La Vita Bella

September 2021

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dottie mikel

I highly recommend

January 2021

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Ashley Pyle

My grandma lived here for many years, before she moved back at home with family. She was cared for with the greatest care and talked fondly about the staffing until she lost her memory completely.

March 2020

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Steve Montgomery

Great place! They all treat my mother like family!!! Highly recommend!!!

March 2020

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cynthia rodriguez

Great place! With my job I am constantly going in and out of nursing homes. I can honestly say, this is one I enjoying waking into. Staff has been there for years, great homemade food, always clean, (no urine smell), residents happy. I have stopped by announced and unannounced. You have to ring door bell to get in, not just walk in. As far as the flood, I know first hand, that yes they knew storm was approaching, however they were told by local authorities they were safe. I saw pictures on Facebook and had horrible thoughts and found out it was in my area. Once I visited and got the real story I understood. We should all go visit our elderly, a simple smile or hello would make there day!

July 2019

Google

Chris Simmons

My mother has been in the care of La Vita Bella for several years now starting April of 2016. I cannot express my appreciation for the excellent care she has received from them. They are very patient and kind. Always have a good attendant to resident ratio. And, I truly feel they love her. We (her family) all agree that it was great fortune for her to be a resident at La Vita Bella. I read some of the other reviews posted about what happened when Dickinson was flooded during hurricane Harvey. My mother was there when it happened. I believe La Vita Bella did everything in their power to provide for their residents. This was an extraordinary event. And, they were doing what they had been advised by Houston's mayor and local news agencies to "shelter and stay in place". The water rose at an unprecedented rate. I believe La Vita Bella, in those early hours of the night, were faced with something few, if any were trained to handle. All residents were ultimately relocated to safety. And, I'm sure from that experience, La Vita Bella is prepared for any future events of similar scale. It is easy to second guess things after they are over.

February 2019

Google

Tracey Overton

I cannot imagine rating an assisted living facility more highly than La Vita Bella. This is one large home where residents are truly known and cared for as family. The home itself is spotless and the staff is amazing. I only wish I had brought my mother there sooner. Finding La Vita Bella was nothing short of an answer to my prayers.

March 2018

Google

Squee Dow

I spent time as a resident in this facility when I was temporarily incapacitated. I closely observed how the facility was run and can attest to the caring, attentive and compassionate way the staff tends to the residents. There is NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH that I believe the staff was negligent, lazy, irresponsible or uncompassionate when they didn't evacuate the home. Perhaps if there had been a clairvoyant among the employees, a different decision would have been made about whether to shelter in place or evacuate. I am very well acquainted with the lay of the land. No one, I mean NO ONE believed there could be such an unfathomable deluge or that it would essentially stall over Dickinson. Places that never even came close to flooding in previous decades were completely inundated with water due to an astonishing amount of rain that fell within a short period of time. If you had been watching a real-time radar map, you would have seen where the rain moved across the screen and then stalled and stalled and stalled. We were watching because we expected to be next, but it never really came ---- the bad rain, that is. We were glad it stopped but had no idea it was creating such havoc in those areas where it stalled. All of you who have already tried and convicted the owner and the fine employees of LVB are sorely mistaken. I have no vested interest in this matter except for the truth. I have no relationship with anyone there, and it's been years since I've had contact with any of them. All I know is that they absolutely do not deserve this cruel piling on by people who really don't know how that storm unfolded in the various areas of the Texas Gulf Coast. I have family members who had to be rescued from a home that has never even come close to flooding in the 84 years of its existence. They were about a mile (give or take) from this facility. They're still in disbelief regarding the surprising nature of the storm, and fully and completely defend the owner's/staff's decision to shelter in place. I would not hesitate to place a loved one there or even myself if I were again incapacitated in some way. BTW, and I've read this elsewhere, why didn't the families of these residents come get their loved ones? Did the families evacuate? If you were going to evacuate or if you believed your home was high enough and sturdy enough to withstand Harvey, why wouldn't you come retrieve your family member rather than leave it to the staff to do that for you? Remember, you would only have one person to transport from LVB to the place where you were going to spend the storm. LVB probably had a couple of dozen (just an estimate on my part). Plus, they needed to secure their own homes. The logistics to work against the timeline of this storm would have been herculean, especially considering what was known at any given time in the lifetime of Harvey. From Wikipedia: "...Upon entering the Caribbean Sea, Harvey began to weaken due to moderate wind shear and degenerated into a tropical wave north of Colombia early on August 19. The remnants were monitored for regeneration as it continued west-northwestward across the Caribbean and the Yucatan Peninsula, before redeveloping over the Bay of Campeche on August 23. Harvey then began to rapidly intensify on August 24, regaining tropical storm status and becoming a hurricane later that day. While the storm moved generally northwest, Harvey's intensification phase stalled slightly overnight from August 2425; however, Harvey soon resumed strengthening and quickly became a major hurricane and attained Category 4 intensity later that day. Hours later, Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, at peak intensity. Afterwards, rapid weakening ensued, and Harvey had downgraded to a tropical storm as it stalled near the coastline of the state, dropping torrential and unprecedented amounts of rainfall over the Lone Star state. On August 28, it emerged back over the Gulf of Mexico, strengthening slightly before making a third and final landfall in Louisiana on August 29..."

