MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French will tackle the larger and sometimes intractable issues impacting the City of Rye through interviews with local, county and state officials and business leaders.
In Episode 22 of Season 1, French speaks Matt Anderson, CEO of The Osborn, about how senior living is changing, what families should plan for now, and why community, wellness, and choice matter more than ever. The conversation also covers aging in place, memory care demand, workforce shortages, and The Osborn’s long-term reimagination plans in Rye.
Matt Anderson brings decades of senior living experience, including leading one of the region’s major not-for-profit life plan communities. If you want a practical look at what older adults and their families are facing, this episode is full of clear guidance.
This episode of MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French was produced by MyRye.com. Feedback and story ideas are welcome.
Main Topics Covered:
- How senior living has evolved to include assisted living, memory care, and home care
- Why today’s older adults want choice, purpose, wellness, and engagement
- The realities and costs of aging in place
- The growing demand for memory care
- Workforce shortages in nursing and home care
- The importance of intergenerational and community programming
- The Osborn’s plans to reimagine its future campus
Timestamps:
(00:00) Opening the conversation and why senior living matters in Rye
(00:29) Introducing Matt Anderson and The Osborn’s role in the community
(01:38) How senior living options have evolved over time
(02:59) Why the baby boomer generation is changing the market
(04:16) Why aging in place is the biggest question facing families
(05:59) Why home care is expensive and not always sustainable
(07:14) What people in their 80s expect from senior living now
(08:41) Why residents compare community life to going back to college
(09:25) Dining, wellness, and the rise of the health-conscious senior
(11:25) Growing demand for memory care and why timing matters
(12:44) Nursing shortages, immigration, and the staffing challenge
(14:30) What COVID revealed about isolation and community living
(16:18) How families should start planning earlier and include everyone
(18:40) Why talking to residents matters more than touring the lobby
(20:13) The hardest family conversation: taking away the car keys
(21:10) The two key documents every family should have
(24:17) Intergenerational programs and the value of bringing age groups together
(27:21) Community partnerships, events, and shared campus spaces
(29:55) The Osborn as a major employer in Rye
(31:26) Why The Osborn is rethinking its future campus mix
(34:46) Project approval, design work, and next steps
(37:43) One-word answers on planning, aging in place, and The Osborn’s identity
(40:09) Advice for a 60-year-old couple and why planning now matters
Watch:
Full Transcript [edited for clarity]:
Speakers
- MyRye.com, Doug French
- Matt Anderson, The Osborn
00:11 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Welcome to the MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French. I am Doug French, former mayor of the City of Rye, and host of this podcast. This podcast is about the people and the issues that impact Rye, the Sound Shore, and the surrounding region. Our aim is to inform you so you can engage on the matters that are most important to you. And we are here each week. So hopefully you tune in each and every week.
This week in conversation is senior living. What is trending? How should individuals and families best prepare? And what can communities do to improve intergenerational connections and quality of life? Joining me is Matt Anderson, CEO of The Osborn, a not-for-profit here in Rye, offering a full continuum of senior living facilities and services. Matt, welcome to MyRye.com.
01:00 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Thank you, Doug. This is a great opportunity and I’m looking forward to doing the show with you.
01:04 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Did I get that description right?
01:06 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Absolutely. I’ve had the great pleasure of actually being in the senior living field since the year early nineteen nineties. So enjoyed every minute of it and wouldn’t be in any other career.
01:17 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Well, you are the expert, and this is a hot topic definitely in our community and many local communities. Let’s flip the script a little bit. Let’s put you on the other side of the desk. And so when people in your age group are ready for senior living or home care services, what are the options and what does that really look like?
01:32 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so it’s really changing. You know, when I first got into this field it was, you know, strictly, some little independent housing here and then skilled nursing and it evolved. We added assisted living into the mix over that time period. We went ahead and added in memory care over that time and even today we’re seeing the market change and that’s really changing because of the consumer. The consumer is really looking not to be told what to do.
This new consumer, this baby boomer segment that’s coming through, they want a lot of choice. They want purpose within their stays and in what they’re doing and they don’t want to be told what to do. It used to be you know we would we would outline programs here for senior living and say hey here’s your programs this is what we’re gonna do the new consumer that we’re seeing now that’s coming in is saying no
This is what we want to do and how can you help either facilitate for us or help it with this space or other types of things? And so it’s really kind of exciting for us because each group that comes in is very different into the future. So talking just about independent living and where that’s heading in the market, we’re seeing the oldest baby boomers actually now hitting the age of eighty.
