Assisted Living Options Hawaii (ALOH)
Year 2000 Progress Report
December 2000

1999 Review:

1999 was a significant year for assisted living in Hawaii with the official approval of the state's assisted living facility administrative rules by Governor Benjamin Cayetano in August 1999. The State Department of Human Services was also successful in obtaining approvals to expand its Medicaid waiver funding.

On November 19, 1999, ALOH had its major conference that attracted about 150 attendees at the Ala Moana Hotel. Karen Wayne, President of ALFA was the keynote speaker. Norma Collins of AARP, Michael Flores from our Hawaii HUD office and many others participated in the day long event.

2000 Recap:

1. Monitoring of Retirement and Assisted Living Developments - ALOH prepares a quarterly update of new developments and the status of older ones. The year 2000 has seen a significant number of construction stalls after a large number of interested developers entered the market in 1999. Part of the difficulty has been in obtaining construction loan approvals. However, towards the end of the year, ALOH is again seeing movement towards loan approvals and therefore eventual developments in 2001. Significant among these are the Holiday Retirement's Hawaii Kai Retirement Community, Phase II (195 units) and the start of their Kalama Heights facility (150+ units) on Maui. The Hawaii Health Systems Corporation (state agency) has also partnered with Pan Pacific Development to break ground in Kahului, Maui for their new Rose Lani Place. Others moving forward are Kulana Hale II, Kapiolani Akahi, Lake View Manor and some of the Zane Development projects on Oahu. The Kulana Hale II project is particularly exciting since this will be Hawaii's first affordable Assisted Living Facility.
   
   
2. Monitoring of the Licensure of New Assisted Living Facilities: Arcadia is Hawaii's first licensed assisted living facility. There are about 2 other existing facilities in Hawaii that have applied to the State Department of Health for assisted living license.
   
   
3. Creation of ALOH Website: In cooperation with Assistguide.com, a national website developer for senior care services, Assisted Living Options Hawaii (ALOH) became present on the world wide web from February 2000. Its website, cp.newlifestyles.com/aloh is becoming another way that it is serving the community with up-to-date information about the industry.
   
   
4. Newsletter: Maintaining a commitment to publish a quarterly newsletter is a challenge for a voluntary organization. Nevertheless, ALOH is committed to maintain this commitment as a means of communicating with its membership. While ALOH has published newsletters in the past, this regular publication began from March 2000.
   
   
5. Marketing: In February 2000, ALOH reserved space in Hawaii's Island Business Magazine's issue that focused on senior and long-term care. The infomercial space provided an opportunity to share information about industry trends and the role of ALOH and to introduce our new website.
   
   
6. Community Forum: On June 21, 2000, ALOH sponsored a Community Forum at the Harris Memorial Methodist Church. The forum entitled, "Senior Care = High Cost: What Can You Do About Paying For Assisting Living Care and Other Choices?" attracted about 60 people from the community. Panelists included those knowledgeable about Medicaid, reverse mortgage, and long-term care insurance.
   
   
7. Televised Broadcasting to the General Community: ALOH financed the telecasting of the June 2000 Forum on Hawaii Public Television. The program was aired in three parts over 13 segments.
   
   
8. Half-Day Intensive, "Assisted Living for the 21st Century: Issues and Challenges in Hawaii Conference": ALOH organized a ½ day intensive continuing education program at the Biennial Hawaii Pacific Gerontological Society Conference at the Waikiki Sheraton Hotel in late October 2000. Dr. Larry Weiss of the University of Nevada, Reno's Sanford Center on Aging and Dr. Rick T. Zawadski of RTZ Associates were invited to participate with others from Hawaii. Other speakers represented HUD, Medicaid, Department of Health's Licensing Branch, assisted living facility managers and developers.
   
   
9. Marketing Assisted Living Week: ALOH assisted in getting the Governor and the Mayor of the City and County of Honolulu to recognize September 10-16, 2000 as "Assisted Living Week in Hawaii."
   
   
10. Stabilized ALOH as a Not-for-Profit Voluntary Organization: The Association has created an organization with approximately 90 members and a strong fiscal status and a part-time paid staff position. The organization's Board of Directors meet monthly to provide direction.
    
    
11. Technical Assistance: ALOH provides technical assistance to developers seeking specialized information. One of the materials that is used is the ALOH's Developer's Guide to Assisted Living. ALOH has also been advocating on behalf of a local Developer to HUD to develop Hawaii's first affordable Assisted Living Facility.
    
    
12. Research and Demonstration: ALOH is assisting a California based organization in seeking the participation of assisted living and larger residential care facilities in Hawaii for a National Demonstration on Advancing Efficiency and Quality in Assisted Living. The intent is to develop standardized core data items, track outcomes, combine data across programs and to utilize common software to manage information.
    
    
13. Community Coalition Building: ALOH is one of the spearheading organizations that has created a multi-agency Affordable Supportive Senior Housing (ASSH) Task Force with the City's Area Agency on Aging, Catholic Charities Elderly Services, and HUD. Plans call for grants writing to convene a statewide conference on the issues that is stalling the creation of affordable senior supportive housing. Part of the grant will call for an initial needs assessment among all public and privately owned senior apartment managers.

Future:

ALOH foresees that 2001 will call for additional work with the submission of grants for new projects dealing with conferences, information standardization and training. There will be a need to review what can be done to expand other forms of residential long-term care, expand opportunities to convert regular senior apartments into affordable senior supportive housing. In addition, ALOH foresees the need to dialogue with the Department of Human Services to increase Medicaid waiver coverage to assisted living facilities.

TRENDS

UNDER SUPPLY OF NURSING HOME BEDS -- Hawaii is among the most under-bedded in nursing homes in the U.S. Hawaii has approximately 24 beds per 1000 elderly. This represents less than 50% of the nursing home bed supply in other states where the average is 56 beds per 1000 elderly.

MOST ACUTE NURSING HOME PATIENTS -- Hawaii’s nursing home patients are among the nation’s most acutely ill based on the US Health Care Financing Administration.

EXPANSION OF HOME AND COMMUNITY-BASED CARE — Home and community-based long-term care and all forms of housing with supportive services are being encouraged by the state and the federal government. Assisted living and other residential options are going to be emphasized more than nursing homes in the years to come.