Belmont Village Albany

ReviewerFC102424A

My wife and I both lived at Belmont Village Albany. They had very good food and some very good activities and fellow residents were very interesting, but they had serious employment issues. Some of the staff were very, very good, others were really bad. They had poor internet and no water facilities, but it was beautiful and extremely well maintained. The rooms were quite big. The activities were five in theory, but the people who ran the activities were weak. What I liked best was the other residents. It's connected with the University of California, so you have a lot of interesting people there. It's extremely expensive. We couldn't afford it.

Plezena

We toured Belmont Village Albany. They had a lot of activities. We liked the programs that they had. We liked that they also had medical staff 24/7. Their place was very light and bright. They have multiple areas for eating and they’re very modern. We had cookies. They just came out for their afternoon snacks and they were really good chocolate cookies.

Provider Response

Jack Mark

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.

Provider Response

Lynda

I've been to the Belmont Village Albany. We were shown the independent living. Although I know where the assisted living was, we did not go into that area. The woman who gave us the tour was very good. I thought she covered all the bases. We sat down before the tour and she explained everything very well. In our situation where my cousin is very touchy about her dementia, she never referred to her, but she just talked about the care offered to seniors in such a way that normalized the whole situation of "your memory is not quite what it was." She didn't say it the way I say it, but she just made that all sound very normal and that was just part of life there. I thought they did an excellent job. The staff was always friendly. We were introduced to the librarian and some care assistants. They were sitting in a breakroom and everyone was quite friendly. I like that they had fresh flowers on the table. It was a very beautiful arrangement. I liked that kind of attention to detail and that kind of life. It's an apartment-like facility, but it had several verandas. It had an outdoor space for people who wanted to garden. There was an outdoor eating area off of the dining hall. They had a casual eating area. They had a small gym and also an exercise room where someone did classes. It was a beautiful facility.

Provider Response

dkdaughter

The facility is physically clean, new, cheerful and upscale. For mobile & capable elders the community is a vibrant place to live with dignity. There’s a lot going on and non care staff are friendly, warm and helpful. Dining room experience is pretty good with above average food (service is often slow and uneven but likely due to a tight labor market where roles are difficult to fill). Head of dining and lead engineer are both terrific. Experience for lower mobility and bed bound residents is poor. Care staff is extremely uneven. Some are excellent — skilled, kind, caring, attentive… and others are mediocre to awful... and occasionally rough. Either they don’t want to be there or have not been well-trained. “Wellness” staff appears stretched thin and residents can wait very long times for assistance or needed care. This may also be due to a tight labor market… and huge COVID stressors in healthcare. But honestly, worrisome. The vision is brilliant, the execution uneven.

Provider Response

A very dissatisfied customer

This is a storage unit for seniors. The staff is not only inattentive but neglectful. The head of "wellness" could not point us to the nearest ER. My relative's toilet overflowed and it took 48 hours for anyone to notice even though he was leaving his room in his underwear to use the hallway bathroom. Once Covid hit, no one was in to clean his room for weeks. It was only when our outside caregiver was allowed in that we discovered how filthy it was. Was my father in danger here? Not immediate. But was he well taken care of? No.