What knowing the field means in a city this size
Not a database. We hold the state register for Santa Monica, Culver City, Pacific Palisades and Venice, and the field is small enough that ringing all of it is a morning's work rather than a project.
9 of the Santa Monica homes are six-bed houses with no website, no brochure and nobody employed to answer enquiries. That is precisely the part a national search cannot reach, and it is frequently where the right answer is.
Where we are likely to disagree with you
In a few predictable places. When the right answer is a caregiver at her own house rather than a move at all. When the community you fell for on the tour is wrong for the care she will need within the year. And when the budget will not hold for the long run, because a placement your family cannot sustain is worse than the one you did not make.
We would much rather have that argument in the first week than in the fourth month. It is uncomfortable and it is the actual job.
How we are paid, and what you should do with that
A home pays us when a placement holds. Your family pays nothing, ever, including if you decide not to move anyone.
So we are paid to place, which is a real bias, and you should weigh it every time we sound keen on somewhere. What the arrangement does not do is make us prefer one home over another, and that is exactly why we are willing to name the ones we would steer you away from.
The first call
Tell us what happened, whether there is a discharge date attached, what she needs help with through an ordinary day, and the ceiling on the budget. It takes about as long as a coffee.
By the end you should know whether you are looking for a house or a building, roughly what the Westside field holds for somebody with her needs, and what the next three phone calls are. If it turns out you do not need us, that is a fine outcome too.
Written and reviewed by Senior Placement Santa Monica, , against the California Department of Social Services licence register.