MorningStar Senior Living

This was the least impressive community and wanted more room for my loved one to roam.

I am an occasional visitor of a friend who resides there. Her health has declined, she has lost weight, seems lethargic at all times. She is in a wheelchair when she was very capable upon the start. Now she is too weak to walk. Her room is dusty, stains on her carpet, smells of urine, she has had her wedding rings stolen- she never took them off...and replaced with a cheap ring. Her toiletries are her own responsibility, yet they are always taken. The center is impressive, however. Understaffed resulting in lack of care for those that need it. Some of the staff are enthusiastic lately, but they must be the contracted ones because of being short staffed. Some have been very lazy, on their cellphones and looking bored. I witnessed staff walking around just to get there shift over.

At that time, a lot of tours were virtual, including our tour at MorningStar. At the same time, another place we ended up choosing allowed in-person tours. Even through a virtual tour, I could see that MorningStar was an older facility and not as nice. The people leading the tour seemed like typical salespeople, like real estate agents that didn’t want to sell real estate anymore, using all the language that just made you feel like they’re trying to sell you something.

We moved my mother into this facility thinking it was a great place. The sales person assured us that there would be wonderful activities and amenities but they do nothing activity wise for the residents. There was also an issue for me as I cannot wear a mask but was also assured that it was not a problem. That lasted one week and by the second week the sales person and receptionist tried to cover up that I was being let in mask free to the ED in charge who micro manages everyone and everything, and then I was forced to wear one. Since I can't wear one now I can't get in to see my mother. My mother is very unhappy there and can't wait to leave after only two weeks. We are moving her somewhere else. I would not recommend anyone to put their loved one in there.

The community does not do what they tell you they are going to do and do not care about your loved ones. My loved one fell twice in 3 months and they do not check or respond to her needing help. I would not recommend this community to others.

Be prepared, the community is very disorganized and the onboarding process was not good. They are under new management so i don't know how it is now. Based on my experience I would not recommend this facility

Morning Star has an insufficient amount of residents in the memory care unit, which means there are not enough residents there to stimulate our loved one has far as having a relationship with them. We do know COVID has played a role in which they have to space out the residents for safety purposes, but that makes it harder for our loved one to develop relationships with the other residents. We are little unhappy with the house keeping. Every time we come visit it seems like we have to always vacuum. Our loved one spilled cranberry juice on her carpet, we have brought it to their attention but it still has not been cleaned up. The care take is great when she helps out of our loved one, but their is a language barrier. Our loved one is hard of hearing so sometimes it is hard for her to understand her care giver. We also aren't really sure what the difference is between assisted living and memory care. We thought the staff on the memory care side would be more on top of things, but they are not much different from the assisted living side. Also, the food is terrible.

Be careful what you ask, you may not like the answer. Comments are pre Pandemic How's the food? VERY high in carbs - not healthy for most residents. And, not very good either. Certainly not worth what you pay for it. How is the housekeeping? When you have to clean after the housekeeper has been there, it's not what is advertised or what you pay for. What about assisted living care? Under par!!! They seem to make their own rules - give meds when they want as opposed to when they are due. Too many problems to list. I hope you don't need the program. And independent living? They tell you when you can eat and if you are late you may or may not get something. You feel as if you have a curfew. You are supposed to tell them when you come and go. Activities are great if you're 80 something. Or older. Not much that might interest younger people. What are the rents? They vary by apartment size, and sometimes by who is renting. And they have constantly gone up 5% - 7% a year since the new owners have taken over. Garden Court was once a great place to retire. Not any longer.

I think they are understaffed. I think some of the staff takes their job seriously and some do not.They were not following her care plan. She is required to have two showers a week. The aides were coming in to give her a shower and marking that she refused. They should be trained to handle these situations. I don't feel they follow-up with me often enough. I check on my mom often, she means a lot to me.

Not the right "feel" for my mom. Great amenities but my mom would not use all they offer.

The facility is beautiful and clean and most of the staff(except the nursing staff) are friendly. The assisted living is an excellent place if your loved one needs little assistance. Anyone with dementia or needing physical assistance(bathing, sometimes falling, etc) is better off in the memory care portion. There is little tolerance in the assisted living portion for dementia or physical limitations.