So those folks are now entering the senior living market. But that number is gonna vastly increase over the years. I think there’s a number that says by 2030 that group increases by 50%. By the time we hit 2040, it’s a hundred percent. And this goes long out for another fifty years. So this is a problem that we as the senior living communities is gonna have to try to meet with capacity.
And with units and other types of things. But the great part about it is it’s not going to be one size fits all. There’s going to be a lot of opportunities. A lot of really ingenious people are thinking of different ways to do this. And I think we’ll probably get to a lot of those different ways later on. But
03:21 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah.
03:21 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Again, that consumer today, it’s about lifestyle, it’s about life wellness, learning, giving back purpose is what we see.
03:30 — MyRye.com, Doug French
That’s great. So when you’re ready to move into senior living, you’ll have a lot of options and choices to choose from. So let’s talk about in our B block, about trends in senior living in the marketplace. So you can weave in The Osborn experience but well as what you’re seeing in the marketplace. Are you seeing people aging in place longer?
03:47 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, I think aging in place is the big question with this future consumer. It’s one thing that we’ve always strived for here at The Osborn again, going back into the nineties when I was with this, people talked about this bright line. It’s kind of like the highlighter, right? You move into independent living, you go to assisted living, and then you move to skilled nursing, and that’s what everybody’s path is gonna be. And what we’re learning nowadays with other options such as home care and other types of things, that’s
That’s not what people want to do. People want to age in place and do that within their area as long as possible. Now, that could be within one’s own home, right? I always say the greatest competitor with The Osborn is home, you know. And in actuality, how many people actually move to a senior living community like The Osborn? Often it’s said about five percent of those people that are age qualified actually go ahead and choose that route.
And we’ll get into a lot of reasons why I think it is a good route, but it’s not the choice for everyone. So again, home care, great option. Osborn offers that. We have actually one of the largest licensed home care programs in all of New York State and one of the largest in the country, serving like over six hundred and thirty some odd people, not only within our own community, but also out in Connecticut and in Westchester County. So it’s a great option.
I think it depends on one’s need on whether they use home care or whether they move on to something else.
05:08 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And so what does that demand really look like when you look at, how many people are independent living, assisted living, memory care, living at home? What’s the breakup if you were to take the senior population in general?
05:17 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
You know, I think, you know, again, about five percent of those people are actually living in a retirement community or some other sort of community type thing than others. A lot of others are aging in place at home, whether that’s successful or not, we’ve seen a lot of unsuccessful aging in place for different people just trying to piece it together. Economics has a big play in it because let’s face it, home care is not cheap with the workforce.
Not everybody can afford one-on-one care, nor will there be enough one-on-one caregivers to give everybody in this baby boomer generation one-on-one care at home. So communal sort of living is gonna have to play a role in this kind of going forward. But that being said, people do want to age in place and we need to be able to provide for that. I think technology will be a big player in that. You see a lot of things with various sensors and other types of things coming out and
What we’re seeing is they’re getting better and better at what they’re able to do and communicate to providers to be able to intervene when necessary.
06:14 — MyRye.com, Doug French
That’s interesting. So let’s touch on a couple of those points. So you mentioned earlier that boomers are hitting eighty, right? What are those lifestyle expectations of somebody that’s in their eighties? It used to be just
06:24 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so
06:25 — MyRye.com, Doug French
You just wanted to be cared for, now it’s a lot different.
06:27 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, very much different. You know, a lot of my friends would say, why did you get into the senior living field? You know, aren’t you just dealing with death and dying? And it’s the exact opposite. There’s so much life going on here and there’s so much joy. There’s so much that these wonderful people can share. A lot of these people being, you know, experts in their own right within the fields, they’ve learned so much and have so much wisdom to give.
And again, what we’re seeing is that these people do want to give back. They want to have purpose. They want to be involved in different things within the community. So I think that’s a big piece of the 80-year-olds that we’re seeing coming through. And again, it’s a lot of these 80-year-olds may still be living home, very living very active lives and using things like SPRYE, Staying Put in Rye. And that’s a great resource. We have people on the
On the boards at SPRYE and been very involved. Actually it got its start on our fifth floor here at The Osborn. So wonderful story with that. But there’s others when they do choose to move in, they’re choosing, why choose a community like The Osborn? Well, you’ve got to give them something else to look at than their home, right? It’s education, it’s the lifelong learning, it’s the wellness. Often my residents say it’s like going back to college because you walk outside
07:40 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Mm-hmm.
