Independent Living Communities in Oakland, CA

"My friend lived at Belmont Village Albany assisted living for three years before moving to their memory care area for the past year. For a long time she took advantage of all the activities on the independent side, but slowly her memory grew worse and her anxiety became inconsolable. She would call me and other friends multiple times per day in a panic and forget she had called. She became resistant to care and paranoid that people were playing tricks on her. It became clear that she was not thriving in her social group and needed more than assistance with showers and housekeeping. Her son agreed to move her to memory care and almost immediately she began to relax. There she has been able to participate in activities again and the staff is very patient. Her mood improved unbelievably and it was a big relief to me to see her smiling and laughing again. Her dementia is still progressing but she is so well adjusted in her routine. I don't know how they got her to do it but I am very grateful. "

"The rooms were of really nice size at Marymount Villa. It gave you an opportunity to be away from home, but mom was able to bring some of her items and felt like she was at home. The staff was very nice and I like that they have 24/hour staff. Everybody there is very friendly. The facility is very clean. They offer activities. They have a calendar where they do certain things, but I can't remember the specifics. I really feel that it is a great facility. It also was the most affordable one. "

"My mother is with Aldersly. They offer many activities for residents and provide services. The staff is very friendly and accommodating. It's a totally different living environment than what I'm used to, but the room sizes were plenty for my mother. They have workout areas for the retirement community. Of course, they're very different from the workout gyms that people my age would use. Their dining facilities are very nice, and they have excellent cooks. I think it provides good service and good living facilities for the money, so we're satisfied. We have no complaints about the financial situation."

"My experience with the care and facilities at Coterie has been excellent. My mother moved to the memory care floor at Coterie after a brief time in assisted living. My family had been struggling to find the right level of care for her. Coterie has been incredibly flexible and nurturing in their daily support for her. I am especially thankful for the staff’s efforts to keep my mother connected with our family, her friends, and the rest of the world outside of memory care."

"The Carlisle is an extremely upscale condominium for seniors and is great for elders who still want all the fabulous amenities. It is located in Lower Pac Heights in a quiet, but convenient location. At Post and Gough, it is just a few blocks away from Japantown, Fillmore St, Polk St, Whole Foods, and Safeway. "

"The people at Ivy Park at Cathedral Hill seemed very nice. There's diversity of people, residents, and staff there, which I think is important. It's a very pretty place. The sizes of the rooms were normal. They seemed nice and very comfortable, but there were too many stairs and it was a little too large for my brother to navigate. He would have been lost there. The person that took me on the tour was very nice. He answered all the questions I had and was very forthcoming as far as what they provide and the monies and things of that nature."

"My life partner is in assisted living at Byron Park for the last couple of months he has Alzheimer’s and needed more care then getting at home. We couldn’t b more satisfied with staff meals and activities. It is helping slow the process down with this terrible disease. We choose Byron Park bc when he needs more care he can stay in his apartment and have a caretaker. We don’t want to go to lock down memory care. Recommend Byron Park."

"I saw Heritage on the Marina for the fourth time now. It’s a three-tiered community with independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing. I like the cleanliness, the friendliness, the knowledgeability, the quality, and the payment structure of the whole place. They don’t have any rooms to be seen available right now because they are refurbishing. "

"My father was a resident of Landmark Villa at Hayward, and he was there for 24/7 care. The care he received was wonderful. They bent-over backwards particularly because his medications were something that had to be given on a consistent basis several times a day, so they made sure he got his medication. One of the medical assistants stayed with him until he passed, and she stayed with him until Stanford came to get him. It was only like 40 minutes, but to me that's huge. He had a bedroom, a shared bath, and a shared kitchen. The dining room looked very attractive, and they gave lots of options as far as eating availability. There were lots of staff members that were always around to help assist pushing or helping residents get to meals or to other things they wanted to do. They had a nice little library, a pleasant outdoors area, an area where they showed movies, there's a pet bunny rabbit that my dad enjoyed watching when he was able. My dad was on level 6 of care which added to fees. Luckily, compared to other locations it's a great value. The cost was reasonable, and the location was so convenient. That was the number one thing that got us looking closely at this community. The one thing they could do was that they don't have airconditioning and they should."

"We’re in The Heritage Pointe right now. They do not have extended care here. However, it is very nice, and we’re quite happy here. We’re quite satisfied with it. It is particularly a good place for an older person who doesn’t need extended care. They do have a contract with outside help that comes in as aides, but they are not licensed caretakers that can administer prescriptions or things like that and it is not extended care within the facility itself. The rooms are very nice. There are three three-story buildings and one four-story building. They have a nice dining room. Their menu is very good, but they only serve two meals a day -- breakfast and dinner. There are a lot of activities. There is something going on all the time. They have trips to casinos, horse race tracks, and things like that on special occasions. They have a shuttle that takes people downtown if they don’t drive. They have an underground parking garage for those people that drive themselves. It is a very adequate facility. It is particularly designed for individuals who are still active or at least semi-active. However, the administration is a little slow to respond. They have an administration group here onsite, and all the little daily details are taken care of by local administration, but if you have something important to be done, it has to go all the way to the owners in Las Vegas in order to get approval, and it takes time. That is the major drawback of the facility. "

"Bethesda Home was a very nice place. We just couldn't afford it. They were very, very personable, very helpful, and very knowledgeable. The facility was very clean and very well-kept. The rooms and the dining area were very comfortable."

"I visited. Their staff was super helpful. It was very clean, and the rooms looked very nice. The staff and the host were really great and answered all our questions. The one-bedroom was amazing, it was way more than I thought it would be. It looked really spacious. The studio that they showed me was also really great, with nice appliances that came with the apartment. For activities, the classes and the Bible study was something that I think my dad would like; that was great to see."

"I toured Bellara Senior Living. It was nice, very fancy. An experience that you want for anyone senior and transitioning into their later years. They have on-call nurses, and they have everything that you need there, you don't have to go out and get it, very much assisted. Everything is there all at once. You don't have to go anywhere. The staff was nice. They were very welcoming. They just wanted to get to know me and my family and make sure that if we were choosing that place, it would be the right place for us. It's a very new building. They had a bar. They had a bunch of seating areas. They had fancy bathrooms. They had a workout area. They had a whole courtyard where you could sit and talk and grill food. They had a beautiful kitchen that was restaurant-style."

"My aunt was here a little over two years. It's a very good facility. They had a good staff, and they took very good care of her. They had a courtyard, which was very pleasant and beautiful yet still enclosed within their buildings. My aunt found a boyfriend while she was there. They had excellent food, and they also had an excellent chef. "