Sunrise Assisted Living of Sunnyvale

I decided to wait several months to see if things would improve with my experience at Sunrise. Unfortunately, it has not. While the initial onboarding process was great (wonderful sales director!), once my family member moved in it was a totally different story:
— Good luck trying to get anyone to respond to you via phone or email — they rarely reply.
— Don’t bother telling them about your family member’s usual routine and preferences — they ignore that completely. My family member has often been left alone in the dining room early in the morning — without coffee — and hasn’t been properly bathed (face not washed, teeth & hair not brushed…). Oh, and try getting someone’s attention to get that cup of coffee — not going to happen.
— I have often found that socks have been worn multiple times rather than changing them daily (my parent has 12 pairs in the drawer). This is just laziness on the part of the caregiver.
— Thinking about contacting the corporate office? Nope, they don’t respond either.
— Good, competent care managers are few and far between. Most are of the «smile and nod» type who will listen to you, smile and nod, and then go back to doing the same thing.
— Training of new care managers is sporadic and rarely are they monitored. To most, this is just a job and they don’t have the heart for caring for elderly people.
— The cost? Think The Forum in Cupertino but without the elegance and better reputation.
I disagree with another poster that you’d do better at a «locally owned assisted living facility» — we tried one of those with equally dismal results. Best to educate yourself, visit LOTS of places at different times of the day, and make the best decision for your loved one. Sunrise of Sunnyvale, though not the worst, could certainly do a lot of improving…

Every post appears to have a piece of the puzzle being answered. Mine is no different. What I hope for is that the posts are genuine and are not written by detractors.
A person looked into assisted living places for months. The criteria that fitted Sunrise best and why it was chosen included the following: geographic location, staff to client ration, cost, entertainment events, policy, food quality, friendliness of staff, cleanliness, available services and daily scheduled events. Pets allowed to live there was a plus.
The food could improve, somewhat. Sometimes the dinners are quite fine. The stew meat, for example, could improve. It should be better geared to the elderly clientele.
It appears that daily exercises take place. So do events which exercise the mind.
I have never been turned down by a staff member. They were always there to assist.
Someone mentioned that clients on wheel chairs crowd the front desk. The nurse in charge at the front desk handles clients who are in greater need of care and assistance this way. No blame there.
If there is any long term negative experience mentioned by anyone, I would report it. So far, I’ve heard of none.
If one goes to YouTube, one can find various videos mentioning Sunrise Assisted Living. If one looks for it, the CEO of the corporation can be seen. Most of the stories are about experiences people have or had with Sunrise. The story goes that the Dutch couple came to the U.S. to open up an opportunity to offer better care for a growing population of elders. It appears to me they have succeeded in doing a fair job of it. In my opinion.

As I read these reviews, it is clear that people who live here have a bad experience, but it’s a nice building, and they hire nice sales people to show you around their clean and newish facility. After watching my family member’s stay here, and talking with many residents, I wholeheartedly agree. Nice tour, superficially nice place, but that’s it.
My advice, after having a relative who lived in Sunrise, and talking with other residents and their families, enjoy the tour, and don’t return. Ask them to stop calling – they will call for years.
My father’s experience here was what I can only characterize as storage.
Very expensive storage.
They have an activities room, and if you fit their schedule and format, you may enjoy it.
There is zero personalized attempt to find what your relative enjoys, or makes them thrive. ZERO.
The food has been described by all residents I’ve spoken with as horrible.
There is ZERO concern on nutrition generally, and no resident-​specific health needs. Here you are in the heart of California, where great produce and food is readily available, spending a lot to live here, but being fed as though you’re in the mess hall.
I’ve seen behind the curtain, spoken with many who lived in Sunrise, including my own relative, and many others, and none say they are happy living there.
During his stay, many families moved their relatives elsewhere, despite the potential upheaval & cost.
And if you’re considering it, please note that you don’t get the community fee back – a free bonus for them if you do move.
This is a corporate company with only one motivation – profit.
I’ve spoken to one woman at their corporate office who I would designate as one of the nastiest people I’ve dealt with on my many years on earth… many of those years spent dealing with the public.
There were several lies told by local management, and one level above them.
My father’s wallet was left on their shuttle to the doctor with a good deal of cash, and of course it was never returned. Money left him on other occasions from his room.
The local locations get some reasonably nice people who come and go, but go they do.
Turnover is high, which would indicate it’s not only a bad place to live, but likely a bad place to work.
The name should be changed to «Sunset senior dying» as the people living in Sunrise are more motivated to die than they would be if they lived somewhere where compassion and care were the top priorities.
Move somewhere where you or your loved ones will be treated with dignity & care, not to here or ANY Sunrise.