07:41 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Your door that morning
You think you’re gonna do one thing and actually you end up doing another because as you’re walking through the hallways, you see somebody, hey, let’s play cards today. Hey, let’s go, let’s go out on a trip together and do X, Y, and Z. So things are always changing. It’s just like when you came back from class and stopped at the hub at your university, right? Your whole day changed. And so I see that beautiful sharing of and camaraderie between the residents and the staff and are really life fulfilled.
08:09 — MyRye.com, Doug French
It’s also I read where their dining expectations are increasing, right? They’re becoming everyone’s becoming a foodie these days. Wellness so there really there’s a need for more quality of life in those later years.
08:20 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, no, without a doubt. And we see a lot of that within choice within our dining venues. And you know, they want choice. They want different menus. So our menus have had to change over year to have different options on those menus to serve not only the residents but their family members who may be coming in and visiting. When we do our reimagination, which I know we’ll talk about a little bit later, we will be adding different dining venues to the organization and they’re things that
Our current residents will have lot of input on as well as the future residents that come in. You speak about wellness and lifestyle. You see a lot of people now, even our own residents, you know, they’ll have their Apple Watches, they’ll have their Oura Rings, I see a lot of people now with their WHOOPs. We’re seeing this lifestyle, this active lifestyle of people in their, 50s through 70s. Everybody’s geared towards health now. And the seniors are jumping on that bandwagon too.
They want biometrics, they want baselines, they want to work with somebody in an organization who’s a health coordinator, a fitness coach, but also just a wellness coach. It doesn’t always have to be about fitness. It could be about spiritual well-being, it could be about education. It’s really what it is to each and every person here. And we decide we try to do a plan around each person and trying to make sure they have their best life here.
And I think that’s important for any senior organization that people go to.
09:39 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah, yeah. I mean that so that trend is everywhere. Not just on your campus, but whether you’re staying at home or where you’re in a different facility or you people have those growing needs now.
09:50 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, without
A doubt. And one other thing, you know, when we do this reimagination, we will be building a brand new wellness pavilion within this. And you’re seeing that a lot of senior living organizations that are being built now, we’re all just trying to prepare for this new consumer. And it’s a lot of different needs and wants.
10:06 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Are you seeing growth in memory care? Is there a rise in memory care needs?
10:10 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, memory care continues to rise. We were kind of ahead of it. I think it was actually back around gosh, was it twenty ten or so, somewhere in that vicinity, maybe a little few years after that we built our memory care units here. And we took a wing realizing that this is gonna be really important and built a thirteen bed memory care unit that all private rooms that won a lot of awards. We’ll be expanding that in the future because you’re absolutely right, Doug. It’s expanding.
One thing that I always say to people is if you are thinking about memory care, it usually happens pretty quickly when somebody’s looking for that care. And if you really want to get into a really good place, you know, try to start a little bit earlier because those beds, once people go into it, they’re usually in them for some more several years. So the turnover isn’t as great. So I think that’s why we will see more units in the future as opposed to skilled nursing beds. I think you’ll see that aging in place.
More assisted living beds, more memory care beds, more alternatives to jumping all the way to the end, which would be skilled nursing where we serve those people in the past.
11:11 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Alright, so last question in our B block on trends. You mentioned the workforce. So there seems to be a need for more people and more qualified people providing services. Is that what you’re saying?
11:24 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah absolutely. We identified a nursing shortage, was gonna happen about 10 plus years ago. COVID accelerated that. You saw a lot of people go ahead and retire during COVID. We had a remarkable staff here who said, Look, I could retire right now, but Matt, we’re gonna help you through. We love our residents. And they did, but it was very hard to kind of piece that together. Immigration things, we need
A greater workforce from overseas, specifically nurses trying to help out with getting nurses over from the Philippines, other types of places, because again, our needs for nurses is not going to be met just by, dealing with things here with those in the US. So I often look at home care and we have, like I shared, one of the largest home care programs in the country. But how are we going to staff that going forward for all the people that want this one-on-one care in the home?
And that’s going to be difficult when you look at the birth rates. The birth rates have gone down for several years. So how do you find those people who replace that? How do you influence people that want to get into careers in senior living and nursing and other care things when they want to do other possibly more exciting things like being an influencer or going into
12:32 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Okay.
