Covia is a primary investor in the Minka homes project. Minkas are digitally native, human-centered smart homes designed to deliver wellness and strengthen community. Minka homes and communities are purpose-built to address the intergenerational need for cost efficient housing that helps people thrive. 

The Ziegler Link•age Funds seek to invest in companies who are improving aging and post-acute services in the United States and around the world, including Minka homes. The Funds are controlled by a joint venture between Ziegler and Link•age with investors including many of the most innovative and progressive senior living providers, healthcare systems and strategic service providers in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Co-Founded by geriatrician Dr. Bill Thomas, creator of the Eden Alternative and The Green House Project, Minka homes and communities leverage insights into the structure and function of personal independence for older people with innovations in architecture, technology, product design and community development. “Given the impact of COVID-19 on older adults across our country, the need to build affordable homes and communities that foster resilience has never been more urgent,” says CEO Ana Pinto da Silva. “We can map a new path forward with beautifully designed, digitally connected, compact housing that centers wellness and human connection.”

The first Minka homes will be built on Covia’s Spring Lake Village community campus in Santa Rosa. Covia anticipates construction to take place in early 2021. “We are starting out with a flagship Minka Home Demonstration Project,” says Mary McMullin, Covia’s Chief Strategy and Advancement Officer. “This approach allows us to learn together, developing a proof of concept that helps us refine our understanding of cost, scalability, and performance in line with Covia’s core mission to provide outstanding options for people wherever they choose to call home.”

Covia and the Ziegler Link•age Funds hope that this project will provide a solution for senior living that scales to meet the needs of the middle market, helping organizations across the country build communities that support older adults in a way that is responsive to changing needs. “We need to think about bricks and mortar differently,” says Scott Collins, CEO of Link•age, and Manager of the Ziegler Link•age Funds. “We are challenging ourselves to think beyond traditional senior living to find solutions that re-define the market and can scale to meet the demand for affordable, middle-market communities nationwide.”

“We don’t just want shelter. We want community,” says McMullin. “Minka’s approach was the first one that spoke to us. Their design approach allows people to live the way they want to live. I’m truly excited by it.”

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Housing Administrator Doris Lee says, “Affordable Housing usually only has independent living, so to have the assisted living and the nursing home on the same campus is truly unique.”

“Many people know about Lytton Gardens independent living and Webster House Healthcare Center. The assisted living is not as widely recognized. Our assisted living is more affordable than others in the area, and we want to spread the word out that we have affordable assisted living,” adds Lee.

Assisted Living allows residents to remain independent in many areas while provide support for activities of daily living, such as dressing or bathing, that may require additional support. A typical Assisted Living community can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 per month or more, far out of reach for many seniors.

At Lytton Gardens, however, the cost is far less. In fact, the maximum allowable income to qualify as determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is currently set at $66,150 for a single person or $75,600 for a couple. Once income-qualified, residents at Lytton Gardens Assisted Living pay 30% or less of their monthly income for rent, a meal fee of $642.60, and a personal care fee of $1350. For this, residents receive three meals a day, housekeeping and laundry services, and 24-hour staff assistance. The rest of the resident’s rent is subsidized by HUD. 

Located only blocks away from downtown Palo Alto, Lytton Gardens offers not just a place to live, but a community, with many activities and special events as well as a weekly Market Day. “Having the different levels of care on one campus allows the resident to still live amongst the friends they have cultivated and in the place they have called home for so long,” says Lee. “Although the resident needs to move to a different apartment, they are still part of the Lytton Gardens community. Also having the nursing home on site has given some residents the extra motivation to be able to look out their window and see their apartment and work extra hard to be able to return to their apartment safely.”

One resident who has been living in Lytton’s Assisted Living for three years says, “I love the central location of the community, so close to all the shops and restaurants on University Ave. I love my apartment. Having maintenance crew on site is a plus. All the caregivers are great and they personalize the care.”