I wanted to take a little time and write a review of Sunrise Assisted Living of Sunnyvale. My mom and I were looking at places to put my dad in since my mom could not take care of him anymore. He has Alzheimer’s and her health was going downhill taking care of him.
Priscila was the woman who showed us around the place and she was so nice and friendly. She answered all our questions we had. She was not at all high pressuring us to come stay with Sunrise whatsoever. Most of the other places we saw were high pressure. They would call many times and write e-​mails to bug us to see if we were going to move my dad in. So I would recommend going there to Sunrise and taking a tour. It was a very pleasant experience and everybody I came into contact with was so nice and very helping.
The only negative thing I can say is that the place is pretty expensive. But since this place is in the South Bay, you would have to assume the price would be higher.

For a short-​term respite stay or post hospital recovery, it is fine. If you are moving your loved one in as their new «home», do a little more homework and check out other facilities.
Not a terrible place, but you will have a much better experience at a locally owned assisted living facility than a large corporate one like Sunrise. On the plus side, it is a nice facility, relatively new, sunny, with good food. A few of the staff members are outstanding, particularly the woman that transports residents in their bus to appointments. The negatives — very little real «activities» and low staff to resident ratios (though I’m sure they adhere to legal levels of staffing).
When you enter the facility, there are often 5 – 10 residents sitting in their wheelchairs, napping or watching people come and go, similar to what you might see in a nursing home. The actual activities are very low cost (think reading the paper to the residents or playing a movie). Relatively low staff-​resident ratio, staff turnover is fairly high, staff is pleasant, but most don’t seem to really enjoy their jobs. Services fall through the cracks due to the low staff to resident ratio. In the past 18 months, they have had to lock down the facility twice i.e. confine residents to their rooms and bring them their meals because of an outbreak of something that caused stomach issues for many of the residents.

My cousin lived at the Sunnyvale facility for 3 months until a serious incident occurred and we moved to a new facility. The Administrative Staff at Sunrise would not take responsibility for their negligence or the lack of staff training on how to handle serious situations.
My cousin has Alzheimer’s and we thought this would be a good place for her. Unfortunately she declined rapidly while under their care. I mentioned to staff several alarming issues I saw with her behavior and physical condition and they blew me off each time. There was even a problem with her living conditions and they blew me off as well. The battery backup on her smoke detector went out and was making a constant beeping noise for at least THREE weeks. The staff did nothing about this the first time I mentioned it and when I went back three weeks later, it was STILL beeping. That is enough to drive anyone crazy. I would not leave until they fixed it and even offered to go to Safeway to get a battery. They finally called someone to come and fix it — three weeks after I noticed it was beeping. I would not leave until the problem was corrected.
Out of respect for privacy for my cousin, I do not want to go into detail about the incident that was dangerous and caused us to move her immediately. If the situation would have been appropriately addressed when it happened, a week long hospital stay might have been avoided as well as serious risk to her life. I was hoping the staff at Sunrise would use this as a situation where they could appropriately train their staff on how to handle similar incidents but to my knowledge, they have NOT. In my opinion, this is putting residents there at risk for life threatening injuries.
I did file a complaint with licensing so this can be substantiated. In my opinion, if you have someone with Alzheimer’s you might want to consider a place with more structured activities to keep the resident’s engaged more, has appropriately trained staff who know how to deal with the many issues of Alzheimer’s patients can exhibit, and an Administrative Staff who isn’t too busy to take responsibility for residents needing help through a medical crisis. These are reasons family members make the difficult decision to move loved ones into a facility — good care and to ensure the safety of our loved ones.
There are a few people there who really do care, but for the most part, many of the folks working there are seem to be there for the paycheck only and just do the bare minimum.
As an update, my cousin is thriving in her new environment in Belmont (no it’s NOT Sunrise in Belmont) and has turned around. It’s amazing what the right care can do for someone with this terrible disease.