October 2017

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Maria Maria

October 2017

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Elsah Cort

Regarding the photo of the residents sitting in the flood waters of Harvey: This was an assisted living home, which means it is in a normal residential structure. There are thousands of these kinds of assisted living places. People get a license to take care of people in their homes. This is very different from a nursing home, which is the common name for a skilled nursing facility. As a home health nurse, I visited many people in small facilities like this.The owner was a woman who was told not to evacuate her neighborhood. She probably had no place to take her residents and no w/c accessible transport to move them quickly. People are reporting the flooding came in very fast. The structure was is single story home (see the google earth photo), so there was no higher ground to go to. The photo that went viral was taken by the owner's daughter and shared on social media (twitter first I think) to get help for these people. I know the owner must have called 911 when the water was coming in and did not get timely help. The bottles of water on the table were there to have something for the residents to drink while they were waiting to be rescued. People have been responding with hate and toxic judgment about this photo all over the internet. It is not kind to do this when the whole story of what happened is not known. I have not been to this facility but I am giving it 5 stars for dealing with a very difficult situation and for hope that they will be able to recover from this unprecedented storm event and return to caring for people in need.

September 2017

Google

Annie Grossmann

This is what I know from personal experience. My mother stayed here until she passed in September of 2016. The staff are trained to give personal attention to every resident. The residents are watched like a hawk to make sure they don't gone off on their own; they know where everyone is. They encourage them to take part in socializing and make sure everyone eats together. They are observant of everyone's needs. Not once did I walk in smelling urine. They were taken to the bathroom whenever needed. Those ladies work so hard and love the ladies so much. The owner expects no less and knows all the residents there. They kept me informed with what was going on with mom, showed me pictures of her when she was active and asleep, and always answered my calls quickly.

August 2017

Google

Lee Rutter

Communicating saves lives... During Hurricane Harvey, the nursing home began taking water and went from ankle deep to stomach deep in just a short time. Either the owner, director or an employee snapped a picture and asked someone in Florida to get the picture and word out that the residents need to be evacuated and that is what helped to save these peoples' lives as well as provide them with the right shelter and comfort. They needed help and they reached out and they got it. Their business is destroyed, but they will rebuild and this would be a place to retire into. Someone who cares so much that they would reach out immediately to get their residents help. They didn't have to, but they did. They did the right thing.

March 2017

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Ruby Kovar

Were the cats rescued that were seen in the hurricane Harvey flood from the flood waters along with the residents @ La Vita Bella? There was a black & white cat seen in the horrific flood photo of the residents emerged in the water.

January 2017

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Zes

Jewell Ashley et al. wrong, idts. no such thing as d or not, do/can do anyx, ts not good or bad

November 2016

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Rich Germann

I will admit this doesn't look good, but don't be so quick to ruin these people.. Their reviews prior to this weren't that bad.. This doesn't look a full blown 100+ bed nursing home with super-deep pockets.. if you look it up, it's kinda just regular people.. "La Vita Bella is in a home that has been converted by a nurse and has her mother there." Sounds like it's probably better and more personal care than one of those big prison-like facilities.. and it doesn't look like the place is prone to flooding on Google Street View either.. For what it's worth, here's an excerpt from an article saying Houston could have almost 50 inches of rain "Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said he has no regrets about not calling for an evacuation of Houston residents ahead of Tropical Storm Harvey. Turner reiterated at a Sunday night news conference that the best course of action was for residents in Houston and surrounding areas to stay in place. Factors in his decision included not knowing where Harvey, when it was still a hurricane, was headed and the "crazy" logistics of trying to plan an evacuation of 2.3 million people within a couple of days. Turner also cited the experience the city had when residents evacuated ahead of Hurricane Rita in 2005 and gridlocked local roadways, leaving many people in traffic for more than 20 hours as they fled the city and resulting in dozens of deaths. Rita had been predicted to hit Houston but ended up making landfall well east of the city." Now, who wants to be stuck in a bus, if you could find one, on the interstate during a hurricane for more than 20 hours with elderly people in the rain and possibly heat? In a flash flood... ? Dickinson is basically the Houston Metro area.. People died from the 2005 evacuation.. Dozens (.. says the article.. ) When you get 50 inches of rain, where is safe? If something happened to them in transit, we'd be giving them lousy reviews because they didn't stay in place. It's easy to judge from New Jersey and elsewhere..