Belmont Village Senior Living Albany

Raed Toma

They are not good at any service, and there is a person among them who is a thief who enters cars that are not open and steals the items or accessories in the car for the purpose of offending the owner of the car

Zach Sorgen

Positives: beautiful space, pretty good food, nice staff members, activities including concerts and excursions Negatives: lack of organization, lack of communication, lack of follow through, not really equipped to deal with individual's needs, extremely expensive and prices go up for various claims. When my dad first entered Bellmont, he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's and it seemed to be OK. But as his dementia progressed, there were times nobody came to remind him it was meal-time. Thursday was supposed to be laundry day but it rarely happened. They were not helping him to shower. The lack of hygiene and food can lead to health and emotional problems. Excursions often filled up quickly so signing up promptly became a family duty. I can only imagine how someone would handle there who didn't have children checking in a few times a week. Overall there are some very kind and fun staff members, but there are not enough of them! And the systems for organization are simply inadequate to help residents make sure their needs are met. I was hoping this could be his forever home, but as my dad's Alzheimer's progressed, the only way to ensure he didn't leave the building was to hire outside help 24/7 which increased the monthly payment to an impossible rate. Or to confine him to one small section of the building that doesn't have any of the nice amenities that we were originally attracted to. When we complained and asked the Pals to come get him for food and activities, they started showing up more with some success but didn't seem to have the patience or training to get him to always shower when needed. Overall might be an OK place for a year or two of assisted living but unfortunately not for the long haul of real care.

Jeremy Sorgen

As the first home we placed our dad, we really wanted this to work. But after over a year of trying to get them to deliver on basic services and after MANY unmet promises, we had to find a new placement. There are several good people here, but there is a lot of toxicity, incompetence, and neglect as well. Thankfully, they finally got rid of their head nurse, who was downright offensive, but they've suffered a lot more turnover at the management level and it shows in the quality of care. There seems to be a major breakdown in communication between the management and the staff (PALs), and they're simply too disorganized to fix their broken systems. The helpers are poorly paid and badly trained, which led to a lot of trauma for our dad. The family ended up having to step up to keep on top of things not getting done or (more likely) just do it ourselves. The frustrating thing is that Belmont would not take responsibility or improve their care, and we were left with no recourse but to leave. I imagine that there are a lot of other residents simply languishing in their apartments without adequate support or real interaction. My advice: take your top dollar elsewhere. Unless your loved one is capable of taking care of themself, they will not get the care and support they need. Some examples of things we went through: -The head nurse called our dad a "predator" for spending time with female residents. Rather than managing the situation (he has dementia), they villainized him and put it on us to do something. -For months, we couldn't get them to do his laundry in a consistent and timely way. After persistence and many reminders, they finally started doing it some of the time and many times we got other people's clothing. -They did not provide consistent escorts to activities, even after we put a list together (their suggestion). The family had to create an internal schedule to call him to remind him about activities and help him locate them in the building on a daily basis. -When we requested they stop with a medication that was giving him unpleasant side effects, not only did they keep giving it to him but they increased the dose. We only caught it after a month because he was still complaining about the side effects. -Shower assistance was included in the service we were paying for but they never mentioned that, preferring to let us do it ourselves. When we tried to transfer this responsibility to them, their poorly trained staff couldn't figure out how to do it and our dad suffered a lot of humiliation around this issue. Many times he did not get a shower because the staff would try once or twice and, if he declined, they would be happy to leave. (-We never got updates about this. We only know because we are so involved and noticed that he would have the same clothing for days or develop a rash etc.) -We tried to get him a companion (on our own dime) that would supplement the services that we were paying for but not getting. They said "no," that they were fully staffed and don't allow outside help. But when he left the building down several flights of stairs that lead to the street, then they asked us to pay for 24-hour supervision ($900/day). There are no cameras in the stairwell or silent alarms at entry points, so they only way they know if people go to the stairs is if they successfully exit the building. If a resident falls in the stairwell, there's no way they would know.

Laura Garcia

After doing lots of homework, my mother decided to make the move to Belmont Village and we now truly understand why it gets so many accolades. Thanks to the amazing and attentive staff, interesting activities, healthy and delicious Josephine’s Kitchen and supportive services she is thriving and making new connections in this next chapter of her life.