A senior living adviser, such as Nicole Kocajda, can make the search for the right retirement community simpler and much faster.
by Iris Winston
Retirement offers many choices. For Nicole Kocajda, the choice was to follow retirement with a new job. Now she works closely with people who are considering a major change in lifestyle. For her clients and for many other seniors, retirement means the chance to cut back on household responsibilities and move into a retirement community.
That decision, combined with the subsequent move, may be exactly what someone wants to do, but it is still worrying. Any move is stressful, made more stressful when people have so many choices before them. For example, there are close to 200 retirement communities of various types in the Ottawa area and some 300 in the GTA.
Choosing the place that best suits your specific needs is the way to avoid the further stress of another move down the road. And that is where Nicole comes in. As one of eight senior living advisors working with Visavie, a Spectrum health-care company with offices in Ontario and Quebec, she is an independent consultant who can make the search simpler and much faster. She helps to guide people (or works with their adult children) in the search for their new home. The goal is to meet both short- and long-term needs and help them find contentment in a retirement community that works for them. (The alternative of staying in their own home and accessing additional help is also made available, if that is a client’s preference.)
The service, Nicole emphasizes, is always entirely free to the clients.
“Normally,” she explains, “I see the clients, as well as any adult child looking on their parents’ behalf, and ask as many questions as possible. I find out their priorities and then present them with the top three options that meet those priorities—such as location or having a swimming pool—and are within their budget. Then we go to tour those three. We always focus on honouring our clients’ priorities.
“For some people, there are a lot of options,” she notes. “To a great extent, the number of choices depends on individual budgets.”
She points out that the average monthly charge in many independent living situations is in the $3,000 range, depending on the size of a suite. Costs rise in the more luxurious communities. Assisted living and memory-care charges frequently come close to double the base price in any community.
“My job is to filter and guide, but the decision is up to the client and family,” says Nicole, who worked in the health-care sector for over 40 years before becoming a senior living advisor. “I’ve been doing this for a year now and I love it. You don’t have to retire if you love what you do. I love being with the people and don’t mind how many hours I spend with any client. The important thing is that I should make a difference for them. When a client goes into a residence and I see them a month later and they say that the decision was the best one they ever made—that’s my biggest reward.”
You can reach Nicole at nkocajda@visavie.com or call her at 613 329-5291. For details about Visavie see, visavie.com.