12:32 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Other fields? There’s a lot of different options these days for everybody. Podcasting, absolutely. All important,
12:34 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Podcasting.
12:38 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
But you know, again, it’s just how do you
How do you make sure that this wonderful thing of taking care of these beautiful people, how do you make it a reality to a young person? It’s hard.
12:48 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Not to spend too much time you did mention COVID. I’m sure you got a lot of key learnings from isolation and the impacts of isolation from COVID, correct?
12:57 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, no, and there’s been white papers that have actually done it. And if anybody wants to look those up, they can go to the Mather Institute. Mather Institute coordinates with Northwestern and several other places. It’s part of Mather Senior Living, who we are actually a partner in with several other senior living organizations across the country. And we did a big study, and the study actually started, it was a study about life plan community versus staying in the home. And
It was a five-year study that happened and started, I think it was in twenty eighteen, and it went through COVID, which is really kind of interesting in measuring all these things. And what it did show is people that did live in life plan communities had a perceived value of better lifestyle, more holistic lifestyle, being in a community where you can continue to meet one another as opposed to being isolated in one’s home.
We all know you get home, you get comfortable, you may not go outside your doors, but here because you’re going to dining and other types of things, you’re constantly seeing people, you’re constantly seeing staff, you’re constantly integrating. And that socialization, what we found, was profound by having that socialization and isolation just was really a big negative factor through COVID.
14:10 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And so let’s close that loop on trends, but one of the things you mentioned tees up our next block in what should families be doing now. You mentioned don’t wait too long for memory care. So you have to be seeing a trend of adult children moving into the role of decision makers and taking more control of their parents. Let’s talk about some common mistakes the families make and what they should be looking to do as they prepare.
14:34 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so you know, again, this is probably one of the most difficult things you know, for all of us as adult children to kind of go ahead and do is to have these conversations with your parents as we as we see them aging. And, they might not want to recognize what they might be doing, but we’re seeing it loud and clear either when we’re visiting or during the holidays. And we’re worried about them. So what should you be doing? I always say to everybody is start having the conversations early.
It’s very important to include your parents within those discussions. Not only for their dignity, but for having that choice and that say. These are very capable people. But help them with that research. We do see the adult children as being the people that are very active within this role of doing the research, but then you know, you need to involve your parents in sharing that you’re doing that research.
The other thing that I think is very important is that one child isn’t acting alone without another adult child within that family. I think all siblings need to try to get on the same page with this because one time you know what we do see often is they’re not on the same page, and then that causes stress down the road with the family as well. The other thing I’ll just mention is that by doing it early, it provides you the most amount of choice, right? Because
Good places are gonna be filled. When mom and dad wanna go ahead and move to a place, they might have certain unit sizes that they may want. They might want something on an upper floor versus a lower floor or facing a certain direction in the sun. And those units don’t come available all the time. I mean, the average length of stay for somebody in our independent living is somewhere around seven years. So somebody moves into that unit, that thing might not be turning over for another seven years. So
That unit that you really wanted is gone. So I always tell people, do your research early, come in, get on the wait list. It doesn’t mean you have to go ahead and take that next unit that’s available, and that next unit might not be available for a long time. Another thing, Doug, that I often tell people is visit your friends at places, go have dinner with them at places. As you’re touring with families, don’t ask us as staff.
How we feel about a place. You know, obviously we’re gonna feel pretty good about a place, that’s why we’re here. We’re a little biased, but talk to the residents. That’s the one thing I always say. They’ve been through it, they can answer all your questions, talk to them. And we have a lot of residents that will actually give out their phone numbers to prospective people and they’ll say, Hey, call me. You know, I’ll walk you through it. And I think it’s something that’s really great and helpful. And then
Again, if you’re just starting to learn, I have a lot of people in Rye who just pick up the phone and call me and say, hey, Matt, I’m going through this. I’ve got mom and dad down in Florida. Don’t know what to do. There’s senior
Living community, we just want to help. You know, we’ll help guide you, whether it’s in Florida, Chicago, wherever else. We’ve got friends in those places. There’s a lot of people out there willing to help.
17:23 — MyRye.com, Doug French
I think the other keys go beyond the lobby. I’ve seen beautiful lobbies, but when you get beyond the lobby,
17:27 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Jeez.
17:28 — MyRye.com, Doug French
That’s where you get so talking to residents like you said, and tour at different
Times of the year, right?
