Comfort Care Senior Living started the Covid-19 pandemic with six buildings — and as of this year, it will soon hit 17, according to CEO Hamza Sikander.
Comfort Care currently manages 15 properties with two additional management agreements pending for other communities that are expected to come online in the coming months, Sikander said in an interview with SHN.
“We are excited to see the growth that’s occurred even out of Covid,” Sikander said. ”We feel like we’re in a fortunate position where we can get a lot of things done right now.”
Part of Comfort Care’s growth strategy is based on purchasing buildings the company already managed. Other acquisitions came in the form of properties that Comfort Care had identified in the past as possible targets, but were unable to make work until now.
Between 2020 and 2023, Comfort Care purchased properties it managed on behalf of National Health Investors (NYSE: NHI), and future plans could lead to additional manage-to-purchase opportunities.
“A lot of those we helped manage and, depending on location, kept the option to buy and started buying them once we were able to stabilize them,” Sikander said. “We are always having some level of dialogue depending on what they would bring to Comfort Care.”
Also new and set to open later this year is an IL community set to open in Farmington Hills, Michigan, a Detroit suburb. Thatpush for new growth stems from Sikander’s bullish perspective on the industry’s supply and demand fundamentals.
“We firmly believe that this industry is going to new heights and as an industry we’re going to need to double the amount of available units that we have in the market right now,” Sikander said, referencing National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care (NIC) demand data published in 2019.
Sikander credits Comfort Care’s continued growth with the company’s ability to stay connected and work through the pandemic while other providers may have struggled.
“We decided to more aggressively invest during that time,” Sikander said.
Portfolio-wide, Comfort Care has improved occupancy from pandemic lows in the 50th percentile to pushing near 90%, Sikander told SHN.
With an approach based on solving staffing issues without using agency labor staffing, Sikander said Comfort Care was seeing its labor pressures ease slightly, but he expects they will remain an issue for “the next few years.”
“Organizations who have been able to retain the teams, make them feel welcome, make them build a connection, those are the organizations that will grow naturally in the coming years,” Sikander added.
Looking ahead, Sikander said the company had pivoted to focus on operations and is aiming for “90% to 95%” census next year.
“I think there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity for anyone who is in the right place to capitalize on it,” Sikander said.
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