Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove

ReviewerFC030324A

Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove had the homiest atmosphere of any of the places I visited. It also is the least expensive of any of them. It has no outdoor facilities or campus, but it has a beautiful dining room overlooking a pond and a nice view of the outside. It just didn't appeal to me. The hallways were narrow, but I was very impressed by their hominess. People who were living there were, "Oh, hello. How are you?" It's a small facility, which can have its drawbacks, but it can also have its pluses. It's not as desirable as the others. It uses hydroponics to grow their own food. They had a big refrigerator kind of thing and they showed us how they're able to grow lettuce and spinach and pick from that all the time, so that on the health spectrum, it would rate highly, particularly with today's emphasis on eating fresh. That is one of their big things, but they wouldn't have the activities and they don't have a live-in doctor or medical center.

PA

We visited Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. It's clean, and they have very friendly staff, but they need to disclose something very important. We had paid the down payment on it, and then we heard from someone else that you have to sign a two-year agreement. That was never mentioned. So, we went back, and their reasoning was that most people want to stay, and they want to be settled down. We said, "Yeah, but if we don't like it, we're still locked in and that is not something we want." So, we put a stop-payment on that quick and decided not to go with that. It's a beautiful facility, and the staff was nice. We were impressed with the dining area. They use cloth napkins and cloth table covers. You look out on a small lake out there with the ducks and swans. So, it was a beautiful atmosphere. They do have a greenhouse in the area, and they plant and eat their own vegetables, so that was a plus. They have activities. I rate them a four overall because of the disclosure. Also, there was a question that we asked, about the security of the patients in and out of their room, if some of them maybe mingle into another patient's room because they do have dementia. That's not unreasonable to think they may do that, but her response was, "Oh, no, that doesn't happen. We keep the doors locked." When she said that, it does ring a bell with us. You keep them locked, that's unsafe. The dementia person that's confused doesn't know how to get out of that room. She said she will get back to us about the locking process on the room. When you're the administrator, that's something you would know. We know our families won't be there every day, and just like my dad was with somebody every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, it's not going to be a person that's unattended. But why should we, on a day that we will not come, be worried about how she's going to get out of that room? When we questioned her again, she said they have a key fob. They're a dementia patient, aren't they going to think about what to do with the key fob? We never really got clarity on that.

Mark

I went to Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. It was a very tranquil place to be so close to the city. There was a very nice lake with a nice view for the residents. The tour was very efficient. The staff was professional, accommodating, and personable. It was a very clean facility, and it looked very well maintained. I thought the resident rooms were a bit on the small side, but they were clean and well laid out. They're just smaller than what I was hoping for and smaller than the others I had seen. Willow Grove is like a stone's throw outside of Philadelphia. For the location, it was very tranquil and that lake with the gazebo (where people can go out and sit) is what does it. It was a very nice layout.

John

My wife will be moving to Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. They're in the middle of renovating the whole place, so it looked fine and clean and everything, but it's kind of a mess right now. Everybody seemed nice and everybody was friendly. The rooms were adequately large, and they were a good size for one person. They have a salon, they do trips, they have musicians come. They have these virtual reality things they do with the residents, which are pretty cool, where they actually do trips around the world in that kind of thing. What really sold me here was that when you walk in someplace, it just feels right, and it just felt right. My wife, she's very young, she's only 56, and most of the places don't have any young people. But they have a bunch of young people there, so I felt a lot more comfortable there. It's more like a hotel, where you have the hallways and the common area in the middle.

Flora H.

I came to visit my aunt who’s lived there for several years. It’s been a while with the COVID and all, but she looked good. She said the staff were nice and take good care of her. She likes the food, though her soup is sometimes too cold. But they heat it. Activities is always good. They had a performance there that day. Eric, I think his name is always makes a big to-do with the activities. The new Executive Director seemed nice too. She greeted me in the lobby and then I saw her singing in the lounge with the residents. That was great to see an Executive Director participating. Her room had trash overflowing, but they took care of it for me. Just wish I could visit her more often since I live so far away. But they seem to be doing a good job there. Thanks for taking care of my aunt so well.

Denise

I did a tour of Commonwealth Senior Living at Willow Grove. It was dirty and it smelled. It was mass confusion when I was there, there were residents getting off the elevator, screaming that they didn't get their apples. I'm sure the woman had some problems, but then another lady came from somewhere else, and she screamed something else at her and the girl at the desk. Rather than just trying to quietly calm them down, that staff was screaming from the desk over to them, "You ladies can't stay here and scream like that." There was not a seat in the lobby that I wanted to sit in; everything was stained, watermarked, it was very bad. We were going up to see the model room. When we opened the door, there was a gentleman on the couch watching television, a gentleman who obviously was one of the workers, with his feet up and everything. He looked at us like, "What are you doing in my room?" The fellow that walked me around said, "Oh, I didn't know anybody was in here." That turned me off. There was trash in that room and the rugs were dirty. A woman was struggling to get down the hallway in a wheelchair pushing herself; there was a MedTech there that never even moved his cart or said to her, "Can I help you?" Believe me, she was struggling. That place reminded me of the nursing home my mother was in, and I walked out of there. I didn't see anything going on, and he may have mentioned things that they do, but I saw nothing. People were just sitting in their hallways or in their doorways. It was almost dinnertime when I went. I never smelled food being cooked. It's kind of weird, I thought it is 4:00 .pm. to 4:30 p.m. when you think you could smell something cooking. I saw their office where they took me and gave me all this information, it was very well decorated, and pretty, but that's where it stopped, right in that office. I wouldn't want to put my mother-in-law there. I wouldn't want to put anybody there. The MedTech, he's the only one I saw, and the one sitting on the couch. One didn't help the old lady, and one did not get off the couch when I walked in. It just was dirty, and it looked like it needed some help. It's beautiful, but the inside he told me they were going through some renovations. I wanted to say, "Go through some cleaning first, maybe you won't need to renovate."