Washington Heights Senior

Hazel

I was in Washington Heights Senior for almost five years. The apartment building was excellent for me. I had a first-floor apartment on the corner as you came in, so I didn't have to travel. I'm on a scooter or in a wheelchair, so I don't walk very much. I had a very large bathroom where I could take my wheelchair in, and the shower had a built-in bench, so it made it easier for me to bathe. I had a one-bedroom apartment and a very large kitchen so I could move around in my wheelchair. I enjoyed my apartment very much. I loved it. I just had problems with management. They had one- and two-bedroom apartments. The one-bedroom was very spacious, easy to take care of if you were able to do it yourself but I had someone that came in to help me to keep my apartment up, so it was nice. You have to prepare your own meals. They did have Meals on Wheels where somebody would send me meals for a certain amount of days that I could just put in a microwave and heat up. Then there was a company that brought meals in daily five days a week, so you didn't have to worry about cooking lunch. There was a common space in the back. There's the dining room and kitchen. We played bingo a lot. We had our meals back there when we had the building activities, like potluck or holiday meals or things like that. We were able to reserve the area to have birthday parties and stuff like that. A nurse came in once a month and took our blood pressure, sugar and things like that. There were a couple of things that I didn't like. When I first started there, there was a different management and it was fantastic. I got along with the manager and the maintenance but over the years, management changed a couple of times and the last one that came in was very mean and we just could not get along. When they first started, the activities were a five but gradually it dwindled to nothing. I was on Section 8, so I didn't have to pay the full amount of the rent, but what I had to pay, I appreciate it.

Ceolia

My mother is in Washington Heights Senior. The residents are not very well taken care of. They're just a place to live like a regular apartment building. There are no amenities, nothing extra. They pay their rent and they're responsible for everything themselves, like their utilities. They pay for their light and water. They come and go just like in an apartment. The worst thing for me is a lot of the elderly people who live there have their families, grandkids, and kids coming in. They let people from the outside in, and they don't have security and they don't have cameras. They don't have anything. The apartments are just basic. They do minimum repair, that's all. There isn't any staff. You've got an office manager and maintenance, and the manager is there maybe twice a week. There's no one always on the property. Some of the tenants do little things together but as far as the complex, they don't have anything structured going on for the people there. They get together and do bingo or something. They just changed property managers.