Why More Senior Living Operators Are Calling In Operational Swat Teams

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In the last week or so, several senior living operators have shared how they are deploying teams to rapidly respond to operational issues on the ground. Some are calling it the “SWAT team” approach.

I first heard the term on Brookdale Senior Living’s (NYSE: BKD) most recent earnings call, where it was used to describe how the nation’s largest senior living operator is turning around communities with occupancy under 80%. Days later, Sonida Senior Living noted it was deploying “operational excellence teams” at communities across the country with similar goals in mind. CEO Brandon Ribar told SHN that the approach is similar to a “SWAT team” that manages transitions into the company’s portfolio.

Then, on Monday, I caught up with new Watermark CEO Paul Boethel, who told me his current big focus is stabilizing the company’s 40-community portfolio with new investments, with a goal to bring average occupancy up to 94%.

“Once we finally get to what we think is the true source of the issue, we then apply incremental resources against that issue,” Boethel said. “That is a bit of a SWAT team approach, but it’s a targeted SWAT team approach and it might not just be one team.”

The fact that leaders from three well-known operators see the SWAT team analogy at play is significant to me. It fits into an overall theme of operators needing to rapidly find their footing now as senior living demand remains hot. I think it also exemplifies the methods by which operators are improving occupancy on the ground after years of challenges.

It also speaks to the urgency at which operators believe they need to improve results. Of course, Brookdale and Sonida are slightly more unique in that they feel pressure from investors as public companies. But they’re not the only companies that would compare their current operational approach to calling in the SWAT team.

In this members-only SHN+ Update, I analyze recent earnings calls and conversations with leaders and offer the following takeaways:

• Why senior living operators are calling in “SWAT teams”
• How Brookdale, Sonida and Watermark are turning around community results with a granular approach
• The forces pushing operators to deploy rapid operational response teams

Inside the SWAT team approach

In the first quarter of 2025, demand for senior living was at an all-time high as new construction remained near lows not seen since 2013. For the first time since before the pandemic, four major metro areas tracked by NIC MAP surpassed 90% occupancy.

That has not necessarily translated into across-the-board occupancy increases for companies like Brookdale. Just under half of the company’s 619-community portfolio carried occupancy rates averaging 80% or lower, according to its most recent financial disclosure. Of those 293 communities, 143 have occupancy at 70% or less.

The Brentwood, Tennessee-based operator is deploying its “SWAT teams” to communities that specifically have an opportunity to grow, and it is using tactics including removing “barriers” to injecting CapEx dollars, filling certain roles left vacant or introducing new pricing techniques and incentives to increase communities’ competitiveness among prospects.

That approach has garnered better results in 65 communities, and the company is rolling it out to other communities in its portfolio, “so that we can further accelerate our occupancy improvement,” said Brookdale Executive Vice President and General Counsel Chad White.

Company leaders believe Brookdale can improve operating results at dozens of communities without having to increase staffing spend. Brookdale management noted 31 communities with occupancy below 70% as “high-opportunity” for improvement. In another 84 properties, the operator only needs to fill between one and three more units to exceed the 70% occupancy threshold.

Sonida, which has a smaller portfolio than Brookdale with 94 communities, is deploying a similar strategy with its “rapid response team” numbering eight staffers who have regional or local operations experience.

The team aids in ownership transitions for newly managed properties and other communities in need of improvements. Twenty-five of the company’s communities – nine of which were recent acquisitions – had occupancy below 80% in the first quarter of 2025.

Sonida also has separated out five communities into a specific repositioning portfolio, with plans to shift them away from Medicaid and toward private-pay rental. The company also seeks to convert the communities to memory care from assisted living.

The operator believes the communities can “generate ROI through a combination of capital investment and/or material changes to the communities’ business plans,” according to its latest earnings presentation.

Watermark, which was fully acquired by Keppel this year, is undertaking a similar plan to turn around occupancy via reinvesting in community operations. As Boethel told me, the company’s plan to get to 94% occupancy rests on injecting capital and attention into its portfolio where needed.

Already, the company has separated sales and marketing into two different categories, and it has doubled the size of its financial planning and analysis and asset management team. Like Brookdale and Sonida, Watermark might target communities with occupancy in the 70th percentile range and infuse them with additional resources, Boethel told me.

“The more informed that your operators are, and the more armed they are with the right information and timely information, the quicker they can react and respond,” he said.

Communities contain senior living’s ‘best selling point’

Looking across the senior living industry, I suspect there are many more operators with portfolios carrying uneven results. That comes as no surprise to anyone who has spent even a short time managing a senior living portfolio, but in 2025 I think other operators will look to these examples and take similar strategies.

Consider that the top-occupied metro areas in the U.S. as of 1Q25 – Boston, Baltimore and Cincinnati – are all in locales with “relatively high barriers to entry for development,” said Arick Morton, CEO of NIC MAP, last month. At the same time, Miami, Houston and Atlanta – three markets where construction has historically been higher than others – ranked as the lowest-occupied major metro areas in the U.S., according to NIC MAP.

NIC MAP has noted that the low rate of construction has helped buoy national occupancy averages in recent quarters. My point here is that, although the data shows national occupancy is rising, supply and demand is the force pushing up those averages in the highest-occupied markets, not necessarily exceptional operations. While operators have hoped that a rising tide of demand will lift all boats, many still tell me that it’s what they do at the community level that really matters with prospective residents at the end of the day.

For example, Heritage Communities Chief Marketing Officer Lacy Jungman shared with me during a recent sales and marketing webinar that the operator has a vice president of customer experience to help prepare for the incoming baby boomer generation.

The company is in 2025 putting dollars toward programs in dining and life enrichment, along with retaining sales staff, to accelerate leads and move-ins in the “summer selling season.”

“What happens inside of the community is our best selling point,” Jungman said. “And so if we can truly do a great job with the experience of our existing families and residents, that will sell itself.”

Growth is also on the mind of senior living operators in 2025, and many are eager to expand for the rapidly approaching baby boomer generation. As development remains tough to do, many operators are turning to third-party management and acquisitions to scale up in the meantime.

The senior living industry also is facing a wall of debt maturities coming due in 2025, and operators are feeling the pressure from investors and partners to improve their results, particularly revenue and margins. I think the rising occupancy rate nationally only increases pressure on operators that still aren’t above stabilization in certain communities.

REITs such as Ventas (NYSE: VTR) and Welltower (NYSE: WELL) are already comparing operators to one another – at least on an anonymous basis – and are deploying resources to grow occupancy within specific parts of their operating portfolios. And as these companies seek to buy more of the available senior living assets on the market in the coming years, I believe they will further challenge their operating partners to drive better results across all their communities, not just highly performing subsets.

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