Rhoda Goldman Plaza

Residents are very nice. This facility is super clean. Very luxurious. But their c.n.a’s all they do is gossip and they were talk all day with their native language tagalo. They can get loud too. While their clt’s are starting to smell… hmm. is this really their meeting place to gossip?

I am the sole care taker for my grandfather. I moved him into RGP on Jan 2012. Since the day I moved him in, I was there 6 – 7 days per week. I am extremely grateful for the entire staff. From the person who sweeps up, who always had a smile on his face and always said «hello» to the entire nursing staff of CNAs and Charge nurses to the management team who runs RGP. The entire place is spotless and the food is delicious. It feels more like a beautiful hotel than an assisted living center. Last year, I moved him to the 4^th floor Terrace which is the Memory Care Unit and again, I have nothing but the best things to say about the staff and care on that floor. I can’t imagine a more difficult job than working with dementia patients. They were amazing! My grandfather was taken care of 24 – 7. I was always kept in the loop about everything. Making the decision to put your loved one in any assisted living facility can be one of the toughest ones to make. This center essentially becomes their home. RGP was the best home I could have found for my grandfather. You need not look any further than RGP.
With the utmost gratitude,
Brian B.

My Stepfather John C. Opperman (also fondly known as Jack) was in the facility several months recovering from a terrible fall and elbow surgery.
My Mother was very diligent and researched thoroughly the best care for his needs. Goldman surpassed all of our expectations.
We were extremely delighted with the care, attention to detail and warm atmosphere provided by the staff. Jack was well tended to and people really went above and beyond the call of service to respect his requests and needs, making him feel like he was an individual, valued and respected as opposed to one of the numbers.
He had a beautiful apartment that was spacious and as close to home as possible, the chair in the room made his mobility a lot easier.
The activities really gave him a chance to thrive and be a part of the community, i.e. Bridge with the ladies, trivia, lectures, crosswords and movie nights.
All of the residents he met there were not only great company at mealtimes but great conversationalists, well read, diverse, smart men and women, well educated, opinionated political and extremely outgoing personalities.
Jack was good friends with Richard Goldman for many years before he died. I would have to say his friend should be proud of the facility and the legacy he has provided, top notch.

This place is fantastic. The facility, program, daily services and care is first rate, and the compassion even better. The food is extraordinary, served cheerfully in a light and airy dining room that feels like a fine, but casual restaurant. This changed my parent’s lives from lonely and difficult, despite their prior lovely location and amenities, to full of available activities and constant social interaction. It is a community, of which I also feel a part.
After several years in the regular units, my father moved to the dementia unit. A hard move for the family, but the right move for the circumstances. In contrast to the negative reviews below, the compassion and service for him there was extraordinary. He got a smile and a good word from every staff member, each of whom tried to make his and other’s moments in this difficult stage of life be pleasant. What the staff up there did for him and others on a daily and hourly basis, few of us would do. It made me cry to think about their kindness and patience up through the last hours of his life. They treated him like he would live forever and like he was the most important person there. The coordination with the hospice team that was ultimately brought in was superb.
The complaints below about the dementia floor director were fair criticisms, but that person was replaced and things changed for the far better. The director and resident director of the overall facility helped enormously to ensure my father’s transition was smooth. Even there, with the more limited menu, the food comes from the same good kitchen that produces a myriad of gourmet choices for the regular dining room.
Rhoda Goldman Plaza’s regular facilities, program and services is a thoughtful and well-​organized package for the demographic it serves, and takes a huge burden from the families. There are rules that annoy some, and restrict some choices, but which serve the community and the sense of order and fairness. I don’t agree with every decision and policy, but taken together, the place is well run and the services well-​delivered. They insist on doing things right, like the paperwork must be in place before they will take over medication management. A pain? Yes. Protect them from liability? Yes. Necessary for everyone’s protection? Yes. The place is well managed and the systems all work. Rarely is a request lost or forgotten. Everyone is treated with respect, from the minute one walks in the door through every service. The building is superbly maintained, rooms and common areas kept clean and tidy. Great entertainment and activities are constantly brought in. Low key classes are available daily. My mother remains there and is in good hands because of these features. She was treated with great respect, warmth and dignity by staff and residents after my father died, and had before and still has a social network there that would be hard to come by at that age living on one’s own or in a less congenial and well-​organized facility.
Staff works hard doing their jobs, beyond even management’s high expectations for good service. Some good staff have left, some perhaps because of the rigidities, which has made me sad.
Certainly, it costs a lot, but not when compared with alternatives of potentially similar quality. If one tried to duplicate these services at home with private care, a lot more would have to be spent and the physical and emotional toll on the family would be multiples greater. The Rhoda Goldman Plaza leadership and staff understands what is needed and provides it well, and they bring it every day. Whatever else can be said, this facility and the people that manage it work there changed the possibilities for my parents and our family.

