Independent Living in Long Beach, and What It Is Not

Two very different buildings use the same phrase

One is an age restricted apartment building. There is a manager, maybe a common room, maybe a monthly coffee morning, and that is it. The rent is rent. Nobody checks on anyone.

The other is a community with a dining room, a bus, a full activity calendar and staff on site through the day, sometimes with a licensed assisted living wing in the same building or on the same block. The difference in what happens when your mother falls in the night is enormous, and both will be described to you on the phone as independent living.

So ask one question early: is there a licensed care operation on this site, and if so what is its licence number. If the answer is no, you are renting an apartment with a social programme attached, and you should plan accordingly.

Long Beach has a particular version of this

The buildings cluster downtown and near the water, which is genuinely part of the appeal. Somebody who has lived in this city for fifty years and wants to stay walking distance from the shore, or near enough to Second Street to keep her habits, can usually do that. Bixby Knolls has its own version, quieter and more suburban.

The practical question is transport. A parent who is giving up the house is often about to give up the car, and Long Beach is a city where that works better in some places than others. Downtown and Belmont Shore, someone can still get a coffee and a haircut on foot. Further east, near El Dorado Park, they cannot, and the building's bus schedule becomes the whole of their independence. Ask to see that schedule before anyone signs.

The mistake that costs families two moves

Independent living is chosen at the moment a family is relieved. The house sells, everyone exhales, and the question of what happens in three years gets postponed. Then there is a fall, or a diagnosis, and the apartment that was perfect is now a flight of stairs and a locked door with nobody behind it.

So ask the awkward version now. If she needs help with a shower in two years, what happens here. Can care come into the apartment, and from whom, and at what cost. Is there a licensed home on site she could move into, or would she be leaving. A building that has a clear answer is a much better bet than one that changes the subject.

And if the honest answer today is that she already needs help most days, look at the other option properly. The state register for Long Beach and the surrounding catchment lists 38 homes in this city licensed for six residents or fewer, and a good one of those is a warmer place to live than an apartment where nobody comes to the door.

What to check on the lease

It is a tenancy, so read it like one. What is included in the monthly figure and what is billed separately. How many meals, and what happens if she misses them. What the increase has been for the last two years. Whether there is a buy-in or a deposit and what is refundable. How much notice either side has to give, which matters enormously if she has to leave for care in eighteen months.

Where we help, and where we do not

We know which independent living buildings in this city actually have care available and which are apartments with a nice lobby. We will walk the floor with you and ask about the three year question.

We will also tell you when we think independent living is the wrong answer, which happens more often than you would expect from a business that is paid on placements. If your father is already skipping meals and forgetting tablets, a bigger apartment will not fix that. Better to hear it now than after the house is sold.