Overall impression: The reviews for Nazareth Living Center are strongly mixed, with many family members and residents praising staff, amenities, spiritual life and activities but a number of serious, recurring complaints about clinical care, staffing consistency, communication, and building maintenance. Positive reports often focus on the facility’s social, spiritual and rehab strengths — bright common spaces, active programming, daily Mass, helpful admissions staff and strong therapy teams — while the negative reports emphasize episodic but significant lapses in nursing care and responsiveness, particularly evenings and weekends.
Staff and care quality: Staff performance is a recurring and polarized theme. Many reviewers describe staff as friendly, caring, compassionate and professional, with specific praise for nurses and therapists who supported rehab progress and individualized care. Several families noted staff who go "above and beyond," social workers who are empathetic, and Sisters of St. Joseph contributing positively to the community atmosphere. Conversely, multiple reviews document serious failures: long call-light waits (one account of ~3 hours), missed medications, falls where residents lay undiscovered for hours, alleged neglect (residents left in soiled clothes, weight loss, dehydration), reluctance or failure to assess medical needs, and in a few reports, poor handling of urgent events (delayed ambulance response, incomplete EMS paperwork). These negative incidents were frequently tied to evenings, weekends, or perceived understaffing, indicating inconsistency across shifts.
Clinical and nursing issues: While rehabilitation and therapy services receive strong praise (effective PT/OT and good rehab outcomes), skilled nursing and long-term clinical oversight appear uneven. There are specific reports that wound care nurses, nurse practitioners, or attending physicians were not available or did not arrive in critical moments. A number of reviews describe not following medical orders, infections requiring antibiotics after stays, and at least one allegation of a resident’s death linked to care problems. Memory care capability is questioned by some reviewers who felt the facility was not adequately equipped for residents with cognitive impairment. These patterns suggest that while short-term rehab and therapy programs may be robust, longer-term skilled nursing and memory support are areas of concern for some families.
Facilities and amenities: The campus and many facilities are repeatedly praised. Positive points include clean, well-lit, wide halls, attractive landscaping, screened-in deck areas, a theater, chapel, library, computer room, exercise equipment, and a new-building section with an impressive layout. Apartment features such as in-unit washers and dryers, indoor parking/garage access, and snack stations are highlighted. However, several reviewers noted older parts of the buildings where rooms seem outdated — hospital-style rooms, beat-up furniture, holes in walls, missing TV remotes, lack of internet in some rooms, and intermittent unpleasant odors (urine). Parking is called adequate by some but "not very good" by others. Overall, the physical plant appears mixed: well-maintained common areas and grounds, with older or under-updated resident rooms in places.
Dining and activities: Dining and activities are clear strengths in many reviews. Multiple people praised the food (some called it "fabulous"), the variety of meal choices, a points-based meal plan offering lunches/dinners with complimentary breakfast, and social dining experiences. Activities such as bingo (including intergenerational activities with local schools), ice cream socials, aerobics, yoga, and daily Mass are frequently mentioned and appear to contribute significantly to resident satisfaction. Some reviews, however, stated food was only "halfway acceptable" and noted meals left uneaten due to staff not assisting residents who needed help with feeding, again tying back to understaffing concerns.
Management, admissions and billing: Experiences with admissions and management are split. Several reviewers praised admissions staff for helpfulness, financial assistance, and compassionate social workers. Others raised concerns about billing transparency, high charges, no grace period, hurried occupancy processes, and at least one report of rude interactions with housing management. Communication problems from management and inconsistent follow-through on promises were also cited, contributing to a perception by some that the facility can be "business-like" rather than home-like.
Safety, responsiveness and staffing patterns: One of the most important patterns across reviews is inconsistent staffing and responsiveness, often tied to the time of day. Many positive reports reference helpful staff during normal business hours, while many negative reports focus on evenings and weekends when response times, nurse availability, and clinical decision-making appear to deteriorate. Repeated themes include long waits for assistance or bathroom help, short-staffed nurse’s aide shifts, missed medications, and slow or inadequate emergency response. These issues have led to tangible harms in some accounts (falls, untreated pain, infections, dehydration), making this an area of significant concern for prospective residents and families.
Community, spiritual life and social environment: The Catholic identity of the community and the presence of the Sisters of St. Joseph are prominent in many reviews and are a strong draw for some residents who appreciate daily Mass, spiritual support, and the warm, family-oriented culture. For others, that same religious character or the institutional feel of some areas contributed to feelings of isolation or a negative impression. Overall, for families seeking a faith-based environment with active spiritual programming, Nazareth appears attractive to many.
Summary assessment and considerations for families: In summary, Nazareth Living Center offers many strong features — attractive grounds, varied amenities, active spiritual life, robust therapy/rehab services, and numerous social activities — and many reviewers report excellent, compassionate staff and successful care transitions. However, there are repeated, serious complaints about staffing shortages, inconsistent nursing care (particularly off-shift), communication failures, billing transparency, and outdated resident rooms in parts of the campus. These negative reports include concrete safety issues (falls left undiscovered, missed medications, infection) that merit careful attention.
If considering Nazareth, families should tour both the newer and older sections of the campus, speak directly to clinical leadership about night and weekend staffing ratios and response-time policies, ask for recent quality indicators (falls, hospital readmissions, staffing levels), inquire about memory care capabilities and protocols for urgent medical assessments, get a clear, written explanation of all fees and any grace/transition periods, and request references from current families. Balance the strong reports about therapy, spiritual life, activities and caring staff against the documented inconsistencies in skilled nursing and after-hours responsiveness when making a placement decision.