Below is a note I sent to the VP of Operations for the South West Region of MorningStar. We have yet to speak, and she has not returned my phone call. Ms Espxxxxx, The purpose of this note is to thank you for taking care of my father and to provide you with some constructive criticism on your operations. I found it surprisingly difficult to get contact information for any of the senior leadership team at Morningstar. The website does not provide any phone or email contacts. First some praise. There was a genuine care exuding from the original staff for the tenants. We knew them by name and you could tell they were invested and genuine in their interests in tenants and their family. The facility looked great because everything was new and clean. The newness of everything helped us get over the continuous sewer gas smell, but it looks like you have resolved that problem. In fact we liked the facility enough that my teenaged daughter volunteered her time and worked there for many months. As a quick summary we were one of the first people to put money down as pre registered customers for your community called Morningstar at Arcadia back in late 2013. My father OET moved into your facility in March of 2014. He started off in assisted living and quickly was asked to move into Memory Care due to his Dementia, and has lived there ever since. My family was very active and involved in the community in the beginning, and we knew most of your staff by name. But there has been a continuous turnover of the leadership team at the facility, and that is where my constructive criticism will focus. From my notes this is the turnover for just two positions, but it appears that nearly all senior leadership positions have regularly turned over. Executive Directors [Removed] build out to 5/2014 I understand she had a baby and might have wanted a different lifestyle [Removed] 6/2014 to 12/2014 [Removed] 1/2015 to 11/2015 [Removed] 12/2015 to present Memory Care coordinators [Removed] Opening to 11/2014 [Removed] 12/2014 to 3/2015 designated Interim [Removed] ?/2015 to 8/2016 [Removed] 8/2016 to present This seems like a substantial amount of turnover at the leadership level, and makes it hard to deliver a consistent level of service. I think that your team can do the following better: Better leadership fosters continuous improvement in service levels I have had some discussions with the line staff and many have expressed concerns with how the facility is being run, but are afraid to push their concerns to hard fearing that they will be fired. I have been in leadership of manufacturing plants and understand that you can’t please all employees, but creating an environment of fear will prevent the leaders from creating a culture of continuous improvement. Most of the high value improvements come from line level people not management, because they are too far removed from the actual work. Better communicating the leadership changes to the people who are paying the bills. Give us the courtesy to give some content as to why a change is needed and set the new person up for success by highlighting their qualifications. Julie in Memory Care was in the position the longest and had a good relationship with me and other tenants, and then one day she was gone and I still have not heard from the new person. Voice of the Customer team I think that you would be well served to form a small group of tenant family members to meet with your leadership team on some regular basis (quarterly?). This is a tried and true component of customer driven organizations the world over. This will ensure that the voice of the customer is included in the teams discussion, and might prevent misunderstandings from snowballing. For example, If I was in such a meeting and found out there was going to be a leadership change I would have suggest sending out an email communicating it to the family members. Plant & equipment improvements. I have begun to notice that much of the furniture is looking very shabby. I see blood stains and other bodily fluids on furniture fabric (in the main entry way as well as the memory care floor), and can imagine that this will not pass hygiene tests by the city. I also see trash on the balconies that no one seems to pick up. I think that you would agree this is a corporate culture set from the top. If the top person lets that stuff slide then all the way down to the cleaners they all let it slide. If the top person takes the facility seriously then everyone below them will know that it is important. As a corporate executive this becomes a red flag to me that you are hiring the wrong people at leadership levels. Here is another example of the lack of leadership or the proper corporate culture. My daughter found a dead mouse in a half eaten bag of chips in the kitchen cabinet inside my fathers room. The mouse had been there long enough that it was fully desiccated. How did this mouse get into my fathers room and then die in a bag of chips? How did it sit there for who knows how many months before my daughter found it? What is the cleaning crew cleaning, and how did they not smell it? Tenants are paying for services and when this happens to me, it makes me feel like I need to start supervising your staff to ensure that I am getting the value that I am paying for. But why should I supervise your staff that is what your leadership team gets paid to do? This type of situation erodes trust and confidence between your team and the customer. I brought this to the attention of Julie and the executive director, but not sure what changes were made to ensure it does not happen again. I should have escalated this when it happened because I did not get a good feeling that anything was going to change. I knew this was the sort of incident that might get people fired, and wanted to give them a chance to turn the negative into a positive by taking visible corrective actions. I was not informed of any corrective actions that were implemented as a result of my fathers dead mouse and the obvious fact that his room was not being sufficiently cleaned on a consistent basis. In summary, we were VERY excited to put my father into your facility when it opened. We liked the facility, liked the staff, and loved the location. Over the past 2 years the facility has become shabby and far less appealing on the memory care floor, the only people I interact with now are the line level staff. If things do not improve then I will begin to investigate other facilities as a back up plan. Thank you in advance for reading and thinking about my comments.

