North Star Retirement Community

My experience at North Star Retirement Community is very good. When I first came, everybody that worked here had been here quite some time, but since that time, most of them have retired and we have younger people. When I came, the staff was excellent, and now with the younger ones, it's amazing how much empathy they have for us older people, and they've kind of put a bit of life into us. They do everything they can to help us. The problem is we're all old and nobody really wants to do much. I'm legally blind and I'm hard of hearing, and I don't take advantage of very many of their meetings because I don't enjoy it, and I don't know what's going on, but they take pretty good care of me, and during this virus, I shop online, and they go get my supplies for me, and I don't have to leave to go out with my mobility problem. They do the best they can in these times. I furnished my room myself; I call it eclectic. I have macular degeneration, but I'm not totally blind. I looked into everything since I've been here, and North Star has got a beautiful setting. It's off a highway, but you wouldn't know it. It has a lot of trees, lawns, benches, and places where you can get out and walk around the sidewalk and stuff, more than a lot of the others that are so located so close to the side and the business part of the city, but I like it here. Food is institutional. They've gone through several different chefs. We had an old chef that had been here a long time and he quit or retired, so we keep getting new ones and it gets a little better. They do pretty well, I would say it's tolerable, but I cook a lot for myself. We have happy hour twice a week, they have exercises often, they have card games, and they have bingo just like most places have. They have outings all the time, and they go out for dinner and lunches a couple of times a month. Of course, this virus has stopped some of that, but they've started doing it again. We were in lockdown for some time. At the beginning of the virus, when it was so prevalent, they kept us in our rooms and brought our meals to us at the door. They were very good meals under the circumstances. I was really pleased with our director that right away she was one of the first that shut the place down, and wouldn't let people in or out without checking their vitals and stuff, and I was really pleased with that. She's been pretty much on the top of what goes on with the virus situation. They were very considerate about trying to keep us happy during that lockdown time, you know. We've been one of the first to get our shots. I've had all the shots and my booster shot. Then they have a medical man here, too. Their food is just like going to a restaurant, you got to know what to get. They have a regular menu that they put out for the week, and you can have takeout, and then there's another menu if you don't like what's on the menu that day. You can choose other things like salads and sandwiches, or in the evening, a chicken breast. This is a well-run place. They have a good maintenance staff, and they keep the outside buildings. They're always trying to fix things better, but it's very pleasant and nice. The big gripe I have is that (and this happens though to all of the places, so you can't blame this place), but this last year, up until this time, we had moderate increases in our rent, like it got up to 3 percent, which was OK. This last year we've had a 6.68 percent all at once. My cost of living increases $10 less than my rental increase. The problem is when they increase the rent, if they keep so much, you can't afford to stay here. All these apartments here on the independent side are almost all different. When I came here, I had a two-bedroom apartment, and then when they started increasing the rent. I realized that in a couple of years I was going to be out of my budget. It was a real nice apartment. It had a seven-foot closet and another bedroom where I could have my computer and stuff. I am downsized to a one-bedroom, which is much smaller, but I like it better because it has a walk-in shower with an attached seat on the wall. It's very secure and the bathroom is larger. I have a larger kitchen that's a lot brighter. When I checked out all of these places, it seemed like every place had a real little bitty kitchen. And so I have a little bit bigger kitchen that I like, which makes a smaller living room, but that's all right, I downsized and managed well.

We went to North Star Retirement Community. It's very good, very thorough, nothing but praises for them. We focused on Independent living. They showed us a lot of things and they called us ahead of time as well and gave us details on what is part of independent living and what's part of assisted living. So that was helpful. They have a variety of different crafts and arts, social get-togethers, and a variety of types of games. So if you don't like one type, there are so many to choose from. While we were there, we're able to pick our heads, and they're playing bingo. There's two types of bingo, there's bingo where you can play with pennies, but we just play for fun, you don't have to use your pennies. They had a library, and my parents like to read. They had an activity board that had so many activities listed. It was nice. Kayla was amazing, Megan was wonderful. They were wonderful, so my dad didn't want to go walking on the tour. And so Rachel went and got him a cup of coffee and she was going to give him a cookie and I let them know he was diabetic. She's like, well, we have sugar-free options as well. As we were going by, she smiled. She goes, we settled on a sugar-free peach pie. It was gone. I asked my dad and he was like, oh yeah, he was in seventh heaven. It was really good. My mom liked the menu list too. It was very clean and very well kept.

The tour at North Star Retirement Community was good, and I was pleased with them. The person who toured us around was knowledgeable and pleasant. They encouraged questions about the place. The facility was very clean and had options. Their apartments or rooms were comparable to the other one we toured. I was really impressed with it. You can also get meals there because it's a retirement home. I would say it was a wonderful location and beautiful. The staff was friendly.

North Star Retirement Community was a larger facility. It was clean and in a nice location. I liked the part of town that it was in. I believe they had a beauty salon and a nail salon too. They had bingo. I think they had a kitchen that people could actually go in and cook, and where you could have a party or something like that. The rooms were small, but the staff seemed very nice.