Lytton Gardens Assisted Living is currently accepting applications. Please contact Lytton Gardens to schedule a tour or call (650) 617-7338 to speak with the Assisted Living Manager, Anahi McKane.

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From the article:

“We call these homeowners ‘house-rich and cash-poor,’” said Tracy Powell, vice president of community services for Covia (formerly Episcopal Senior Communities), which runs the Home Match program in San Francisco along with Northern California Presbyterian Homes & Services. “They have the house, but their maintenance, taxes, food and medical costs are all going up. So bringing in a lodger at $1,000 a month can make the difference between keeping or losing it.”

…

But finding a compatible housemate involves much more than just agreeing on pets, smoking, visitors and other deal-breakers, said Max Moy-Borgen, director of Home Match Contra Costa. “There’s a lot more that comes into play when you are living together with someone than just a standard rental where you’re living on your own,” he said. “But when everything clicks, it means that people are really enjoying the arrangement and it’s a good fit.”

…

In-person home-sharing services like Home Match counter that they have the advantage of face-to-face contact with applicants and knowledge of local conditions — and that their services are often free.

In San Francisco, for example, where the program is supported by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, Home Match created a model contract that can be canceled with a simple written notice, not a time-consuming eviction. And, because Home Match checks back regularly with both homeowners and lodgers, it can step in to mediate if their needs change.

When Kevin Wallace, a 67-year-old San Francisco remodeling contractor, first took in a lodger last year, for example, it was partly to help him take care of his wife, who suffered from dementia. After some months, however, his wife’s condition worsened and she had to go into full-time care. So Christine Ness of Home Match sat down with the pair to re-negotiate their contract.

Now the lodger, 72-year-old Elizabeth (she asked that her last name not be used), a retired Montessori teacher, pitches in on chores in exchange for her $350-a-month room in Noe Valley. “My son from Cambodia came home for a visit recently and said, ‘Hey Dad, the house looks great. Make sure you keep Elizabeth,’” Wallace said.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, figures she spends about an hour a day on chores ranging from dishes to laundry to clipping flowers from the garden for ikebana floral arrangements. In exchange, she has an affordable room in a city she loves because “San Francisco is an outdoors place, and I’m a nature person.”

The biggest challenge that all home-sharing services face — whether online or off — is finding enough homeowners to meet demand. “When we first started matching people in San Francisco a few years ago, no one had heard of it,” said Powell of the San Francisco Home Match program, even though the home-sharing phenomenon has been around nationwide for decades. “But now we’re reaching a tipping point, and homeowners are more willing to give it a try.”

And while the chief goal remains affordable housing, the Home Match crew is always happiest when its work leads to more.

“I tell homeowners that it can turn out to be a wonderful experience to invite someone into your home,” said Ness, director of Home Match Marin. “Even if you’re just doing it initially for rental income or service exchange, sometimes it can turn into a community of friends.”

…

Learn more about Home Match here.

Photo by Michael Macor / San Francisco Chronicle / Polaris

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LGBT Housing – A Community Conversation About Lessons Learned and Future Directions will be moderated by Karim Sultan, VP of Affordable Housing for Covia. The panel will include: Marcy Adelman, co-founder Openhouse, a San Francisco non-profit exclusively focused on health and well-being of LGBTQI elders; Karyn Skultety, Executive Director of Openhouse; and Ileah Lavora, Housing Developer at Mercy Housing.

“Hopefully, the panel will motivate like-minded parties, whether it be in San Francisco or in the greater Bay Area, to build more LGBT housing,” says Sultan. “Obviously, there would be a lot of work between this initial conversation and a building going up, but we would like to start a larger conversation.”

After the panel, participants are invited to take a tour of the housing community at 55 Laguna, which provides Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender-welcoming housing for seniors age 55 and older. Though open to people of all sexual orientations or gender identity, 68% of the residents identify as LGBT.

The LGBT Community Center is located at 1800 Market Street. To register for this event, please visit this eventbrite site. 

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