My mother lived here, she almost died in this place. Luckily we got out before she went insane. My mom had early on set dementia and we thought before it was so elegant looking that the care would be wonderful, wrong. They also said they offered bingo several of times a week and many activities. Not So! When she lived there they barely had but a few bingos and the activities was sticking people in front of a big screen and playing an old movie. The food was so bad, my mother ordered a sandwich for every meal. They kept trying to serve her sweets with lunch and dinner and she was a serious diabetic, her health declined so badly, my sisters and I had to threaten them to let us out of our 3month contract. I remember seeing a ham sitting out in the kitchen and no one in that part of the facility, and now knew later why she also had serious dissentary. She even lived across from the nurses station, but she did not get any assistance and my daughter and I had lunch there one day and both of us had diarrhea. Anyway the BELMONT is a lot better, atleast for the food. Avoid this place like the plague, if you live nearby you will see the ambulance driving in every day.

Had a relative enter this facility due to a chronic, debilitating condition. Initially the relative was resistant to the idea, and agreed to a respite stay (limited, defined time stay).
The initial tour was superb. The person was attentive, but not in the least pushy. I didn’t feel like I was talking to a sales person, and they were very up front with absolutely everything cost wise. The tour person was also very personal without being prying, as far as gleaning information about the situation and what might be helpful for the family to know. We were given different options as far as room types. There doesn’t seem to be a waiting list, but they also don’t seem to have a huge number of rooms vacant at a time. The person who gave this tour was transferred to a different Sunrise facility, but if the rest of the customer service that occurred is any indicator, I wouldn’t expect any less of a tour now.
The respite stay was great. My relative actively said he loved the staff and the food (this was sort of shocking, because we were expecting complaints). Private bathroom, private room. Small sink area and a fridge, with cabinets in that area and small counter space. Some of the rooms are brighter than others. But you can pick which room you’d like, at least of those that are currently vacant.
The entire facility is very clean, and bright. There are homey furnishings and sofas around. There are numerous common spaces for residents to explore, to do puzzles, read, or people watch as my relative liked to do. There’s a piano as well. There are multiple floors, but there are also two elevators available. Big screen tv available for residents to watch in a common area (and play wii on too). There are also rocking chairs on a patio like area out front, and a larger enclosed patio area in the back.
Residents are provided with a call button to wear around their neck, and there are call buttons on the walls in different sections of the room. I would say caregivers respond within 10 minutes every time. They rarely respond immediately. The caregivers do check in regularly on the residents as well, in a fairly non intrusive way… this goes for at night too. My relative really, really liked all of the caregivers. He was a private kind of person prior to entering Sunrise, and I expected him to complain more. But he seemed to enjoy everybody genuinely.
There are activities available like bingo, poker, trivia, news readings, walking clubs, etc. On holidays they have special big lunches which they encourage families to come to as well. Which brings me to another point… it was very easy for friends or family to drop by and visit my relative, and request to have a meal. The extra cost (which was something ridiculously low) would be added to the resident’s monthly payment. The big Christmas buffet was $ 15 per extra person, and regular meals are far less.
There is a community dog (very friendly), and people are encouraged to have their own pets with them. My relative had his pet stay with him regularly.
Customer service here is superb. My relative decided to abruptly end his respite stay (not because of Sunrise), and the facility was extremely accommodating in every way. I’m sure this varies case to case, but they definitely seem to be able to evaluate the situation and make changes as necessary. After another hospital stay, my relative returned to Sunrise, this time until the end of his life. The quality food and care continued during this time. Keep in mind that this is an assisted living facility and NOT a skilled nursing facility. My relative was under hospice care though, so more advanced nursing services and supplies were brought to Sunrise through the hospice agency. The Sunrise caregivers focused more on toileting, getting him to meals, out to social events, and giving meds (that’s an extra charge). Staff seems pretty regular, and our family got to know a number of them, and seemed to help my relative feel a bit more at home.
Also, having family stay in the room with my relative over night was never an issue. In fact, it’s encouraged. Friends and family could visit at any time of the day or night. The day my relative passed away, Sunrise staff continued to be superb. Staff in the halls stopped us to give the family their condolences. Additionally, once more extended family and friends had gathered at Sunrise, they kindly accommodated us and provided breakfast even though it was past breakfast serving time. They also put no pressure on us to clear the room, and encouraged us to take our time (this did happen in the middle of the month and rent was already paid, but it was nice still to not have any pressure).
Sunrise manages to be very professional, while also treating residents and their families like… well…family. This place is not inexpensive by any means, but no assisted living place really is. I would highly recommend the facility and its staff without hesitation.