WellQuest Living

Carmel Village is an acceptable place for seniors who are still fairly independent and only need minimal assistance, meals, and basic housekeeping. However, once a resident requires a higher level of care, our experience was extremely disappointing. My mom lived at Carmel Village for two years. During the last four months of her life, as her care needs increased, the quality of care declined significantly. While Carmel Village charged additional fees for every added service—which we understood and expected—the care that was promised was not the care that was provided. One of the biggest concerns was the call button service. We were told that staff strive to respond within 10 minutes, whether a resident needed help picking up a dropped remote or had fallen. It was rarely less than 10 minutes. There were times my mom waited 45 minutes! What if she had been lying on the floor? We met with the office staff several times, especially when she came back from the hospital but it never changed.

Since the Grove has become part of the Wellquest, conglomerate things have changed considerably and not in a good way. There is an obvious shortage of staff, a lack of concern for patients, they routinely run out of food, and some of the residence live in fear of being thrown out of the facility. My husband is going to be writing a detailed review on the Grove and probably an article on his blog where we detail many of the things that we were frustrated over. In short while it started out to be a good situation for [name removed] it increasingly became very frustrating and intolerable. [name removed] passed away recently and is no longer in their care and for that we are very grateful. It is not as if they provided services for free. They were extremely expensive and over time services became less and less. We would suggest that anyone considering putting their parents at the Grove should run not walk away.

We had serious issues with medication administration at Carmel Village. These included missed and incorrect doses. We also had significant challenges with the food. What is served is not healthy. Menus did not match what was published. There was not the flexibility regarding food orders we were told there would be, including portion management. While most of the staff was friendly and tried to be helpful there were some who did not seem to appreciate that my mom was not a memory care patient (who chose to live in memory care with my dad) and expressed her concerns about both of their care. There was a lot of staff gossip. There were no activities for memory care patients. We were shown a schedule which turned out to be what was offered in assisted living. On one occasion when my parents wanted to go to an assisted living music event, they were escorted there only to learn it was canceled. We would not recommend Carmel Village to anyone seeking memory care.

Memory Care at wellquest is woefully understaffed with a high turnover rate and new faces often. The medtechs and caregivers are extremely kind, hard workers, but understaffed which leaves the residents unattended and I don't feel their needs are met. Communication is non existent with many unanswered texts, phone calls and emails. No one updates you on the care of your loved one. There are activities but residents need to figure those out for themselves. Not much effort at encouraging them to join in. food seems adequate, facility is clean although not always secure.

I have a relative that moved to assisted living at The Vincent. It is new and clean but the daily care has continued to decline. Most importantly, medication management or lack thereof, has gotten worse. I've lost count of the number of Executive Directors they have had over the last 3 years, at least 6 or 7. The last 4 have only stayed 2 months each. It is almost impossible to fix a broken institution with revolving management. They routinely miss doses of medication and don't tell patients or family that they didn't administer the doses. Unfortunately, most residents and/or family won't know there is a medication problem until the resident starts showing symptoms or they end up in ER. Please check the history of inspections and complaints for any facility you are considering, go to the California Department of Social Services (DSS) website. You can sign up to be notified of any changes or updates to a facility.

Staff lacked the experience and training to adequately care for residents with dementia. Sadly, the majority of the caregivers are apathetic and demonstrate a severe lack of compassion for the basic challenges that arise with memory care residents. The training required by the state does not compensate for experience and knowledge in how to redirect residents -- or how to calm residents when they are agitated or combative or aggressive or sundowning. This is compounded by the lack of continuity of senior management, having 6 Eds in 18 months. Medication errors are a common occurrence. The Med Techs have insufficient training and understanding of pharmaceuticals and often mark meds as given when they have not been given to the residents. Lack of activities and stimulation. Memory care unit went 9 months without an Activity Coordinator. Main source of activity was watching TV. Senior leadership - lack of response and follow up; false promises with no intent to deliver.

Working on their director, in a year untrained taff, no supervison, just incredibly bad place. Should not be licensed for memory care. These folks are not capable of running an ice cream stand. Run from this place

Family member lived here for 8 years. Started out great, great employees, good food and fun things to do. Three years ago it started going downhill due to frequent management changes. Care was horrible as basic needs were not met. Kept getting the excuse that they were understaffed. Family member had several falls which were not reported to us for days (!), rooms were filthy where I could take a paper towel and wipe the floor in the bathroom and it would be black and when I visited I would pick up trash from the floors. Showers were dirty and housekeeping would skip weeks at a time. Beds were seldom made up and not changed when dirty. Personal care was minimal and not reliable. Showers were offered at random times - late in the evening and if you declined then they reported you refused to shower and didn't get another chance for a week. Food which used to be restaurant quality was very basic and lower quality was served after a long wait or offered as a buffet.

Poor communication between staff and caregiver. For instance I was not called when a leak occurred in the ceiling of my husband's room, necessitating he & his roommate to be evacuated until work was done. The roommate called his mom to tell her there was a fire in the room. My husband was very confused & alarmed. Two holes were drilled into the ceiling, never was told how much damage the leak caused to furniture, bed or rug. I did ask several times. Sheetrock dust & dirt accumulated under the holes on the floor & was not cleaned even when we moved out. I took photos. The dust & grime we found on everything was pretty discouraging considering we paid dearly for housekeeping!

