Paying for Care in Montecito

Montecito is zoned, priced and built for large single family homes. No assisted living community appears in our survey inside the village, so a search that starts here has to widen within the first week or accept a different answer.

That different answer is usually care at home. A Montecito house with a guest cottage, a downstairs bedroom and a wide driveway handles a live in caregiver better than most of the housing stock in the county, and many families here keep a parent at home far longer than they expected to.

Home care is billed by the hour, so the math is different from a community rate. Four hours a day and round the clock care are two different budgets, and it helps to know which one you are actually buying before you compare anything.

Santa Barbara starts at the bottom of the hill, and everything licensed in the county is within a short drive. Large campuses with dining rooms and therapy gyms, six bed residential homes on quiet streets, secured memory care, and skilled nursing for the rehab stretch after a hospital stay.

Because the drive is so short, one afternoon covers three tours. Walking into a small home and then a large campus on the same day tells a family more than a month of brochures.

Most Montecito families can cover care, but the money is in the house rather than in the checking account. A sale, a rental, a reverse mortgage and a bridge loan each turn that equity into monthly cash at a different cost, and the right one depends on whether the house stays in the family.

Work that out early. Families who understand their options before the first bill arrives negotiate from a stronger place than families who start the conversation in a hospital discharge meeting.