Clearwater Retirement Community

Huron

My mother has moved into Clearwater Retirement Community. The reason I liked it was because it is a secure facility and they cannot get out. My mother had some tendencies to leave when she decided she didn't want to be in a place and had done so in her independent living. What I like least about it is probably the dining experience. It could have been a better presentation. We just had a family council meeting about three weeks ago and we addressed this matter, and they're looking into improving it and I want to give them a chance to do that. I thought some of the meal choices that I've seen were lacking. They've got new management in and the management that was there was a little bit overworked and probably slightly understaffed, so things were always an urgent sort of situation where they were constantly spread thin. They have a new administrator who is a licensed nurse and can better see to work some of those management processes. Hopefully, that will be improved by the next council meeting, which will be in another six weeks. The staff was nice, but I don't know how efficient they were. They have this sort of jet that they could use which is particularly helpful for my mother with her skin care. They have some sort of word game. They have bingo. There's something for them to be mentally stimulated. They also have a courtyard that needs care and work for the residents to spend outside. Concerning the ongoing maintenance of it, that still has to be addressed. It's a nice place. It's not in disrepair, but they need to improve in terms of the management and the daily routines like meal preparation, how they present them in the dining room, and the timeliness of dining. Residents have sat in the dining room for 45 minutes waiting to get served for dinner to start. It's supposed to start at 5:00, but it starts at 5:45. I've witnessed that. I believe they're well-intentioned to making it a better place and bringing it to the standard it should be, because it's an attractive building and seems like an attractive place to live, but you've got to know how to run it. The building is nice. The facility is clean. It's a pleasant place to be in physically. In terms of the management, the food service, all of that is below average.

Ellen

My mom is in Clearwater Retirement Community. She's in the independent unit. She has a two-bedroom apartment. She has her own kitchen, a full-sized refrigerator, a dishwasher, a stove, and a small microwave, and they provide all that. She has a dining area, a living room, a couch, three chairs, a TV, two bedrooms, and two baths. The community sends someone to clean the bathrooms and vacuum the floors every week. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're not; they don't seem to keep the help very long. Right now the cleaning person doesn't know anything about cleaning, but the one before them was wonderful. They keep the yards up OK. It's basically a fourplex. They don't do a whole lot of maintenance. We replaced the light bulbs just to keep them going, but they don't seem to keep the maintenance people very long, either. The nurses are very responsive. She wears a medical-alert thing that has a button she can push, and they're very responsive -- they come and they help. It's not always an RN, but someone comes. They actually deliver food to her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and those people seem to be very nice. They have variety. She always complains about it because she's a cook, but they bring her plenty of food. The meals there for a while were not really very good, but lately they have really improved, and the selection is better. It presents better, and it's actually pretty good food right now. She goes to church -- we take her to church -- and she and another lady work on our church bulletin. She comes and gets her, drives around town, and delivers and visits with people. She has lived in the community for forty years, and she knows a lot of people. Their accounting department doesn't respond really well. I've notified them at least a half-dozen times to send the bills to me, but they keep sending them to a non-existent Clearwater address, and now they're sending it to her apartment. I'm disgusted with their accounting department.