Jessica Solomon
Care, legal and financial clarity for Santa Barbara families
More than 20 years in senior care, most of them marketing for a professionally led home care company, and founder of Next Best Home in 2020. She is not a placement agency, and the job is not to steer a family into a building. The job is clarity where care, legal and financial questions meet: what care is actually needed, what it costs at local rates, what has to be decided first, and who to talk to about the rest, next steps included. Every family's circumstances are different. The goal is understanding the options before anyone makes a care, housing or financial decision on a guess.
Reply within 2 to 24 hours. Please text for a more immediate response.
Credentials, on the record
In senior care since
2004
Founded Next Best Home
2020
Real estate license
CA DRE #01972520
Brokerage
Celerity Real Estate (DRE #01965367)
Who she connects you to
Years of introductions, not a call list. She has spent most of her career in the senior care system here, so when a family needs a person she usually knows who does that work well and who to skip.
Care and placement
- Senior care advisors
- Placement advisors
- Assisted living and memory care
- Home care
- Home health
- Skilled nursing
- Move managers
Legal and fiduciary
- Estate planners
- Elder law attorneys
- Professional fiduciaries
Money
- Financial advisors
- Financing advisors
- Direct lenders
- Mortgage lenders
- Tax accountants
Founder
Jessica Solomon
Real Estate Professional | Senior Care Consultant | Family Resource Strategist
After more than 20 years working with older adults and their families, Jessica has seen firsthand how dramatically the aging landscape has changed. Families today are facing longer life expectancies, rising care costs, housing challenges, caregiver burnout, and a senior care system that can feel fragmented and overwhelming. At the same time, the demand for services continues to grow while quality resources, housing options, and experienced professionals become increasingly difficult to find and access.
One thing Jessica knows for certain: families have more options when they start planning before they are in crisis. She encourages families to get a crash course in what is available, ask questions early, and surround themselves with trusted advisors who can help them understand the bigger picture. The reality is that care decisions, housing decisions, legal considerations, family dynamics, real estate, and affordability concerns are often deeply connected. The sooner families understand how these pieces fit together, the better prepared they are to make informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes during one of the most important transitions they will ever face.
More on how she works with families, and how she is paid: the money model, in plain language.
What she is actually asked to do
Working out the real number first
What assisted living, memory care and home care cost in Santa Barbara at local rates, from the 48 communities surveyed every month, before anyone tours a building.
Compiling the data the system runs on
She runs the monthly survey herself and publishes it free. 22 of 48 licensed communities reported an open bed in November 2026, including the ones that charge the most and the ones a referral company would rather not mention.
Clarity at the intersection of care, legal and money
Most calls arrive with three questions tangled together: what care, what it costs, and who has to be involved. She separates them, names the one that has to be decided first, and takes no fee from a community, so the attorney, fiduciary, lender or care provider she sends a family to is not whoever pays for referrals.
Where most families go next
- 1. Get the real cost number for the care you are actually considering.
- 2. See who has a bed this month before anyone tours a building.
- 3. Work out what pays for it and which money gets spent first.
The local picture
48
Licensed assisted living and memory care communities surveyed every month
22
Reported an open bed in November 2026
$7,000
Typical assisted living rate a month here, memory care around $9,000
Availability moves faster than any directory listing, so each community in the survey carries the date it last updated its own numbers. Read the current month on who has vacancies in Santa Barbara, and how the survey is collected on what our directory covers.
One person to call
Jessica Solomon answers the line herself, usually within 2 to 24 hours, and a text gets the faster reply. The first call and the cost numbers cost nothing, and no community pays us for the introduction.