The Best Senior Living Communities in San Rafael, CA

"We were able to visit The Vincent. It was not a building that was converted, so I liked that it was built originally for seniors. The walls are soundproof. The food was excellent. The amenities are great. The staff members that we met were knowledgeable. They train their caregivers there at the facility. It's not a corporate facility, but they have everything a person could want. We actually left a deposit to hold a room, but the only problem with them is that the room is on the third floor. My friend has mobility issues, and so he is afraid of being on any floor in case there is an earthquake or a fire. He is afraid that he would not be able to get out of the building, and that's his only hesitation. I was going to call back to see if there was any chance that they would have a resident that wanted to move up to the third floor, and so my friend is definitely looking for a ground floor. They offer a discount on the community fee. The building had a very warm and natural feeling. The grab bars looked like chair molding around the walls. They had linen tablecloths and a full table setting service. Everything was just top-notch and clean. There is a library, and they have what's running in the theater now in their movie facility, so it's not old movies. At The Vincent, it was like eating in a restaurant. It was pizza day the day that we were there, and they had their own brick pizza oven to cook pizzas. To order from the menu, everything was fresh, and nothing frozen. It was a totally different experience."

"My mom is happy at the moment at Cogir of San Rafael Memory Care. They have a new director, and I'm fairly confident that this will be good. They went through two directors in a couple of months and that was hard. We went there a year and a half ago, so my mom has been there for a while now. The appearance of the food was very beautiful. It's tasty, and it meets all the nutritional needs. We had beautiful Easter, Christmas, and Thanksgiving meals there. But their daily meals are also well-rounded and delicious. When you first come in, there's a beautiful foyer. You're greeted at the front desk by a very nice gentleman who has a lovely British accent that makes you feel kind of relaxed. It's very clean, open and spacious. It smells good. There are usually 2 or 3 residents sitting around reading the newspaper or having conversations. They have three different areas that they use for the activities. They have a small TV room for morning coffee, and they also do their televised church services there, which is really great. Upstairs, they have an activity room that they also use in the evening for watching movies, and they do all their exercises in there. And then they use their dining room for larger things like different musicians come in at least three times a week. There's a guy that comes in twice a month to do Tai Chi, and there is a person that comes in twice a month that does a gardening thing with them called Elder Grow. That's just amazing to see the seniors with their hands in the soil and connecting with plants. It's just powerful. On top of that, they have a morning sitting exercise every day. There's a lovely park around the corner where they can walk in a sort of circle. They take everybody out whether they're in wheelchairs or walkers or walking, and they get them out and moving every single day. They're great activities. They're well-rounded activities. I felt that we were paying less than some of the other places that I had talked to. I thought it was great value for our money. My mother has a junior bedroom, so she has like a living space and then an actual bedroom. It's really nice because she went from being in her own apartment to having this space. In the interim, we had been in a small facility up in Healdsburg, and she said it felt like being in a hotel, and now she says she feels like she has a home. The staff is amazing. They're very attentive. They make sure my mom is up every morning and dressed in clothes that match. They helped my mom pick out clothes and do her hair. And then they make sure everybody gets to all the meals and let her know when all the activities are there. Sometimes my mom just wants to read her newspaper in the morning, and they let her be. I think one of the best things I like about Cogir is their new communication method. They use something called the LifeLoop, which is an app. It lets me know what activities my mother has attended, and what activities are being offered. Cogir was the only one that just had memory care, and that appealed to me because the staff was more trained, and it didn't feel like they were locking away the memory care people."

"I liked Drake Terrace. It was a smaller place and I think the employees have worked there a long time. The residents were friendly during the short time my husband was there. The food was really good. The staff was very good. I was very happy with them. Although the facility was not new, it was still nice."

"My husband will be going to Windchime of Marin. It is a very highly recommended facility for people with memory care issues such as Alzheimer's and dementia, and he has Alzheimer's and because it's close to my home, I chose that facility. It's a beautiful facility. It's very clean. The people are very helpful in trying to help me arrange his transfer, and I feel that it's the appropriate facility for him rather than a nursing home or an assisted living facility. Being a strict memory care facility, I think, is more what my needs are for my husband, and that's why I chose them. I feel that for the kind of care my husband is going to get there, even though it may have been more money than some other facilities, I think the quality of the care is going to be better and because it's more accessible for me, I'm able to go there and be with him as much as I want. That was my primary concern. Accessibility to me was very important, and some of the facilities are farther away, which will involve me traveling 35 to 40 minutes to get to. I can be at this facility in five minutes."

"The Bluffs at Hamilton Hill seemed a little bigger, which was good. I liked that. The location is very nice. It's an extension of where the old hospital was and the building itself, the structure, is very nice and very, very well located. It's essentially almost across the street from where we live. They had a snack bar and there was a kind of a little cafe, not a big restaurant, with few tables and a coffee bar. I went into a couple of different rooms that were slightly different sizes, but they seemed to be a little larger and a little more homelike rather than a studio or hotel. Jeanette was excellent."

"I went to see Oakmont of Novato. It was very nice, very modern, very clean and very new. I didn't get to interact with the staff, just with the director who took me on tour and she was very nice. The room I saw was very nice. I saw that the residents had just played a particular game but I wasn't there long enough to see any of the activities. I went to their memory care portion so the amenities are a little bit more limited. I didn't see the assisted living part of it, which I believe has all of those things. They have a patio area for the memory care people but I think they have a larger area for assisted living. I liked the director who toured me. She seemed to be very knowledgeable and very caring. I also saw the guest menu and it seemed fine. "