Joe's Place Caring Cottage

We toured Joe's Place Caring Cottage. It's more for people who need total care and is not aware of their surroundings. It's right on the street, which is very unsafe, considering the clientèle that they have there. It's a problem if they wander off unless they're in a wheelchair or couch-bound. So I didn't like the area, and it's a very small building. It looks like someone's house was converted into it. The rooms were very crowded and not pleasant to be in. There was a big dining/activity area which contained books and a board. It was just one room and it didn't have a lot of activity, because the clientele there wouldn't have participated anyway. There's a kitchenette over to the side, so the clientele can watch them cook, just like a little kitchen. It's not appropriate for me. The staff who gave the tour was as adequate as she could. They didn't have a plan, or a packet, because they just threw a couple of pieces of paper and staple them together. They weren't ready for that. It was a little less appropriate than you would expect. I understand that the place is for total care, but as soon as you walk in, there's the old "nursing home smell", right at the front door. They're just laying around and the smell hits you right away. And I wasn't especially very happy that right there at the front to the left, there's the shower room. But you've got to come out of your room and that's where they shower. They don't have bathrooms or showers in their rooms, and that's not very nice. The staff we met was trying to be helpful, but she wasn't prepared to do an appropriate tour and we just kinda hurriedly went through there.

We moved our father to Joe's Place Caring Cottage. It's a great place because they deal mostly with memory care issues. He has been going there for daycare so he knows them and he knows the place, so he's comfortable there. So we're very happy with how he's doing there, he's settling in nicely, and they're taking good care of him. They're great people. He's sharing a room; he doesn't have a single room. The place is great because it seems more like a home than a nursing home. It's very comfortable with family-style dinners, they've got coffee chairs in front of TVs where they can watch, they do activities, and they go on field trips when the weather is nice and everybody can get back out and do things. It's a really great place. They try to do different activities during the day, they have crafts, and last year they did chocolate-covered strawberries, and they tried to go to a barbecue restaurant for lunch. So they try to get them out when they can. This past year, they haven't done too much of that because with COVID nobody's going anywhere, but they're hoping to start and get them back up again. Sometimes, they'll just take them to a movie, or to a restaurant or park just to be able to go outside. The staff is great. From what I understand they're giving them nutritious meals and snacks throughout the day, but I don't know what they eat. It's a great setup, they've got the rooms on the outside, and they have comfortable chairs and recliners in the middle, and a walking track around, and they have a craft room, and outside porch to sit on. The facility is great. It was great because they were willing to work with his budget.

I had only had a short tour at Joe's Place Caring Cottage. I just talked to the people for ten minutes about it. It was an open concept. They had the community dining table, the TV, and couches, and stuff around. The staff was pretty nice. Everyone was certified in the healthcare field in some form or another. They had some private rooms and some twin rooms. The few residents that I saw seemed happy. The rooms had beds and dressers. They had a crafts room and you could watch movies. The dining area was just two or three tables put together, and there were seats around, so it was kinda like a community table. They had a kitchen and they cook all their meals in the kitchen. It is hard to evaluate something on a ten minute visit. They could give people hair cuts in their salon, they had walk-in showers, and regular commercial style washrooms, and the furniture looked like it needed recovering. It wasn't a commercial nursing home or something like that. I think their capacity is ten or 12 people, so it was just a plain open concept house with a kitchen, restrooms, and a salon.