Combined board retreat informs and inspires, engages and excites

Dear Friend,

On August 24, members of the boards of trustees of the Jewish Home of San Francisco, Jewish Senior Living Group and Jewish Home & Senior Living Foundation, along with the Home’s past presidents, senior management team and consultant body of industry experts involved in the Home’s site master plan, were invited to a combined board retreat.

The major focus of this all-day meeting centered on the need and opportunity to evolve and reposition the Jewish Home. Our goal was to inform, engage, excite, and inspire all attendees about our site master plan – our bold vision for an innovative transformation of the Jewish Home’s campus that honors and builds upon the Home’s history, heritage, and values.

I know that all of us present were encouraged and inspired by the information shared. I trust you will be, too, as you read some of the salient points and highlights from this meeting.

Our site master plan is a unique opportunity for the Jewish Home to evolve the nature and type of care, services, and housing provided to future generations of older adults, and to respond to the emerging trends in both health care and long-term care. We envisage a transformed Silver Avenue campus that will:

• Serve a greater cross-section of the Jewish community across a broad continuum of senior living offerings by adding multiple levels of housing and support, including independent living, traditional assisted living, and memory-support/dementia assisted living care.
• Ensure that our core services – skilled nursing care (continuing care, rehabilitation, and hospice), acute geriatric psychiatry hospital care, and healthcare clinics – will continue to be provided to our older adults and serve as clinical areas of excellence.
• We will respond to the baby boomers’ changing needs and interests of how and where senior living programs, services, and housing are delivered. For example, the creation of non-institutional environments; an emphasis on healthy aging to obviate the need for unnecessary nursing care; increased support services to cater to a wider population. Based upon our and others’ extensive market research, we know that among the 70-90 age group, there is a need for transportation, Jewish programming, home care and assisted living. Our intention is, as far as possible, to fill these unmet needs – and more – in a thoughtful, comprehensive, coordinated, and integrated manner.

To assist us in identifying the most appropriate options for our campus, we have the benefit of working directly with an accomplished group of senior living industry professionals in the fields of market research, planning, design and construction, financing and fundraising, operations, and sales and marketing. Closer to our Home, we are augmented by outstanding lay leadership stewardship, the proven skills, talent, qualifications and expertise of staff, and the reputation of a 140-year organization that remains dedicated to serving our community’s older adults.

When it comes to the financial bottom line, our re-envisioned Jewish Home, with its array of diversified services and housing options that will attract a broader economic spectrum, will move the organization to sustainability and viability. This will significantly reduce our dependence on governmental entitlement programs, and allow us to target philanthropic support so that we may continue to fund quality-of-life programs and ensure that the charitable aspect of our mission is ongoing.

As we progress with the Home’s vision of aging services that are aligned with the future needs and wants of our community, we will continue to seek input from key stakeholders, including prospective residents and their adult children, further our research, and refine our financial, market, and operational data. We are resolute in honoring, and indeed expanding, the Home’s mission of enriching the quality of life of our community’s older adults.

Daniel Ruth
President & Chief Executive Officer