Most health care organizations treat people and send them home. Christian Health keeps asking what happens next.
Steve Dumke, CEO of the Bergen County-based nonprofit, puts it plainly.
“We treat people, and then where do they go from there?” he said. “Where do we discharge?”
That question has driven Christian Health to build something unusual for a health care organization — a substantial and growing portfolio of affordable senior housing that functions not as a real estate strategy but as an extension of care.
The numbers are significant.
Christian Health currently operates three affordable housing sites. Evergreen Court, In Wyckoff has 40 apartments Summer Hill of Wayne has 163 apartments and Siena Village of Wayne has 250 apartments. It is now redeveloping the former Little Sisters of the Poor building into Totowa, as Everstead,151 additional affordable units.
And in Pompton Lakes, a 64-unit affordable housing development for both seniors, veterans age 65 and older — being developed by Passaic County and managed by Christian Health — is on track to open this fall, with a wait list that already includes nearly 100 applicants.
That is potentially more than 600 units of senior housing developed or operated by a health care nonprofit — which is not a common story.
The philosophy behind it is rooted in something Christian Health has observed over decades of caring for seniors: where people live shapes how healthy they are, and how long they stay that way.
People living in social environments — affordable housing, independent living, communities with shared activity and connection — live far longer than those who don’t.
Dumke noted that Christian Health sees this firsthand. Residents who move into its housing communities are engaged, active and connected in ways that those discharged to isolated settings often are not.
The social isolation piece matters more than most people realize. Research has shown that chronic loneliness carries health risks comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. For seniors already navigating the loss of work identity, the death of spouses and friends, and the physical challenges of aging, the housing environment is not a secondary consideration. It is a health intervention.
“There’s not enough housing for those over the age of 65,” Dumke said. “Where are these people going to go?”
Christian Health’s housing model also reflects the practical reality of its patient population. Many residents don’t arrive through a housing referral. They arrive through the health system — rehabilitation, short-term care, outpatient services — and through that journey discover they need a place to land.
“People come to the hospital and they need rehabilitation services,” Dumke said. “They receive services, and they realize that what they’re dealing with is more chronic. We take care of them for a little bit, we rehabilitate them, but they need to have some place to go.”
The wait lists tell the story. Christian Health’s affordable housing sites carry wait lists of one to two years. The veterans and senior housing in Pompton Lakes — not yet open — already has 100 people waiting for 65 spots.
The demand, Dumke said, is only going to grow. The organization is building accordingly.