17:33 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of places they’ll put everything at the front door, right? No, you want to get out and about, you want to talk to the people, you want to see people around. It’s very important. And if you can have a meal there, I think that’s great too, because then you see the other people, you see how people are socializing. Doug, I often reference it as almost like, you know, taking your kid and doing college visits. You know, not every place is right for one person. You’ll find your right fit.
And there’s gonna be lots of options in the future.
18:00 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Just two quick points. Car keys is the hardest conversation to have.
18:03 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Jeez. Yeah.
18:04 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And there are different ways to do it, but ultimately you just need to do it. Take the car keys.
18:08 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
No, you need to do that. And there’s there’s different programs out there. Burke has a great program for road testing, asking your parents to kind of go over there and be tested and other types of things. I believe they still do that. But you know, we often get in talks with families about doing that here with certain people. We notice things, other residents might notice things and we start having the conversation with the family and the residents, and it’s very hard to do
But you think about the safety of your loved one, the safety of the community and others and what could occur. And you definitely wanna be on top of those things.
18:44 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And just the l last point is the documents. What I found when we were going through this process, everybody needs specific documents. Any advice on the documents you need or how to go about it?
18:54 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah
I think the two that I always tell people, try to get in order is definitely your healthcare proxy. This is naming somebody to speak on your behalf if you can’t do so in a medical condition, if you’re unconscious or can’t speak for yourself. And the last thing you want to have happen is doctors or other things doing different procedures such as feeding tubes, other life saving mechanisms if that’s not what you want. So
Having that in place, you know, consistently updating it, even if you get a framework now, it’s not to say that you can’t go ahead and change it down the road, but really talking to an individual in the family about what you want and designating that person is very important. The other is power of attorney. Obviously, this comes down to financials and gaining access to financials when in time of need. And I always tell people that because if somebody does become incapacitated, now you’re talking about going through
The different law system, getting a guardian appointed to be able to pull out funds and do things. And we just don’t want to get to that point. So again, healthcare proxy, power of attorney, both great documents to get put in place sooner rather than later.
19:55 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Great to know, great to know. So I’m gonna let you take a pause
19:57 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
19:58 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And I’ll just let you take a break here while I just remind our audience if you have a topic or person you’d like to hear on the MyRye.com podcast conversations with Doug French, simply email me at french@myrye.com or just let me know around town. We are here once a week and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, YouTube, weekly.
And you can also find us at MyRye. Com with links to all of those formats. The biggest question I get is I don’t podcast. How can I get access to your content? Well, just go to MyRye.com it gives you all the different formats.
We also are going to start an after-the-conversation segment where we follow up on interviews that we’ve had. So if you have a question from a previous topic, just email us and we will follow up with that question and get you the answer.
We try to do these podcasts so they are timeless, so you can listen to back issues, so that you understand the depth of expertise that we’re bringing to the community and you get more knowledgeable. And even if you do not live in Rye, local issues are everywhere and a lot of our experts are talking about topics that are relevant to any local community.
So that is that, and we will now go back to our future guest, Matt Anderson, talking about senior living. So one of the things that we’ve seen, obviously coming out of COVID, is the importance of community and intergenerational life.
21:15 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
21:16 — MyRye.com, Doug French
You talked about why contact is so important about quality of life. But let’s talk about some of the intergenerational programs that maybe you’re doing in The Osborn or that you’re seeing across that really bring that quality of life and connect the community because it’s all about community in the end.
21:30 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yep. Absolutely. So I’ll touch on the intergenerational and then we can kind of jump into the community. I always kind of go back to when I was in college and walking across the campus and you kind of get down and all the stress and everything that’s going on. And they had a health and human development department at our university and the children of the professors would obviously come for some sort of daycare program there.
And you just see the kids out there laughing and playing and all these things. And it kind of brought you back to things of like, geez, you know, things aren’t all that bad. You know, look at the carefreeness of these wonderful children, how much joy they have in the world. And you know, I think that’s the beautiful thing, right? Is you see these children come onto our campus at different times with The Osborn School, with the
Rye Youth Council Grandfriend programs with us and our residents now participating, actually down at the Westchester County Museum down on the boardwalk. You see the interactions between these older adults and these younger children, and it’s just a beautiful thing. One of the school activities that we have is Flag Day here. And the children from Osborn School come over and they literally sit, and they’re sitting with
People that either served within our military or people that did other things and they’re able to talk about our flag. They’re able to talk about America. They’re able to talk about, you know, different things that they’ve seen grow up and share that wisdom. Same with that grandfriends programs. I had a great opportunity to meet several of the people that participate in that grandfriends program. It’s very popular. And people come and they’ve made lifelong friends with a lot of our
People in our community here. They continue to write letters of support. It could be just people searching for a certain career path. And geez, God knows we have several people from a lot of different careers, whether it be teachers, people in finance, lawyers, doctors, social workers, you name it here, who are willing to share their experience about their career paths, mistakes that they may have made, things that they might want to look out for. So I think it’s
Not only has it been great for these young students, but gosh, is it a blessing for our residents here and being able to give back. So I love seeing that. Again, the community has been great on working through those with getting people here because our residents can’t always get out. So it’s really neat to kind of go ahead and see.
