America Is Short Half a Million Senior Housing Units

Architecture of the Inevitable · Oct 1, 2026 · 1h 12m

By 2030, America needs over half a million new senior housing units —and on the current build rate, it gets about a third of that. Theinstinctive fix is "build more." This episode argues that's the wrongfirst answer: you can build the perfect community and still fail ifyou can't staff it, wire it, or price it for the 70% of seniors stuckbetween Medicaid and private wealth.Paul Mullin is co-founder and principal of Flatiron Development Group.Before Flatiron, he spent 13 years at Silverado, where he helpeddevelop more than 3,500 beds across 40+ communities — and beforesenior housing, he came up…