Willamette View

Loralee

The apartments that Willamette View offered had a beautiful view of the Willamette River. They have more activities. They have a good physical therapy group and they offer quite a lot of parking for people who have their own cars. They just weren't quite as friendly, but the facilities were beautiful and well-maintained.

Reviewer#as0913

The Willamette View is very nice, but it's across the river and not very accessible to me. We toured there and we even ate there. We saw the independent living but they also have other levels of care options. The food wasn't quite as good as the other place I toured, but it's still quite good, I had their fish and chips. The appearance of the facility was very nice, and it's on the river, but it's in the middle of nowhere. They have walking paths along the river, they have a beauty salon, and a pool, they have workshops like a woodworking shop, they have a craft room, and they have a place where you can watch movies. It's a little city all in itself and you can go from one building to the other underground, so you don't have to go out in the weather. And it's got very, very nice facilities, it's just that to me, it's in the wrong place.

LDR

Willamette View Review *** My wife wanted to move to a CCRC because Alzheimer’s runs in her family. We investigated all the CCRCs in Portland, Bend, and Boise. WV is as good as any, better than most. We moved in at the very beginning of the pandemic crisis, which WV has handled very well. Overall, the staff is friendly, competent, well-trained and well-managed. The long-time residents I’ve talked with are happy with it. However, there are a number of things I wish I had known before I agreed to move into any CCRC. 1. “Independent living.” The management staff is paternalistic, with pre-conceived ideas about aging, and they simply don’t listen. They assume “old people” no longer care about things like quality, taste, and food. The hardwood floors we were promised are fake wood, accordion blinds were installed instead of the venetian blinds I explicitly requested. (I told them I’m claustrophobic and need to see outside; they didn’t hear that either.) 2. Food: From the sales brochures and resident guidelines: “Willamette View offers all Independent Living residents a flexible, decreasing-balance dining program...” (italics added). After we paid a non-refundable $50k down payment I learned that the meal plan, $700 per month for a couple, is not “offered,” it is required. You are not allowed to say “no thanks.” My wife and I are both gourmet cooks; food and entertaining are central to our life-style, and quality matters. (Also, I’m coeliac and I can eat less than half of what’s on a typical menu.) The WV dining rooms are as good as any CCRC we visited – but it is institutional food; foodies will not be happy with the overcooked meat and soggy vegetables. If food doesn’t matter to you or you’re seriously tired of cooking, you won’t care about this. It matters a lot to us. 3. “Low-ball” marketing: The quoted monthly “condo fee” does not mention a lot of hidden add-ons (and substitutions like fake wood.) You pay property taxes (on a home you don’t own – you pay the taxes but WV keeps the inflation increase), you pay for meals whether you want them or not, and you pay for any internet beyond the cumbersome “guest” wifi. (You have to go through the “agreement” page every time you sign on.) You even pay for a parking space. The total out-of-pocket cost is more than $10,000 per year higher than the price list we were given. (If you eventually need memory care or extended intensive care, you’ll also pay extra for that.) 4. Legal: The contract is written to give WV all the high cards. You pay enough up front to purchase outright a very comfortable home in much nicer close-in Portland neighborhoods – but you have no equity and you waive all legal rights. The contract includes an agreement for arbitration – you can’t sue. If things deteriorate and WV goes bankrupt, your claim is at the bottom of the list, after contractors, suppliers, lenders, everyone. You will be left with nothing. We investigated all the options for end of life care. None are very attractive. We could not find any place in the Northwest where you can buy your unit, have title to it, and if you decide you want to move sell it for the current (inflation-appreciated) value so you can afford to buy a different home elsewhere. Once you give them your money, you’d better be happy with the decision, because you’re trapped. WV, like other CCRCs, offers a “refundable” option for 25 or 30% more money – when you die or leave you get back 80% of what you paid (not the current market value) – after even 10 years of inflation that is going to be worth maybe 40% of current home prices. It doesn’t pencil out – it is not equity, and if you get disenchanted with “retirement living,” you’re not going to have enough for more than a down payment on a decent home. A CCRC is the best of a bad set of choices, the supply is way short of the need, and WV is as good as any of them. Most of the residents are happy with it. There is an advantage to moving in before your situation is desperate, and for many people, like my wife, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. For me it’s at best a toss-up: I feel I was “low-balled” into a commitment I would not have made if I’d had complete information. If you are looking into retirement living, insist on seeing the contract at the outset, don’t trust words like “offer” and “independent,” and don’t believe any promises until you get them in writing. Before you make any commitment, even the “waiting list fee,” insist on a signed statement of the total buy-in and monthly costs to you, including everything, and a full copy of the rules; read it all and think about it carefully before going any further. Bottom line: It works well for many people, and people will say it’s better to move in sooner than later. Don’t believe them. It’s better to move in when, and only when, you either need some level of care or you are ready to give up your former lifestyle entirely and adopt the CCRC lifestyle – on their terms, including the institutional food. Move in too soon, and you may find you gave up more than you intended to give up, sooner than you needed to give it up.

Janice

My parents are in Willamette View memory care section. They are excellent. They care for people who are very mobile and very independent all the way up to end-of-life care. Even though my parents are in the memory care area, they have access to the arts center, the library, and the restaurants, as long as a family member takes them. They have concerts and lots of different things. It's just very expensive.

A Visitor

Willamette View was a very nice facility, but I can't afford it. There were three different sizes of rooms, which were nice, but the small one was way too small. I had lunch in the dining room area, and it was average, but it's a beautiful facility, one of the nicest along River Road down there. They had clubs, plays, and musicals.

Putli53

My sister was a resident of the Willamette View Health center for several months before her death. She had enjoyed living in the independent level (Manor) for six years before her move to the Health Center. We were impressed with the Manor staff and were hoping for a similar quality of care in the Health Center but were disappointed, especially with the lack of licensed or registered nurses. The Health Center has 4 'units' or neighborhoods, each with about 15 residents. On day shifts, there is a Registered Nurse on duty but she is in charge of two units and also has managerial responsibilities, so has little time doing direct nursing care or assessment. Frequently the nurses on duty were from a temp agency and not familiar with the residents. On some evening shifts, an LPN is present but has to divide her time between two units. During some evening shifts and most night shifts, it was not unusual to have only nurse’s aides on duty – no LPNs or RNs. Medications (including narcotics such as morphine) were usually administered by nurse’s aides. In the last weeks of my sister's life, she often needed her scheduled medication to be ‘held’ (not given) due to risk of oversedation. This is a nursing decision which nurse’s aides are not trained for. In the last week of my sister’s life she was not fully conscious and her level of conciousness was decreasing daily. She was being given sips of water and liquid morphine but as her level of conciousness deepened I noticed that she began to aspirate on any liquid and was showing symptoms of pneumonia. She needed a nursing assessment to be made about whether to continue medication and in what form to give it. However that evening there were no nurses on duty - only nurse’s aides. As an RN, I was surprised at the lack of nursing presence on the units. Often the nurse’s aides seemed to lack the leadership and direction that would typically come from an LPN or RN in charge. In the evening or night they would spend quite a bit of time sitting, chatting together or on their phones. My recommendation would be to hire more LPNs with training or experience in geriatric and end-of-life care and replace one nurses aide on each shift with an LPN, so that every shift there is a licensed nurse to give medications, do assessment, make nursing diagnoses and decisions, and give leadership and direction to the nurses aides.