Residents press for board seats, minutes and stronger transparency at CCRCs

Residents from several Massachusetts CCRCs told the Special Commission on Continuing Care Retirement Communities that stronger, codified resident participation and transparency on nonprofit and national governing boards are needed to protect residents’ interests.

Zephyrin Helmreich, a Linden Ponds resident, said residents “believe that Massachusetts should also pass legislation requiring that representation so that we will know what is going on at the national board.” Paul Sprecher, chair of a resident advisory committee at Linden Ponds, said his community previously had a local board and a director in residence but “gradually, the board became nationalized” and the resident director role was eliminated in 2019. He said residents now “can't even get minutes of board meetings,” which he described as “egregious” for a nonprofit board.

Multiple witnesses urged the commission to require resident board membership or, at minimum, reliable channels for resident input. Judith Foster, a resident at the Commons in Lincoln, told commissioners: “There is no question that we as residents have thoughts about management, about what we like, what we don't like. And I think that, much of the success of any of the CCRCs rely heavily on the input of residents.” Denny Janie pressed for resident voting seats on a national senior communities board: “I would like to see the legislator go after that particular aspect in terms of allowing us as a resident to sit on the national senior communities board with full voting rights.”

Operators and nonprofit representatives said resident participation is common and valuable but that approaches vary. Chris Centros, CEO of the New England Deaconess Association, said his not‑for‑profit CCRC “often have resident participants but not members” on the governing board, and he argued for varied mechanisms to ensure resident voice. Loomis Communities CEO Margaret Mantoni described a volunteer board that currently includes three resident directors among 15 members and said residents participate on board committees and financial panels.

Witnesses proposed a range of reforms for the commission to consider: statutory requirements for “directors in residence,” mandated public posting of board minutes, routine financial reporting to resident committees, and clearer rules about the governance of nonprofit versus nationalized boards that oversee multiple campuses.

Commission members acknowledged the diversity of governance models and asked whether statutory requirements would be workable for all CCRCs. Senator Pat Jalen and others signaled interest in studying models used in other states and the tradeoffs between local control and resident protections.

Ending: The commission heard sustained resident calls for formalizing resident voice — through board seats, committee rights, or guaranteed access to minutes — as a tool to improve oversight and protect residents’ financial and quality‑of‑care interests.