Steve Gurney, Founder of the Positive Aging Community and the Positive Aging SourceBook, has dedicated his career to helping seniors make informed decisions about retirement living. With firsthand experience from living in five different senior communities during a yearlong project in his early 40s, Steve brings unique insights and practical advice on senior living.
A Senior Marketing Institute award winner, Steve continues to develop innovative products that support positive aging. Steve will also share his research on what seniors should look for in a senior living community, providing valuable guidance for those considering this important transition.
About the Positive Aging Community
Steve explained how he founded the Positive Aging Community and the Positive Aging SourceBook. “When I was in college, my grandfather needed a nursing home. I saw firsthand what my family had to go through to make that difficult decision, and it was surprising to me that there wasn’t a resource out there that made that easier. Now, I didn’t think that I was starting a business.”
“When I put together the first issue of the Positive Aging SourceBook, I just thought I was going to put something on my resume that would help me get a better job. And much to my surprise, people loved it. Here I am 35 years later and have had the good fortune of having a long career helping older adults, family members, and senior living professionals identify resources and make connections,” he said.
Moving Into Senior Living Communities
One of the questions addressed is what inspired Steve to embark on a yearlong project, during which he moved into and lived in five different senior living communities as a resident.
Steve said, “Well, I had the good fortune of being a part of the Erickson School of Aging Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the first cohort for their master’s degree program. And I think the seed was really planted the first time with me where one of our professors asked the students in the class, ‘How many of you worked in nursing homes?’ And there were three or four of my cohort that were. Then he asked, ‘Now, how many of you have taken a shower in the nursing home that you work in?” Then, we had a long dialogue about how many of us who were working in senior living providing services to older adults and thought that they were great, but we’d never experienced them firsthand.
Then, about a year later, I was at a meeting with one of my assisted living clients, and they asked me a question, but when I started to answer it, I said, ‘I could answer this question better if you’d let me move in and live here for a little bit.’ And they looked at me kind of funny, but they called me back about two weeks later. They said, ‘If you were serious about that, we would love to have you here.”
Now, the important thing to know about this little project that I did is I only moved in and lived for a week at a time in these communities. Still, I tried to do radically different communities: Assisted Living, Life Plan Community, a nursing home, and Independent Living. I tried to immerse myself in what it’s like to live in each community.”
Steve continued, “Now, you’ve probably heard stories of people who sort of immersed themselves in an experience with a wheelchair and things like that. I didn’t pretend to be anybody but who I was at the time, a healthy 43-year-old. I was testing whether these communities could be homes to people in general, not just older adults or people with disabilities.
The punchline and the outcome are that these are some of the most incredible neighborhoods that I’ve spent time in. And I will tell you that when I come back from a project to do one of these moves, even though I come back to my family and my suburban neighborhood, I often feel rather lonely because I was around my neighbors in close proximity. And there were lots of things to do and interesting people to meet and talk to. It was a wonderful experience.
One of the communities that I moved into was an urban community in a downtown location. My son was six years old at the time, and he came in and moved in with me. The interesting thing is that my 6-year-old son didn’t have any kind of ageism bias because, let’s face it, to a 6-year-old, everybody is old.
What was interesting was how the residents would talk to my son every time we’d be in the elevator, like, how are you holding up with us old people? And it was interesting how those conversations sort of created an age bias that he did not have prior to moving into the community.
One of the things that I’ve found on the topic of ageism is that, many times, ageism is a little bit different than sexism and racism. One of the elements of ageism is when we look in the mirror in the morning and what we say about ourselves and the inner voice about what it means to grow old, just food for thought.”
Key Factors To Consider When Choosing a Senior Living Community
“One of the things that I like to do is compare. I like to pretend that when I’m helping somebody find a senior living community, I often will say to them, it’s like, look, let’s pretend that we’re not looking for a senior community. Let’s pretend that we’re looking for the next college that you’re going to go to. And I want you to think about how a college student or a high school student, somebody going and touring colleges, what they look for now, if you talk to somebody looking at a college or you observe them, what you would find is that their main focus is the other students on campus are these people that I’m interested in. They don’t need to be like me, but is this a community of people that are interesting to me and that I’d like to spend some time with?
Now, one of the things that I have folks do when they’re going through this process is I say, make a list of everything you’re interested in and your hobbies, not just your hobbies right now. The things that you were interested in 20, 30 years ago, clubs that you’re a member of, and your profession things of that nature. And before you take your tour, provide that list to the team members at the senior living community who you’re arranging your tour with and say to them, this is who I am. It would be great when I tour your campus, if you might introduce me to some other residents or students that I have things in common with.
And so, think of it as a college, not an old folks home, a list of things that you or your loved one finds interesting, and making connections with as many residents as you possibly can. The other thing that I think is really important is that when you go into some of these communities, you may see people that don’t have, aren’t physically as fit as you, or they may have mobility issues or cognitive issues or what have you. What’s really important to remember is these folks are people. And oftentimes if you get to know them, that gentleman in the wheelchair, maybe a surgeon or a general, or just lived a very interesting life. But oftentimes we look at that person using a medical device in a wheelchair, and it’s sort of like, oh, I don’t have anything in common with them. They’re in a wheelchair. And it’s ridiculous,” he said.
“One of the cover stories that we did years ago, there was a gentleman who moved into a community because his wife thought it was going to be a good idea, and he resisted, and his sort of thing was, it’s like I looked around and I’d see all these people with walkers and wheelchairs and it’s like, I can’t live in a place like this. And then he said, guess what? Six months into living in the community, I was one of those people. It struck me that some of the people who were visiting were not looking at me as a person. They’re looking at me because I now need this walker to help myself get around.”
Stay Tuned and Explore Charter Communities Near You
We’re just getting started. Be sure to check back for the next blog in our series, where we’ll continue exploring the importance of embracing new opportunities when moving to a senior living community and highlighting that staying socially active and engaged can lead to personal growth and fulfillment at any stage of life.
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