Before Helen Leddy moved to Shell Point Retirement Community in Fort Myers, Fla., last year, she got the lowdown on the place from her best friend, Judy Burget. Ms. Leddy, 86, wasn’t interested in leaving her condo if it meant adopting one part of the culture Shell Point emphasized on its website: “If you go online, you see they’re built around religion,” she said. As a Unitarian Universalist who grew up Jewish, Ms. Leddy was concerned that the denomination that founded Shell Point, the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance, might promote values that did not match hers, and that her new neighbors might proselytize. Ms. Burget, who has lived at Shell Point for six years, told her that wasn’t going to happen. Faith-based communities like Shell Point, which was established in 1968, generally don’t insist that residents subscribe to the religion that shaped the communities, according to Katie Smith Sloan, the president and chief executive of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services.

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Persons: Helen Leddy, Judy Burget, Leddy, wasn’t, ”, Burget, Katie Smith Sloan Organizations: Retirement, Unitarian, Shell, Christian, Missionary Alliance, Shell Point Locations: Fort Myers, Fla, Shell