Around this time last year, Sterling place wasn't the best but it had a manager that cared, interacted with residents and song happy birthday to them in the dining room. I no longer see him, I'm assuming they ran him away. This place has really went downhill. Many mornings it has been McDonald's for breakfast and they promised an executive chef. The team is so rude.... The leasing agent and a skinny young man that says he the manager....looks too young tho... They seen my mother in the lobby one day and yelled "Have you gotten your eviction letter yet" my mother was so embarrassed, called me crying. I have now gotten her out of there!

My mother moved in here a year ago. The décor was a little tired and the food was boring but it had a great vibe and great location. Since then, the management has changed. They are remodeling which I hope will be an improvement but the food is horrendous and very limited right now and there is no break in the fees. There is no microwave in the apartment. I was also hoping there would be some people to help with heavy lifting etc but they say she would need assisted living, which she does not need. The worst issue though is that there has been no hot water for 5 days and they still have not fixed it! They also cancelled her housekeeping for the week. Again, with no discount in her rent (4300 for a one bedroom). I am very disappointed and I don't want to have to move her but I can't worry about her not having hot water and food. This is ridiculous. I have called the management and have not gotten a call back.

We submitted an application and deposit for my 84 year-old mother to move into this community with the assurance that a full program of diabetic care including the administration of insulin and blood sugar checks would be provided. After waiting 6 months for the community to open, we were informed after her assessment that the community would not have the necessary licensing to provide this service. It was false and misleading advertising, and I would not trust anyone there with the care of my aging parent.

I would tell others to not waste their time or money. The community does a lot of bait and switch on business deals. They don't have the staff to keep the promises they make. My loved one does nothing but complain about the food. The community promised transportation to the store, and then they backed out due to the pandemic. It took over a month for the community to come in and clean the apartment. No one knew where recycling or waiting a month to take out trash. They don't talk about the full prices upfront, until the contract is signed.

I took my parents for a tour to this building only because I heard great things from a friend. Beautiful community but was mortified during my visit. I over heard the management being very rude towards her staff. She said some horrible things which were completely unexceptionable. I completely left the tour. Absolutely would not put my parents at this facility. Before I left I demanded the mangers name so that I can report her to the state for abuse. Please beware of manager [name removed]. I apologized to her staff for her behavior. I felt horrible. Very thankful I seen this before I moved my parents in.

My parent is a resident at this facility. The staff is/are fantastically kind and thoughtful although, like most of these facilities (low pay), there is a lot of turnover. The main problem I see is that the food is quite awful. There is lots of fried food and very poor quality ingredients and recently, again, everything on the plate was an awful dark brown breading that was inedible and sent back to the kitchen in its entirety. My parent recently tried to eat the roast beef sandwich and gave up because the tough meat couldn't be chewed. Elderly folks get more and more enjoyment of food as time progresses and this should be a very high priority fix. I wish I could force the CEO of this facility to eat the food for a month. This facility is also very expensive and the apartments are dingy and old (the tile shower was moldy at the beginning and still is - the only fix is to remove the entire shower and start over again). The common areas were recently redone but I don't see any work being done on apartments. On a positive note, the garden area is lovely. I am very disappointed with the situation and wish I could move my parent but it's too late for another move. Again, I can't rave enough about the kind people who work there. It's the CEO/owner and the profit motive that is at the root of the problems at this facility. I have tried here to give credit where credit is due and to honestly provide the downside as experienced over many many months. If I had it to do over, I would definitely not choose the Pasadena Highlands.

My parent is a resident at this facility. The staff is/are fantastically kind and thoughtful although, like most of these facilities (low pay), there is a lot of turnover. The main problem I see is that the food is quite awful. There is lots of fried food and very poor quality ingredients and recently, again, everything on the plate was an awful dark brown breading that was inedible and sent back to the kitchen in its entirety. My parent recently tried to eat the roast beef sandwich and gave up because the tough meat couldn't be chewed. Elderly folks get more and more enjoyment of food as time progresses and this should be a very high priority fix. I wish I could force the CEO of this facility to eat the food for a month. This facility is also very expensive and the apartments are dingy and old (the tile shower was moldy at the beginning and still is - the only fix is to remove the entire shower and start over again). The common areas were recently redone but I don't see any work being done on apartments. On a positive note, the garden area is lovely. I am very disappointed with the situation and wish I could move my parent but it's too late for another move. Again, I can't rave enough about the kind people who work there. It's the CEO/owner and the profit motive that is at the root of the problems at this facility. I have tried here to give credit where credit is due and to honestly provide the downside as experienced over many many months. If I had it to do over, I would definitely not choose the Pasadena Highlands.

We had a terrible experience with this community. Our loved one was only here for 3 weeks, and in that time she feel 5 or 6 times, and had an infection that went mostly ignored. The staff seemed friendly at first but the level of care they provided was absolutely terrible. We moved our loved one out, and would not recommend this place to anyone.

I visited here and found it extremely depressing and pretty much soured me on senior living

AVOID. My father spend four days at the Highlands. Despite being on notice that his care needs exceeded the level at which they assessed him during their intake evaluation, they provided no additional service before letting him fall twice. He ended up in the hospital. While the Highlands agreed to release him from their 30 day notice requirement, they refunded only $2200 of the nearly $6000 we had paid four days prior. That's $1000 a day just so they could prove their [Removed] handling of their residents.

I would not recommend this community to anybody. I'am having a horrible situation with them at the moment. My father stayed at this community for six days, and he had a bad episode, due to his dementia. After being evaluated by his physiologist, he informed me my father could not live on his own. Once I told the community he would have to move out, because he needed more care than they are able to provide. They are still trying to charge me, even though he is unable to stay there. They have been inconsiderate, and not understanding of our situation. I would not recommend for anybody to take their loved one to this community.