Pricing ranges from
    $5,822 – 6,986/month
    AnonymousStaff member
    3.0

    Compassionate staff, management needs change

    I love the compassionate, genuinely caring staff - they treated my loved one like family in a spotless, home-like house with homemade meals, pleasant aromas, engaging activities, and hands-on local owners who are accessible. As an employee I saw a darker side: cruel, unfair management with on-call burdens, no raises or evaluations, and even wrongful termination - great resident care, but management needs to change.

    Pricing

    $5,822+/moSemi-privateAssisted Living
    $6,986+/mo1 BedroomAssisted Living

    Schedule a Tour

    Amenities

    Healthcare services

    • Activities of daily living assistance
    • Assistance with bathing
    • Assistance with dressing
    • Assistance with transfers
    • Coordination with health care providers
    • Medication management

    Healthcare staffing

    • 24-hour supervision

    Meals and dining

    • Diabetes diet
    • Meal preparation and service
    • Special dietary restrictions

    Room

    • Cable
    • Fully furnished
    • Housekeeping and linen services
    • Telephone
    • Wifi

    Transportation

    • Transportation arrangement (medical)
    • Transportation to doctors appointments

    Community services

    • Move-in coordination

    Activities

    • Community-sponsored activities
    • Scheduled daily activities

    3.77 · 13 reviews

    Overall rating

    1. 5
    2. 4
    3. 3
    4. 2
    5. 1
    • Care

      5.0
    • Staff

      4.2
    • Meals

      4.5
    • Amenities

      3.8
    • Value

      3.8

    Pros

    • Hands-on, accessible local owners
    • Very clean, spotless facility
    • Clean, beautiful, home-like house and atmosphere
    • Homemade meals (owner's recipes) with pleasant cooking aromas
    • Genuine, heartfelt care and compassion
    • Amazing, experienced, and caring staff
    • Comforting, family-like care
    • Engaging activities
    • Professionalism and staff kindness
    • Resident comfort, happiness, and high level of care
    • Supportive and loving environment
    • Enables residents to remain at home as wished
    • Strong overall recommendation from reviewers

    Cons

    • Reports of wrongful termination and firing without explanation
    • Cruel or harsh management behavior
    • Burdensome on-call scheduling
    • No raises or performance evaluations reported
    • Unfair treatment of staff / employment concerns

    Summary review

    Overall sentiment across the reviews is strongly positive about the care environment, staff, facilities, and dining — with a small but significant set of employee-related management complaints that stand in contrast to the otherwise enthusiastic praise.

    Care quality and staff: The dominant theme is consistently high-quality, compassionate care. Multiple reviewers emphasize that caregivers are experienced, genuine, and treat residents like family, providing comforting and loving support. Phrases like "care like family," "genuine caregivers," and "high level care" are repeated, and reviewers credit the staff with enabling residents to remain at home as they wished. Professionalism, kindness, and resident happiness are mentioned explicitly, and several reviews include strong personal recommendations and superlatives such as "greatest place out there." This suggests a reliable, resident-centered approach to caregiving with a warm, supportive culture at the point of care.

    Facilities, atmosphere, dining, and activities: The physical environment and daily life are also consistently praised. The facility is described as very clean — one review even emphasizes "VERY clean" — and reviewers repeatedly note a home-like, beautiful house atmosphere rather than an institutional feel. Dining receives specific positive mention: homemade meals prepared from the owner's recipes and pleasant aromas of cooking contribute to the homelike experience. Reviewers also note engaging activities that contribute to resident well-being and comfort. Together these elements paint a picture of a small, well-kept residence that prioritizes quality of life through environment, food, and programming.

    Ownership and management: Ownership is portrayed positively in some reviews: local owners are described as hands-on and accessible, and their recipes and presence appear to shape the homelike dining and atmosphere. However, a clear counterpoint emerges in a subset of reviews describing negative employment practices. These reviews allege wrongful termination, firing without explanation, cruel management behavior, burdensome on-call scheduling, and a lack of raises or performance evaluations. Those criticisms are detailed and serious, and they point to potential problems in management or human-resources practices that may affect staff morale and retention.

