Anja Mandelkow, managing partner of LIST Develop Social GmbH & Co. KG, has published an article that strikes a chord.
Annual Conference on Housing and Elderly Care Source: Shutterstock
The starting point of her article, “Put an End to the ‘It Can’t Be Done’ Mantra: Why We Need to Think About Assisted Living from the End in Mind,” is that operators in the assisted living sector have been hearing the same phrase for years—“It can’t get any cheaper than this.” Anja sees this phrase from a different perspective. Before joining LIST Develop Social, she worked for decades on the financing side. Her conclusion: This isn’t a law of nature. It’s the result of outdated processes.
And it has consequences. Because 76% of senior households renting pay less than 500 euros in net rent (excluding utilities)—yet construction is often carried out for a target group that can afford double that amount or more. There’s a huge gap between what’s on offer and reality.
Anja doesn’t see the cause in the construction itself, but in the sequence of events: Those who design first and calculate later lose control over costs before the first shovel even hits the ground. At LIST Develop Social, we turn that around. The target rent is established at the outset—as a binding guideline. Technical planning follows early on. And with our modular building system, developed in collaboration with specialists from the LIST ecosystem, we create cost-efficient buildings that are tailored to the target group—not the other way around.
Affordable assisted living is not a utopian dream. It’s a matter of mindset.
Link to the article: https://www.heuer-dialog.de/news/2140006449/schluss-mit-dem-geht-nicht-mantra-warum-wir-betreutes-wohnen-vom-ende-her-denken-muessen
