Stay away from Balfour at Riverfront Park! The once privately owned facility was taken over by a group of investors a few years ago, and the result is a single-minded focus on profits at the expense of people - both residents and staff. EVERYTHING they do at Balfour is about making money: Staff are paid so low and treated so badly that there is a revolving door of staff members. No one stays very long and so there is no continuity of care. They are constantly understaffed, and in the worst cases, important details are overlooked (like when someone needs their medications in assisted living)
But this constant focus on profits shows up in everything at Balfour. Even before the pandemic, they were cutting down on the numbers of activities, concerts, outings , classes, etc....When covid began and they moved classes onto Zoom, they were unwilling to pay for more than one Zoom account ($15/month BTW) so they could not have more than one activity going on at the same time. It used to be that included in your rent were buffet breakfasts every day and another 16 three-course meals per month. But they switched to an ala carte approach so now each resident gets a specific allotment of their rent every month for food, and each item is charged separately. Portion sizes got smaller and smaller as food prices have gone up and up, so the same amount of money goes half as far. But it hardly matters since the quality of the food has become so bad that you wouldn't even want to eat the tiny expensive portion you were given!
One of the reasons why this is so infuriating is that while the quality of the food, services, and amenities has gone way down, the rent continues to go up, 5%, 6%, 7% every year! And keep in mind this increase is on rent amounts that range from $6,000-$10,000 per month already, with an initial non-refundable buy-in of $25,000. (I hear that is going up too)
The terrible executive director, who staff and residents live in fear of, likes to throw parties (at additional expense to residents!) instead of thinking carefully about what an elderly population might really enjoy doing. Throwing a valentine's day ball for a population many of whom have lost their spouses seems unnecessarily cruel. And having a party to honor Marie Antoinette (why exactly?) for no other reason, it seems, than making her staff all dress in period costume (who paid for those?) seems odd and inappropriate. That particular event was wildly under attended (I can't imagine why?).
Recently they scheduled a series of Mystery Dinners, which might be enjoyable except that they are charging their already overcharged residents extra for them. and serving the same awful food they serve every other night.
With people moving out weekly and no one new moving in, I believe that Balfour at Riverfront Park , in its prime downtown location, will soon be sold by its greedy investors and made into a hotel or downtown condos. Everything surrounding the facility is lovely, it's what's on the inside that is awful and only getting worse read more
