The six words, sorted out
If you take one thing from this page, take that board and care and assisted living are the same licence at different sizes. Almost every confusing conversation you are about to have comes from that.
- Home care: a caregiver comes to her house. No move, no licence on our register, paid by the hour.
- Independent living: an apartment with meals and company, no personal care, generally not licensed as care at all.
- Board and care: a house licensed for six residents or fewer. Santa Monica has 9, holding 50 beds between them.
- Assisted living: the same licence at scale. Santa Monica has 6, holding 646 beds.
- Memory care: usually a secured part of one of the two above. Not a separate licence, so there is no separate list to search.
- Skilled nursing: a different state department entirely, and none of it appears on our register.
The two questions that narrow it fastest
First: can she be left alone safely for a few hours? If she cannot, home care by the hour becomes expensive quickly, and a licensed home starts to make financial sense as well as practical sense.
Second: does she wander, or is she up in the night? That question, more than cost and more than location, decides which homes will take her and what they will charge. Answer it honestly on the first call and you save a fortnight.
What a referral from us actually is
A short list, with reasons, after we have telephoned the homes and asked about your mother specifically. Not a form that fans your phone number out to a dozen communities so their sales teams can compete for you.
Ask any referral service which of those two it is before you fill in anything, and ask us the same. A home pays us if a placement holds, so your family pays nothing, and you should hold that incentive against us whenever we sound enthusiastic about somewhere.
Read the list first if you would rather not talk to anyone
26 licensed homes across 4 Westside cities, 1,401 beds, with bed counts and licence numbers you can check against the state yourself. No sign-up form in front of it and no email address required.
Plenty of families read it, work out what they are looking at, and call a week later knowing exactly what to ask. That is a perfectly good way to use this.
Written and reviewed by Senior Placement Santa Monica, , against the California Department of Social Services licence register.