The Long Way Home 4.17.26

During her transition to end-of-life care, my mom moved first from her two-bedroom townhome in South Minneapolis to a fairly modern, corporate-owned assisted living facility in Richfield. She’s always been fiercely independent, despite her frail health that might get others down. Like all of us old-timers expecting the Golden Years, the changing reality of advancing years and declining powers made surrendering her freedoms and putting up with every inconvenience of institutional living lead to much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. My sister and I thought a separate apartment with a kitchen and bedroom in a modern building would make the transition acceptable. 

There were a few complaints about the apartment's temperature control, the windows that didn’t open, and the stove, which was different from what she had before. On the other hand,  she knew some of the ladies in the building, and they welcomed her right away, inviting her to join in for mealtime and other activities. Her loudest complaint after a few weeks was about the terrible food served in the dining hall, I mean dining room.

Mom was a school lunch lady for almost 30 years, and she fed herself and my dad school lunch leftovers for many years. I don’t know why. She wasn’t a gourmet cook at home either. I don’t think she ever had a clove of garlic in the house when I was growing up. Salt and pepper were the only spices we had, and whenever she was serving something, she invariably asked whoever made eye contact, “Does it have enough salt?” 

So when she told me the food at her new home was bad, I knew it had to be really bad. If you’ve had school lunch food, you know what I mean. Plus, she ate lutefisk with delight around the holidays. That should tell you something. The promise of "restaurant-style dining" in these corporate housing programs, or "resort-style assisted living," often ends up in lukewarm, uninspired meals. These meals are served to people who have spent their lives fending for themselves. Corporate cost management takes away the quality of food and service.

My sister lived near the facility and kept Mom’s kitchen stocked with her favorites, so she got enough to eat without “dining” with the lady friends downstairs. Unfortunately, after only a few months in assisted living, Mom’s health declined, and she soon moved to the hospital, then a nursing home, and finally hospice, where her time came to a close. 

Among the perks of writing for a community newspaper is hearing from local people with a story to tell about the travails of life, enduring things that just shouldn’t be. Like poor conditions and food in most assisted living and long-term care facilities. Recently, I spoke with a resident of a so-called assisted living facility on the North Shore, who had a litany of complaints about the food and upkeep she faces every day. She could have been channeling my mom's experience from a decade ago.

Despite my rapid note-taking, I realized the stories I was hearing wouldn’t make it into an acceptable expose’ for an itinerant free-lancer and a weekly newspaper. My experiences years ago with elderly relatives convinced me that the problems with housing folks who can’t live on their own anymore are really tough.

I did take a look at the company that owns the facility our “source” was reporting on and found that they are saddled with a Better Business Bureau rating of D-, despite the warm-and-fuzzy marketing it uses to attract new residents. The D- isn't just for "bad food," but for a failure to engage. The low rating is primarily driven by the company’s failure to respond to formal complaints filed with the BBB platform. 

Perhaps the corporate management types that own these facilities don’t reply to the BBB because they have a regime of federal and state regulators and ombudsmen they have to respond to. 

One recourse for residents seeking better conditions is the Resident and Family Council. Something my mom’s facility didn’t have. The right to form and participate in a Resident Council, specifically within assisted living facilities, was officially set as of August 1, 2021. Nursing homes have had federal requirements for resident councils for decades. Assisted living in Minnesota operated under different, less stringent regulations until the 2019 Assisted Living Licensure Act was passed. In these councils, residents discuss their rights, quality of care, and quality of life. The facility provides a private space for meetings and designates a staff person who assists the council and responds to its written requests.

Corporate concerns like staffing shortages and cost controls inevitably lead to diminished quality of life for people in assisted living, long term care (nursing homes), and even hospitals. I’m just glad that there are advocates trying to make life better.