As far as non-intergenerational thing, I think the beauty of the campus here is just being able to offer different programs and space here up on our campus, whether it be our lawn concerts that we have in the fall, whether it be our past Easter egg hunts, the Wellspring program series that we do, which is in our auditorium and we’ve had different authors, very popular authors come and speak to different performances from
The people at Purchase College with their ballet company to things such as local music with orchestra lumos or even our very own Scott Wenzel, which many of us know from here in Rye and his band coming up and playing and inviting the community to come see it. So it’s very special to be able to share our auditorium and our larger spaces and bring the community together at that point in time for those different events. So and then we have our partnerships
Again, beyond that, with the Rye Library, they have a branch here, which a lot of people don’t know about. And we have our own library in from the Rye Free Reading Room. So a lot of different things go back and forth between our residents and the Rye Library. And then just other things with the Rye Nature Center and a lot of participation with going and looking at our trees and doing outdoor work here. So just great partnerships between town, and then we do have some residents that do get involved and
And volunteering at those different organizations as well. So you know, again, I think we’re gonna see more and more of this of these aging boomers and wanting to be involved, wanting to be a part of not just our community, but the greater community at large as we move through.
25:34 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah, and you also mentioned technology enhancing the quality of life. That also will enhance the quality of life across the community and
25:41 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
25:41 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Just create transparency and awareness of who’s doing what and how to get involved and these partnerships
25:46 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
25:46 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And these programs.
25:47 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah. I think we were looking at it and I think we counted there was about two thousand people that came up onto campus for these different types of programs over the last year. So it’s great to see. It really is.
25:59 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah, the future community is going to be a mix of generations and technology and really building community. Let’s pivot a little bit to Osborn’s role as an employer. You’re a big employer here in town, if not the largest. Just talk about your operation and as an employer and what you’ve got going.
26:15 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so we have about eight hundred employees here. Everybody always like, Wow. And again, that’s a combination of not only the people that work here on campus, which is about four hundred or so, and then we have another four hundred or so that work in the outside community or on campus here with Osborn Home Care. So I believe we’re the second largest employer here in Rye. You know, I think
26:37 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Behind Playland
Probably, right? Maybe.
26:39 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
You know,
It could be it’s either Rye Playland or Con Ed. I know Con Ed has a pretty big workforce as well. And
26:42 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah, right. Right. Yeah.
26:46 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Again, they they you know, that’s that’s what I know of. So I think many of the employees have been here now, it’s going on twenty eight years, believe it or not. Time has flown. And believe it or not, I’m not the longest that’s worked here. I mean there’s a ton of people, the longevity here is
It is really kind of phenomenal. And I think that says a lot about the organization as a whole. But I think it also says a lot about the relationship that our residents have with our staff here. They know everything. Our residents know everything about our staff. Whether they’re getting married, the kids get married, you name it, we know everything about them. And it’s this beautiful sense of community and everybody supporting one another. And it’s something that I very much enjoy.
27:27 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And you got a lot going on with your campus in terms of your reimagine or reimagination program?
27:34 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so we’ve taken a hard look at our organization. How can we be there and continue to be successful for this new consumer that we see coming through? And we want to be able to prepare for that. So we started back in 2018. We started seeing the tea leaves on the wall that a single site, life plan community that was, specifically trying to meet that whole bright line of going from one care level to the next, that wasn’t gonna necessarily fit this next generation that’s coming through.
