The library
Every guide, in one place
All free, no signup, and every number sourced from state licensing data or published surveys, with a date stamp on anything that can go stale.
Start here
- How this works, including exactly how a free service gets paid
- Board-and-care vs assisted living: how to actually choose
- Board-and-care homes: the option most families never hear about
Money
- What senior living actually costs on the Westside
- How families actually pay: LTC insurance, VA Aid and Attendance, and the ALW
Tools for the search
- The touring checklist, plus how to read a California inspection record
- Questions to ask on a memory care tour
- Hospital discharge to assisted living: the one-week playbook
Neighborhood guides
Built from California licensing data, refreshed quarterly. Counts as of June 2026.
- Santa Monica (15 licensed facilities, both kinds, coastal premium)
- Mar Vista (board-and-care country: 5 of its 8 facilities are six-bed homes)
- Culver City (the big-community capacity, below coastal prices)
- Palms (the Westside's other small-home hub: 9 facilities, 8 of them homes)
- Westwood and Century City (UCLA-adjacent large communities)
- Marina del Rey, Playa Vista, and Playa del Rey (two big newer communities hold all the supply)
- Brentwood (scarce by design)
- West LA and Sawtelle (a supply desert, and where families actually go)
- Venice (one licensed home, many options nearby)