Overall sentiment across the reviews is mixed and polarized: multiple reviewers praise the staff, administrator, and the small, home-like feel of Homestead Nursing & Rehab (Itasca), while other reviewers make serious allegations of neglect, poor hygiene, medication errors, financial mismanagement, and mistreatment. The most consistent positive themes are personal — caring caregivers, an engaged administrator, home-style meals, and residents who appear comfortable and active. However, these positive impressions coexist with troubling and specific complaints from other reviewers that raise patient-safety and regulatory concerns.
Care quality and clinical management: Reviews reflect two very different experiences. Several reviewers describe compassionate, hands-on caregiving and report that residents are well-attended and comfortable. Contrastingly, other reviewers allege neglectful or unfeeling behavior by staff, medication mismanagement, and failure to share critical medical information with families. There are specific, serious allegations that medication errors occurred and that staff did not keep families informed of medical issues. Those latter complaints include mention of Adult Protective Services involvement, which signals that at least some complaints went beyond informal dissatisfaction.
Hygiene, infection control, and COVID: Hygiene and infection-control concerns appear repeatedly in the negative reviews. Comments alleging strong odors and extreme lapses (for example, reports of feces on nails) indicate perceived failures in basic care and cleanliness. Several reviews mention COVID-19 problems; one reviewer specifically links a resident death to COVID. At the same time, other reviews note that COVID-19 safety measures were in place. This juxtaposition suggests inconsistent infection-control practices or differing perceptions among families and observers.
Dining and special-diet accommodations: Dining is described positively by some reviewers as home-style and comforting. However, there are serious, specific complaints about how dietary restrictions and medical feeding needs are handled. One reviewer reported that a resident with an esophageal condition was relegated to puréed meals that were inappropriate, implying poor individualized dietary care and insufficient clinical oversight of swallowing risks.
Administration, billing, and facility condition: Administration receives conflicting remarks — some reviewers praise a loving, involved administrator and supportive leadership, while others label administration as unhelpful and even accuse the facility of financial mismanagement, including charging for lost dentures. These contrasting accounts point to inconsistency in administrative responsiveness and trustworthiness. Facility condition is described as small and home-like by some, but also drab, aged, and suffering from plumbing issues by others, indicating maintenance and capital-improvement needs in areas.
Allegations, regulatory action, and credibility: Several reviewers make severe allegations — mistreatment, plans to pursue legal action, calls for state or health-official investigations, and references to prior incidents at other facilities. These are serious claims but are presented as reviewer assertions; some reviews reference APS involvement and formal complaints, which, if accurate, are indicators that concerns reached official channels. At the same time, the presence of vague and promotional-sounding reviews (short praise with few specifics) means the overall dataset includes both detailed negative narratives and terse positive endorsements, complicating an assessment based solely on these summaries.
Pattern and recommendation for prospective families: The pattern that emerges is of a facility that can provide warm, hands-on care for some residents but also shows reports of inconsistent practices and several high-severity concerns from other families. The most frequent and consequential negative themes are lapses in hygiene and infection control, medication and dietary-management problems, and administrative or financial trust issues. Prospective residents and families should weigh both the positive personal accounts of caring staff and the specific negative allegations. It would be prudent to review the facility’s recent inspection reports and complaint history, ask for documentation of medication and dietary protocols, request to meet direct-care staff and the administrator, and clarify billing and lost-item policies before making placement decisions.