I occasionally visit some of my old clients that live here. I can honestly say they are well taken care of by good caring professionals, most of the staff here are helpful, and know what they’re doing.
With that said, my only gripe is the 4^th floor manager/​director (I dont really know what she does, all i know is the other staff tells me shes not the boss, but she acts way too bossy) The 4^th floor is the dementia unit and this lady really goes out of her way to make me feel unwanted every time I visit.
My run ins with her include me sitting in her office while she makes me wait until I am on the visit list (I visited my client 6 times already and she still insists I wait), her telling me to speak English (she must be deaf as Ive only spoken English and not uttered a word of Tagalog), and her giving me attitude while I arrived at around 4:45 pm to visit and she told me «Youre visiting close to dinner time?!» with a smarmy look on her face.
Anyways…I give this facility 3 stars, and I recommend to definitely stay away from the 4^th floor director/​manager/​whatever she does, dont need the attitude from her when visiting an old friend or loved one on the 4^th floor.

Our mom Rhoda Weiss lived at Rhoda Goldman Plaza for three years, two and a half in assisted living and about six months in their dementia unit. We felt certain she was in safe hands and that gave our family a great deal of peace of mind. Staff were almost always on top of problems that arose. The building is immaculate. The location in lower Pacific Heights and the Jewish atmosphere are special.
However, beginning with RGP’s decision to move our mom to its dementia unit, The Terrace, our feelings of appreciation began to erode. We felt that they rushed that process and that by rushing it they may have hastened our mother’s decline. We can’t be certain of this, of course, but that is our feeling. We understand that our mother suffers from dementia, that her decline is irreversible and that at some point it was inevitable she would belong in a dementia unit. But we suspect that because our mother was behaving in unseemly ways, RGP, which markets its «elegant assisted living,» rushed her move to the Terrace.
Her confusion was increasing but it was apparent that she was sharper, more cognizant and more mentally with it than pretty much every other resident in the dementia unit. Our family depended on RGP staff and in the end, despite our reservations, trusted their judgment. But they left us very little choice: either our mother went to the dementia unit or RGP would wash its hands of her. At the time we had good reasons for not moving her elsewhere, as they knew.
RGP policies for the residents of the dementia unit on the fourth floor are, in our view, unnecessarily restrictive. For example, our mother was not allowed to keep a glass of water on her bedside table; in fact, she was not allowed to have water or any other drink in her room. (Let us add here that for someone suffering from frequent urinary tract infections, hydration is an important safeguard.) Cut flowers in a vase, something she had cherished as part of her personal landscape all her life, were also forbidden. Nor could she have a small bowl of hard candy to offer her guests to make her feel that she could still be gracious. Of course, she had no kitchenette. All of these amenities are denied RGP’s dementia care residents. We have now moved our mother to Aegis of Aptos where dementia unit residents are allowed all these simple pleasures and freedoms with no apparent ill effects. That is why we say RGP’s privations are unnecessarily confining.
In addition, it is RGP policy to lock the doors of the apartments on the fourth floor preventing residents from getting into their own homes unless an aide is there to unlock the door. We understand that some residents on the dementia floor may wander into other people’s rooms, however RGP staff could make more effort to monitor them rather than locking the doors of all the residents on the floor. This policy robs those residents who are perfectly capable of finding their own apartments and letting themselves in, such as our mom, of some measure of dignity. It is not necessary, indeed it is extreme, to adopt a single policy for the entire dementia unit in which all residents have to conform to rules designed for the most confused among them. That protects RGP but it does not serve the interests of the all the residents.
There were times when we felt dismayed by the defensiveness of RGP staff. On one recent occasion there was a mix-​up about a prescription for my mother. Somehow the information was not conveyed successfully from the doctor’s office to RGP nursing staff. The doctor’s office said they had sent it. The fourth floor nurse and the director of health services said they had not received it. Clearly, somebody was mistaken. The staff at the doctor’s office double and triple checked immediately, apologized profusely — although they believed they had faxed the information — and expressed concern for any ill effects the mix-​up might have had on my mother’s health. After days had gone by, RGP’s director of health services denied RGP was at fault, expressed absolutely no concern, and apologized grudgingly only after we said that no matter who was at fault we would appreciate an apology.
We would have hesitated to send this letter — and post a version of it on
— if not for recent conversations with two health care professionals who have long experience with RGP and its residents. One said that RGP’s increasing emphasis on protecting itself from liability claims was causing resident comfort to be compromised in f

