Senior Living Asset Management

My mother is at Bloom at Belfair for about a month and a half. The facility is very well appointed and the staff and residents are very friendly, and there are many activities. On the negative side, you should know that the floor plans as provided prior to renting are not as indicated, for example the apartment we rented was shown as 460 sq ft, in actuality it is only 315. In addition, the brochure indicates that wifi is available and when asked we were told it would reach into the apartments, in actuality it does not and requires an addition payment of $80/month to the local phone company to bring broadband into the apartment. This is a significant expense for someone on a tight budget such as my mother. It is particularly annoying given that these are items that were considered in choosing between several places.

My Mother has been a resident at Barrington Terrace, Naples, Florida for 4 months. She is content as is her family members. The nursing staff is exemplary; the caregivers, average. Unfortunately, as we are experiencing in various health care settings, the daily caregivers lack any type of enthusiasm; very apparent they do not like their work and have no communication skills. These are the people who come into the most frequent contact with the residents and this can lead to some difficulties. The management and nursing staff is par excellent. I would recommend Barrington.

So far we have had no problems. My mom seems to be more settled every day and we have found the staff and other residents to be very friendly and helpful. The facility presents a good value for the services rendered. The food is quite good as well.

I was a brand new facility and it was lovely but I decided to choose a community where I already knew people who live there.

We liked this place.

As in all facilities like this the bottom line is a factor and hinders paying or hiring enough staff and preparing and serving quality foods. It’s the problem with all for profit businesses. You always have staff that cares and works hard and staff that would rather sit and do nothing also communication is very lacking.

They have activities every day for my Mother and this is what she needs with dementia. The food is wonderful and she is gaining all her weight back. The staff is very friendly and helpful and it is very clean there. I am very pleased to know my loved one has a nice place to live and can get the interaction she needs.

Overall, the staff was good, kind and caring. The biggest issue was that they were very understaffed. They did their best, but only a handful of people could not keep up. There was a large turn over in the dining area/ food as well.

Don't believe what they tell you. Very short staffed. My mom was there 2 months and they only cleaned twice.

Overall it has worked for my brother due to the cost. The facility is clean but there needs to be a lot of painting throughout the common areas. The exterior of the building needs pressure washing. As to personnel the front desk and management are helpful and nice. The dining room personnel seem to have attitudes the times I have eaten there. Needs improvement. Activities are fine and most of the time the food is good. My brother would like to have more to eat in the evening but just him.

Very old building. The entire exterior of the building needs power washing beginning with the wicker chairs and white wooden rocking chairs at the front entrance. There are holes in the interior ceilings that need repair ;two outside my room where water leaked from the ceiling and the carpet below it was soaked. Fans to dry wet carpet in the hallways are sometimes needed due to leaks from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor.The building is not kept up & the owners don’t seem to care, but I believe [name removed], the manager, will address that. Many residents attended a meeting last week about the quality of the food going downhill, & [name removed] listened, took notes, & the food is now delicious since that meeting. The next meeting is about the building itself, staffing & safety for people with memory issues. The activities director & physical therapist are great. The maintenance men are responsive …hanging shelves, changing fan lights, etc. The residents are kind & help each other if help is needed.

Not the greatest but price was one of lower ones in this area. Not great, not terrible, just okay.

We would have to say the meals were not very good. Small portions and the food was not as advertised. It was more like school cafeteria food. The coffee bar that was advertised was non existent. Never any coffee, creamer, sugar or cups. It was a very depressing place.

My in-laws were surprised at how low staff the kitchen is. My father-in-law now goes down each morning with his own container and asks them to put scrambled eggs and bacon in it. He then takes it upstairs to microwave it bc it is often served cold in the dining hall. They also learned that it is better to go down early for the meals bc they run out of items. My mother-in-law is set up to get assistance with showers a couple of times each week and the person comes at all different times. They set up a standing time so she would be ready and still someone came so early that she was still in bed. Older people get stressed easily when caught off guard. The Manager is trying. One example is she did have everyone on staff help during one of the meal times. I do think that they could set up a schedule for the showers for each person vs the worker telling them that they're just on the list and so they just do what they're supposed to I do know that they like going down for the wine and social hour I do believe more staffing would change my response.

When we moved our mom into Brookdale, it wasn't organized. The director, head of nursing and activities director did meet her in the next few days. But the executive chef actually showed us around the building upon move in. I explained we're paying through long term care benefits before we made the commitment to move my mother to Brookdale. The sales director and executive director both said they work with and bill LTC providers. Having invested a great deal of time contacting the LTC provider and many e-mails and phone calls to the executive director, the December and January invoices were faxed mid-late February. I was told that was unusual and things would go smoothly from then on. As of today, the LTC provider has not received my mom's February invoice. Again, I've made many calls and sent numerous e-mails requesting the invoice/claim form be faxed which Brookdale has to sign off on every month. My mother chose Brookdale North Naples because of its convenient location, close proximity to her doctors and larger room size compared to other assisted living communities. Hopefully the insurance situation will eventually get resolved.

I didn't take a lot of notes here because there was just something about the facility that made me uncomfortable. The layout was extremely confusing and I pictured my mom being lost all the time and not being able to find her room. They did offer to waive the community fee that was $3,000 which was a great incentive but I couldn't do it. Also there was again not a lot of residents out in the open. I kind of pictured them hunkering down in their rooms because if they left they would get lost. Brookdale was also about 30+ minutes away from me.

This is a good community. It is safe and the staff are very helpful. There are three meals a day served to the residents, and there are choices for the residents to choose from. Lunch is the bigger. There are communal washer and dryers on each floor of the building. The resident is able to have a microwave in their apartment. Housekeeping once a week is included as well.

We toured with Bloom at Belfair. This facility was actually my first choice, but they failed to fulfill the contract that I signed and refunded my money.

On the positive side, the activities are great and my mom is participating in a lot of them and enjoying it. For things they could improve on- when she presses her button it does take a long time for the care staff to come get her. They are understaffed and so the response time to care has been inconsistent.

On the positive side, the nurses they have are fantastic. On the negative side - the administration leaves a lot to be desired. They are there 9-4 Monday through Friday and that is it. It is very hard to get a hold of them and their phone system never goes through so it is hard to talk to my dad. Overall the communication really needs to be improved - my dad went to the hospital and we were not notified until they were wheeling him into the ambulance. We never even knew he was sick. He went without medications for 4 days because they had a miscommunication with the pharmacy. The weekends are very bad, the place is only kept clean Monday through Friday but weekends it is filthy. A lot of his things go missing too. They never have the same nurses - there is a crazy amount of turnover going on. There is nothing for men to do, it mostly about the women. The food for memory care is horrible and it is always cold. The food on the assisted living side is wonderful.