By Jedine Daley and Aaron Viltres
A new franchise that helps place seniors into assisted-living facilities, Assisted-Living Locators, opened in Glen Cove, Long Island mid-September. The franchise will offer service to hundreds of families in Nassau and Suffolk county as well as northeast Queens.
The franchise connects families and senior citizens with potential housing facilities, and provides a more personal face-to-face approach to the process, compared to the traditional approach of connecting online.
“There was a possibility that I would need to use an assisted living placement agency to help find my mom a good home, but I did my own research and thankfully I found Atria without any help,” Arthur Horan said. Horan Mother lives in Atria Senior Living Facility.
While there are already dozens of existing assisted living referral programs that offers service on Long Island Nassau and Suffolk county areas, such as “A Place for Mom”, and “Caring.com,” most of them offer their services through online applications.
“Competition isn’t a problem because there’s actually a boom in assisted living programs,” Jennifer Dolce, a director at Atria said. “Long Island is very wealthy and the demographic in the area is getting older, which is why many people choose to retire here.”
Families aren’t charged for utilizing Assisted-Living Locators advisors, but instead the facilities that they are looking to sign contracts that includes referral fees. Atria receives between 60 and 100 referrals a month, Dolce said.
“We offer a personal service,” Mike McClernon said. McClernon is the founder of the Glen Cove franchise. “We’re based in the communities, and potential residents connect with us physically, we give them a personal tour of housing facilities that we work with.”
The franchise is still new to the area, and many assisted-living facilities like Sunshine Senior Living have not heard of it yet, but believe that with the growing number of housing facilities, more referral agencies are needed.
“I haven’t heard of this franchise, but there are a number of transfers from one senior housing facility to another, because more facilities are opening in the area,” Sunrise of Smithtown Activities Assistant Jocelyn Galeas said.
Herman Carlinsky who owned Savoy Senior Housing now called Brandywine Living at the Savoy, sold the company 40 years ago, and believes Assisted-Living Locators would be good for families seeking homes for their senior relatives on Long Island.
“As a former owner of an assisted-living facility, I understand times are different but I don’t think that a referral agency based in Long Island would be a problem, but would be for the best interest of housing facilities,” Herman Carlinsky said.