    Patterns and implications: The reviews show a notable split between frontline caregiving quality and some managerial/HR complaints. Most comments about resident experience, staff interaction, cleanliness, food, and activities are uniformly positive, suggesting that residents and families are highly satisfied with day-to-day care. The negative comments appear to come from staff or former staff perspectives and focus on employment treatment rather than resident care quality. This pattern can imply that, despite excellent resident-facing operations, internal personnel practices may need attention — and if persistent, could eventually affect continuity of care if they lead to turnover.

    Recommendation and considerations: For prospective residents and families, the aggregated reviews indicate a warm, clean, and well-run home with compassionate caregivers, good homemade meals, and engaging activities — overall a strong endorsement for resident quality of life. At the same time, it would be prudent to ask about staff turnover rates, on-call expectations, management structure, and employee support or retention measures during tours or interviews. For applicants or prospective hires, inquire directly about scheduling, evaluation and raise policies, and grievance procedures to get clarity on the employment concerns raised.

    In summary, Heart & Hand appears to deliver excellent resident care in a clean, homelike setting with food and activities that enhance daily life. The primary red flags are employment and management complaints that merit follow-up but do not, based on the reviews provided, override the strong, consistent praise for the resident experience.

    Location

    Map showing location of Heart & Hand

    About Heart & Hand

    Heart & Hand sits on one acre at 499 S Sunset Dr in El Centro, California, and offers assisted living, memory care, hospice care, and respite care for up to six seniors in a cozy residential care home, and the place has rooms that are either private or for companions if you like to share, so you'll find furnished rooms with move-in help and gardens where folks can walk, relax, or enjoy a meal on the covered patios, and caregivers have all the needed background checks, drug tests, and training, with many being Certified Nursing Assistants or experienced home caregivers, plus they're bonded and insured. The community supports people who need help with bathing, dressing, bathroom use, grooming, getting up and about, and even for those who use wheelchairs or are non-ambulatory. There's an emergency alert system, and the facility stays staffed 24 hours a day with people to help with daily needs, medication, transfers, and incontinence care, and there are meal services with diet changes for conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes. Heart & Hand provides skilled nursing services, regular transportation for doctor's visits, religious services, and trips to shopping, while entertainment like movie nights, music therapy, pet therapy, gaming, and creative programs help keep everyone active, with a reading room, game rooms, a dining area, garden spaces, wellness space or hot tub, and spots for social events and community programs like walking paths or social nights. You'll see a barber or beauty shop within the building, mobile barber and hairdresser services, and weekly housekeeping, with every resident getting access to things like Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram features for communication and updates, with special names for some programs or spaces. Heart & Hand stands as a non-medical facility, but works closely with healthcare providers and families, and it focuses on comfort and care for those who need assisted living, memory care, hospice, respite, or just help with daily tasks, keeping a home-like feel and community connections strong, as shown by its consistent 4.2 score over a handful of reviews.

    People often ask...

    State of California Inspection Reports

    5

    Inspections

    0

    Type A Citations

    0

    Type B Citations

    5

    Years of reports

    28 Feb 2024
    Found residents were comfortable and well cared for, with adequate staff on duty to meet needs, and all required records and safety measures were in order.
    28 Feb 2024
    Confirmed compliance with licensing requirements in a facility serving elderly non-ambulatory residents. Residents were well cared for, with proper living conditions and access to necessary services.
    21 Mar 2022
    Found unannounced 1-year visit conducted; file reviewed prior; met with administrator; all staff present had current criminal record clearances. Observed inside and outside, residents in care, and infection control measures including disinfection, testing surveillance, screening protocols, and PPE; no deficiencies cited or observed.
    21 Mar 2022
    Conducted an unannounced visit and observed no deficiencies during the inspection.
    07 Jul 2020
    Discussed positive cases, COVID-19 procedures, and personal protective equipment during Tele-Conference. No deficiencies cited.

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