We needed to prepare that by having more independent living than some of the health care. Right now we’re about fifty percent independent living to about fifty percent health care. If you were to build a senior living community today to be successful with the future, you would build it somewhere around seventy percent independent living and about thirty percent of health care. And
The main reason why, Doug, is you said it, it’s technology, it’s alternative levels of care, people wanting to age in place using home care and other types of things. People wanting larger units, just in case they do have somebody who wants you know a friend, a daughter, son and daughter that visits or other types of things, having extra space for that. So we’re going ahead and we put together a site obviously a
Pitch to the city council for changing our zoning amending our zoning back in twenty eighteen as we know that went on for a while and COVID obviously caused some delays in that but there was a lot of thought that had to be put on that from all sides and I just want to thank both the the city not only from the city council but then later from the planning commission I have to share it was an incredibly thorough process and
It was a lot of listening of local neighbors, a lot of phone calls, a lot of walking tours, and other types of things at the different meetings. I think that entire process has evolved us to a definitely a better place than we were back in twenty eighteen with the evolution, with the listening, with the changes, with the different testings and third parties that the city hired to kind of review everything that we were submitting to. So
Again, we’re just trying to meet the needs of the future consumer. Unfortunately, when The Osborn didn’t do that years ago, The Osborn, unfortunately back in the 50s and 60s, they started really losing a lot of ground. And there’s a lot of competition that we see coming into the area. You got Broadview at Purchase, you’ve got Mozaic in Stamford that’s building new, you’ve got River’s Edge down in the Hudson doing stuff.
And then I just learned recently that Erickson Communities is looking to possibly build an eight hundred unit community up in Rye Brook area. And then there’s another place at nine hundred King Street. So there’s a lot of competition coming to the area. And I think, just for our current residents here, future residents, for the existence of The Osborn, we have to continue to evolve to be able to meet this consumer, but also to make sure we’re always the provider of choice in
Watching this competition that’s coming along that’s gonna do a lot of this stuff as well.
30:29 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And where does that stand in terms of the project process?
30:32 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, so again started in twenty eighteen, got the zoning text amendment approved. That all came through around twenty four, spent several years at the Planning Commission, and that was recently approved and passed on June of this year. So at this point in time now the next steps for this process is The Osborn to kind of move forward with the process of further designs. So
Obviously in submitting with the Planning Commission, it was all about environmental concerns, it was about where building placement will be, height, how this meets the different zoning laws that we have to comply to. So now you take those building outlays and now you’re doing the mechanical structures and everything and all the interior work. So that will take, about six months to go ahead and do with our architects at the same time.
You’ve got to work through the Attorney General’s office to develop an offering plan because you know again, moving into a retirement community, it’s not without risk. You’re putting down large entrance fees. So the Attorney General’s office has to take a look at it before we can go ahead and market it. That’s generally a nine-month process. Believe it or not, it’s a long time.
We have the offering plan, then we can go ahead and start marketing. So we
We don’t see ourselves marketing this until we get through the offering plan, which will probably won’t happen until you know sometime in the middle of next year. And then so often people say, Well, when are you gonna start building? And I
31:56 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Okay.
31:56 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I’ve told my own residents because they want to know, right? They’re like, Well, when are you gonna build all this great stuff for us? Well, we probably won’t start building for about two to three years. And then
32:04 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Okay.
32:05 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
That’s what I would inform the community.
And then once we we start building, you know, you’re talking about a forty month plus sort of time frame with different buildings coming on sooner than other buildings within the project.
32:18 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Okay. Well so after the conversation follow ups I may email you from time to time just to check in how the project is going.
32:24 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Absolutely. And I know there’s a lot of people in the community that really wanna know, where things are at and we’re gonna try to continue to update our web page. We do have on our website a reimagination page that people can go ahead and click on. It has a lot of input about what we’re doing and the why behind it and other resources too. And we’ll update that throughout the project. We realize, The Osborn is a central part of Rye and a very big part of Rye and
Again, I live here in Rye. I want everybody to know that. So I care very much about Rye as well and have a lot of friends in this town. And, we wanna make sure this goes well for everybody, not just our residents here.
33:01 — MyRye.com, Doug French
That’s great. And
You for that. As we move into our final segment, our one word Q&A segment, one word answers only as best you can.
What’s the biggest mistake families make when it comes to senior living?
33:12 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I’d say it’s waiting. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, waiting. Don’t wait.
33:16 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And the best time to start planning.
33:17 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I would say now, any time quicker.
33:20 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Aging in place, it’s realistic or a myth?
33:22 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I would say forget myth. Is it realistic? It depends. It really depends on the person. That could be their care needs, it could be their resources, it could be a lot of things. But I would I would throw out myth, it’s not a myth, but I would say is it realistic? It definitely depends.