I am very disappointed in all the assisted living facilities I have seen, including RG. It is sad that my parents had to live out their final years in such a facility. There was no one to file a complaint with. The cost was obscene. The doctors they recommended were scam artists. It is a sad commentary on our society. If other adult children have had similar experiences, please contact me. I would love to file a class action suit against some of these facilities.

My mother lived in RGP for 6 years. I agree with the previous post about the dementia floor. The executive director of RGP HAD NEVER EVER BEEN ON THE 4TH FLOOR for the 4.5 years my mother was living there… I was there at all times — 4 – 5 times a week. Her main concern was protecting the company, assets, and liability. that is articulated by all levels of staff in the most creative and restrictive ways. Turnover on 4^th floor is constant. It’s a «one size fits all» situation — and the LVN“S that work there are pill dispensing professionals and very warm as are the caring CNA’s. They have a good assortment of activities but unless you’re «high functioning dementia» you will sleep through them. Every time there is a hang nail you’re rushed to the emergency room or god forbid, a slight fall… (all to protect their particular wierd licensing and remind you at every turn that they are not a nursing home). If there’s anything «extra» that is needed you have to hire private care (always encouraged by them) to do anything out of the ordinary. The assisted living is excellent — community oriented but the 4^th floor is to NOT BE SEEN (PARTICULARLY BY BOARD AND SENIOR STAFF, OTHER THAN RN) and never to be heard…
Go to Coventry Park!!!

What’s better than smelly old people?
Old people that don’t smell! (ZING!)
So my grandma lives here. She pays quite a bit for a little studio but the amenities of Rhoda Goldman are vast. Three pretty good meals a day, I’ve sampled a few. Daily activities, movies, classes and even an old guy who comes a few times a month to play old Jewish sounding folk songs on the accordion! And by some means of high magic, this place has no old people odor! You know that mothball smell that permanently affixes itself to you once you reach the age of 65.
The Sunday brunch here is damn good for the price. Free! Well free if your loved one resides here and decides to take you out to brunch. You can get a fat plate of lox with capers and onions on a bagel, potato pancakes, endless fresh juice, hearty chicken or matzah ball soup, blintzes and many other classic kosher treats. Best part is, there’s no limit to how much you can order. So every time I’ve been, my grandma insists that I order three or four items and then she makes me eat hers as well.
I’m glad my grandma is well taken care of and if I ever get that old, I hope my kids put me in a home close to where they live too.
Oh and minus one star because my grandma swears one of her aides has been stealing some of her chocolate.