John Rouser's parents met while his dad was on a month-long survivor's leave after his ship, the U.S.S. Vincennes, was sunk by the Japanese near Guadalcanal Island in 1942.
"Just one of those true love stories," Rouser said of his parents, who spent decades together - but lived their last two-and-a-half years apart after his dad suffered a brain-damaging stroke.
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To reach John Rouser at Assisted Living Locator, email him at johnr@assistedlivinglocators.com or call 423-668-0097.
John Rouser, whose local franchise helps people find assisted living communities for their elderly parents, is photographed in the studio Wednesday, April 12, 2017, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
"He went into, the term now is skilled nursing; the old word was nursing home," Rouser said, while mom went into an assisted living community.
That arrangement was decided by Rouser and his two far-flung brothers over the phone during a scramble that's typical when adults have to place their parents under long-term care.
"We made some decisions that, in hindsight, turned out to be not very good decisions," Rouser said.
That experience inspired Rouser two years ago to go into business as an elder care advisor.
He runs the Chattanooga-area franchise of Assisted Living Locators, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based corporation that has about 60 franchisees across some 20 states.
Rouser meets with people who plan to move into assisted living, he assesses them, and then he takes them on a tour of at least two - but no more than three - assisted living communities that he thinks are a good match.
"I help [clients] out at no charge," Rouser said. "My passion is to make it easier. I do all the phone calls for the people."
He earns his money, he said, when "the different communities in the area, they pay me a portion of the first month's rent." His fee isn't passed on to the client, he said.
In Hamilton County, there are 19 assisted living centers and 11 nursing homes, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.
Four areas to assess
Rouser looks at four main areas when assessing people: health, financial, social and spiritual.
"The first is their physical needs, their health needs, what kind of assistance are they needing?" he said. "I've got a weird job, I talk to people about their toileting and their money."
He doesn't sugarcoat the financial realities of staying in an assisted living community.
Bankrate.com says it costs about $42,000 a year, since the national median monthly rate for a one-bedroom unit in an assisted living facility is $3,500, according to the 2014 Cost of Care Survey released in April by Genworth Financial Inc. of Richmond, Virginia.
"I have to be very real with people," Rouser said. "That bill's going to come due every month. The price tends to rise 3 percent every year."
Assisted living communities all have a different "flavor," Rouser said, and it's important to find one that matches a client.
"Some people like big places with a lot activities, some people like small places," he said.
Another example: there are a number of Seventh-day Adventist assisted living communities in the Chattanooga area, Rouser said, communities that know how to handle the vegetarian diet that many Seventh-day Adventists adopt.
Aging not all negative
On the spiritual, or emotional, side of things, Rouser talks about the guilt that adults can feel at placing their parents in long-term care and the sense of loss an elderly person can feel at giving up their home and many of their possessions while downsizing.
He worked with a sprightly 93-year-old woman last year who moved into assisted living not long after she gave up using a chainsaw and ladder to maintain the land around her home of more than 70 years.
"We talked about owning our possession, and not letting our possessions own us," Rouser said.
She gave Rouser a big hug after she moved into assisted living.
"Now she was around people who understood her aches and pains, who understood the music she grew up with," he said.
Assisted living's perks - including three meals a day, only one main bill to pay and no grounds or house to maintain - frees up children's time to focus on their parents.
"You don't have to worry when you visit your mother, Oh, you've got to cut the grass, clean the gutters," Rouser said.
An assisted living community can be a place for personal growth, Rouser said, citing an woman he helped place who went to her first opera at age 81.
"Let's not always focus on the negative aspects of aging," he said. "Make these last few years just glorious."
'Always our parents' children'
Another advantage to getting Rouser involved, he said, is parents are more likely to open up to him than they are to their adult children.
"We are always our parents' children. So having a third party like myself come in and talk to them is a big help," he said. "My mission is to get people to start the conversation."
Rouser also helps place clients in assisted living communities that don't pay him. But he thinks the communities will, eventually, once they realize he's bringing them business.
"There's some that don't pay me. That's OK. That's their model. I firmly believe that if you do the right thing, you'll be rewarded," he said.
Rouser, 57, lives in Ooltewah and works out of home. He and his wife of 29 years have two boys ages 25 and 26. Rouser was ordained in 2015 as a deacon in the Episcopal Church.
Previously, Rouser worked in information technology field, including in sales, marketing and management.
"I wasn't happy, I was looking for something different in my life," he said.
So he decided to meet with Bruce Krebs, a local radio personality who runs The Entrepreneur's Source, a service that matches people with franchises. Rouser knew he wanted to get into elder care the moment Krebs mentioned Assisted Living Locators. Rouser got a federal SBA business loan to launch the business.
"I had no idea, even an inkling, that this could be a profession," Rouser said.
"I've had to learn an awful lot in the last two years," he said, including getting to know all of the assisted living communities and meeting their staff.
"Last year, I did make a profit," he said. "Not the greatest profit. But a profit."
The industry is growing, said Angela Olea, registered nurse and CEO of Assisted Living Locators. She said her corporation was the first to franchise assisted living location services when she launched it in 2006.
"There's two different types of people that come our way: One, maybe it's the loss of a loved one or the loss of their independence living at home," she said. "Then you've got the flip side of it, where there's been a health crisis."
Olea was inspired to launch the franchise when she worked as a hospital nurse and saw that there was no consistent way to place people in assisted living.
"It was like picking a heart surgeon from the phone book," she said. "There was just a big missing piece of the puzzle."