Marian Oakland

My father currently lives in Marian Oakland. He had just started to lose his mobility, so moving him into a ground-floor community that had a dining room that was going to prepare meals for him three times a day was great. His condition deteriorated, and COVID happened, and they weren't letting anybody come over to the dining room, and they were delivering everybody's meals. When they stopped delivering meals and opened the dining room, my father could no longer transport himself over there safely. They said they'll continue to deliver his meals, but it's going to be $3 every time. Over the past six years, there have been management changes. They start cutting staff and benefits, but they raise the rent. He's paying for meals that he can't eat because he can't go to the dining room, and he doesn't want to pay an extra $3 for every meal every day. They had stopped billing him for the delivery fee, but then they realized it and sent him a mega bill that had all the delivery fees in it. He argued with them, and the manager who was there was just like a puppet for the management. She doesn't care. There's no compassion. Part of the rent includes for somebody to come to his apartment once a week to do light cleaning. They've changed it now to every two weeks, but they haven't reduced the rate. If the housekeeper is sick on the day she comes to your apartment, then you just don't get cleaned for those two weeks. They don't do anything to replace that person or have her come back on another day. They don't compensate you financially. They can't keep a chef because the management is so stingy and awful, so they keep quitting. He also will hear his next-door neighbor yelling all the time, and my dad's solution is just to turn up his TV so he doesn't hear it. His apartment is a decent size. It's like a living/dining area, almost like a studio. The kitchenette is on the far end of the wall. It is just a counter with cabinets. They've got a sink, his microwave, a small fridge underneath the counter, and cabinets. Past that area is where his bedroom and the bathroom are. The kitchenette works well for him the way it is because he can wheel or use his walker to go up just to the straight counter and do what he needs to do. The facility is not rundown. It is fine. The lower-tier employees who help my father are very nice. It's the management and the corporation behind it that make things difficult.