Parker started out as a wonderful place. It has consistently gone down over the last year. Although the caregivers are good, caring people, they are short staffed and underpaid so they don't stay long. More and more people are day care which makes it hard on day staff which in turn takes away from full time residents. Prices increase so often that it's hard to keep up and of course their money isn't growing. My parent was the victim of several medicine mistakes by new caregivers and there were no consequences. My parent was seldom handed a plate of food that they were able to eat. When I dropped in one day for a visit and found my parent lying in their own feces I decided - enough.

My father only lived here about 6 weeks before he passed away and it was during the pandemic so we only got to visit the first week. First, the good. There were a few excellent caregivers who took an interest in my Dad and were wonderful. His physical space was very nice. Now the bad - they are seriously understaffed which is not the fault of the caregivers. The administrative team was extremely helpful and solicitous while we were looking at memory care but became disinterested and even hostile after we placed my father in the facility. They did not return phone calls or respond to emails, when we had questions or issues. My Dad needed help with FaceTime during the pandemic and while they communicated relatively frequently by email, they asked that residents initiate the desire to FaceTime. My Dad was in memory care and could not do that so I responded both by phone and email and the administrative team NEVER responded. But for a staff member who was unbelievably helpful we never would have spoken with my Dad on FaceTime. The last straw was this - my father wore a Cochlear implant which cost upwards of $20,000. He could not hear without it. The implant was lost on a Tuesday but no one contacted us about this so that we could arrange for a replacement. Unfortunately, my father developed sepsis on Saturday and was taken to the hospital and passed away the following week. We did not find out about the missing implant until my Dad was in the ICU at the hospital and could not communicate with us or the caregivers at the hospital because his implant was lost and he could not hear. The administrators at Morningstar did not return emails or calls about this, and once we were able to speak with them, they did not apologize for not letting us know the implant was missing. Except for the one caregiver who was a hero, no one reached out when my Dad passed away - no card, no call, nothing. Granted he only lived there about 6 weeks but my feelings were very hurt that no one reached out.

Wanted a place closer to our home for mom. They were so anxious to get us in there they paid for moving. My mom, they said after a month, was having issues so they were going to raise her rent by 50% a month. Mind you my mom was coming from independent living to assisted just to help her out a little. Wow that move-in was NOT free!! Food is barely adequate, bathrooms went for weeks without being cleaned they would tell you that they only had one person for cleaning the facility. At times they would not have a L.P.N. at all on staff for several days in a row.

My parent has been here almost a year. Pros: very caring and friendly staff, nice dining room. Cons: terrible food, not fit for a pet. Never improves. Lots of complaints, no action. In a nutshell, very small portions, tasteless food, very limited menu, undercooked frequently. Kitchen is out of staple items, such as rolls, fruit for dessert. Meeting held for residents produce no results. If food is important, don't move here.

We toured Morning Star of Longmont's memory care. The building was beautiful, and the staff appeared devoted. The director of community relations and the executive director highlighted their unparalleled compassion, training, staffing ratios, and transparency. There was nothing they could not handle. We were so relieved to have found such a wonderful place. Sadly, it's a facade. After days of fulfilling their requirements, including a nurse’s care cost evaluation, we were notified by text—4 days after the decision had been made—that our mom was denied care. No explanation nor compassion. We had to beg them to share their reasoning. They denied her because she lives with ailments that plague the elderly--aphasia, high blood pressure, fainting--all items we shared with them during the tour. They also didn't know how they'd handle her disease's progression. We apologize--we thought memory care was their expertise. Now, if your aged loved one is as spry as a teen, this is the place.

The personnel were nice so I don't mean for this to reflect on them but I would not recommend putting someone who is a fall risk in any facility. There just isn't enough personnel to minimize the risk. We are still dealing with the pain and it has taken a toll on her.

I was flooded after touring this beautiful community to learned the leadership style that lead to so many move outs , staff turn over. I was pulled in and shared by residents and staff that the E. D is just horrific to deal with. I did some research and I was also sad to learn about the neglect in memory care due to the clinical leadership. I am so glad I won't be moving my clients and their family members in.

A family member of mine used to lived here, and has since passed away. When I would visit my family member at this facility, I noticed that the staff were often rough with my family member, and frequently had a bad attitude. The staff also often failed to do such basic tasks as helping my family member with teeth brushing, changing adult diapers, bringing coffee or breakfast in the morning, getting dressed in the morning, picking up the dirty laundry from the overflowing hamper, etc. The staff would often be seen hanging out and joking around with each other instead of doing their jobs. The supervisors were made aware of these issues numerous times, but nothing ever improved. I would NOT recommend this facility to anyone!