33:37 — MyRye.com, Doug French
So we didn’t get to the history of The Osborn, but Miriam Osborn started it as a home for women, correct?
33:43 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah, aged women. And that went on until about the nineteen eighties when we actually brought in the first male resident here. And it’s great because we did have some staff that had worked there and hearing from them what that was like on the first day when a male resident came in, the amount of perfume that was sprayed that day. But no, it’s a beautiful thing. Of course we’re
We’re probably about, a resident asked me yesterday what’s the mix. I would say it’s somewhere around seventy five, twenty five female to male. Unfortunately, Doug, us males don’t seem to live as long, so but
34:15 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah.
34:16 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
But it’s a great supportive community within them.
34:19 — MyRye.com, Doug French
And so what would you say The Osborn one word would be now?
34:22 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I would say vitality. It’s just the spirit of the place and how it continues to thrive in so many different ways and it thrives by how each individual comes into the community and they contribute their part to it.
34:33 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Not-for-profit, does it matter?
34:35 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Absolutely. Absolutely. We don’t have to respond to shareholders. We’re able to do things. We’re not pressed into different things to make a profit.
34:43 — MyRye.com, Doug French
I would just say my experience in Florida is the turnover in ownership for I guess private equity and so forth just creates a lot of change.
34:51 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I’m not gonna say they haven’t gotten better at it. The for profits is a lot us as nonprofits can learn from the for profits. It’s just if it comes down to it, a nonprofit is where I’m placed, my family members if need be, just because again, I want at the end of the day to be all about that person as opposed to the bottom line.
35:08 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Your reimagined project in one word.
35:10 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Evolution. Evolution. Yep.
35:12 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Any advice to a sixty year old couple in Westchester.
35:15 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
I think it’s just plan. It really it is. Approaching that area, it’s not cheap, right? Aging is not cheap. And there’s a lot of costs associated with it. There’s questions about Social Security, everything, where that’s gonna be. I think financially we should be planning as 60-year-olds, but then we should also be having the conversations with our parents about what are different options of those and
And keeping an eye out on what the changes are. And there’s no one answer. I just want to stress that to the viewers that might do this with a podcast. It’s really about the choice that we’re all gonna have. And there’s a lot of really ingenious people that are thinking of new ways to kind of go and do this and care for people as the baby boomers come up. We have to. So I think we’re living in very exciting times and I think the consumer, this these baby boomer generations, they’re gonna be driving it all.
It’s gonna be great to see what they provide for all of us, in our sixties and then we’ll probably want something different. So
36:05 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Well I’ll leave that as your final thought, but is there a guest or topic that you’d like to see on this podcast?
36:11 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Jeez, Doug, you put me on the spot. I’ve watched a lot of yours as I was sharing earlier, and I would just say to the viewers, you’re doing an excellent job and any person that you can put on this is great. I don’t know if I’ve seen all of them. I guess I’m always enthralled by the history of Rye. So I don’t know if you’ve done a historian of Rye but there’s some incredible people that could talk about the history of Rye and how the Rye has changed over the years under different people. Yeah.
36:35 — MyRye.com, Doug French
That’s a great Yeah, we
I’ve got a list of people that I’ve been reaching out to, but yeah, that would be especially with two hundred fifty of the country, that would be a great topic.
36:44 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Yeah.
36:45 — MyRye.com, Doug French
So well thank you Matt. It was great to speak with you and get your expert insights on a really hot topic when it comes to senior living. And also thank you to you and your family. You guys have been a big part of making this a community. So we really appreciate that as well.
36:59 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Well, Doug, I can say the same for you and your family for all you’ve done is you know, being mayor, your volunteerism over the years and your entire family. So it’s all of us, each other in this community that make it the best place. And it’s a really wonderful place to live. And I really enjoy Rye and the community and all the people that live in it. So thank you, Doug, for that. I appreciate it, but same
37:19 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Alright,
37:20 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
To you.
37:20 — MyRye.com, Doug French
Yeah, thank you. And to our listeners, you can find full podcast episode transcripts, local news, and more at MyRye.com. Please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Spread the word. That’s the other feedback we get. People don’t know about this. So please like and share and spread the word.
And thank you all for listening to MyRye. Com the podcast, MyRye. Com podcast Conversations with Doug French. We are here weekly and we will see you next week. Thank you.
37:46 — Matt Anderson, The Osborn
Thank you, Doug.
