Assisted living in California

9,369 licensed communities · 2,469 have a serious flag on record. Listed alphabetically: California publishes the findings, not a rating, so we do not rank them and we do not invent a score.

What California licenses — and why this total isn’t comparable to another state’s

There is no national definition of “assisted living.” Each state decides what it licenses and what to call it, so a state total counts whatever that state chose to license — state counts on this site are not comparable to each other, and a bigger number does not mean more assisted living. Here that total is:

9,369 Assisted living

7,544 of these (80%) are licensed for 6 beds or fewer — residential homes rather than the apartment-style communities most families picture. They are real licensed care and we list them, but filter by beds if that is not what you are looking for.

Memory care isn’t marked here — because the state doesn’t publish it.

California’s licensing file carries no memory-care or dementia-unit designation, so we cannot tell you which of these communities has one. There certainly are memory-care communities in this state — we just have no authoritative list of them, and we won’t guess from a community’s name. Ask any community directly whether it runs a secured dementia unit, and ask your Long-Term Care Ombudsman ↗ which local communities take dementia residents.

Typical monthly cost in California

$7,000/mo

Assisted living

$8,200/mo

Memory care†our estimate — not surveyed

Median private-pay cost, CareScout (Genworth) 2025 Cost of Care Survey — a regional midpoint, not any single community’s rate. Private rooms and higher care levels cost more; ask for a current quote. Project your own in the cost-of-care planner.

† Memory care is our estimate, not survey data: CareScout does not survey memory care, so we take the assisted-living median for the state and add $1,200/month — the typical secured-dementia-unit premium. It is a planning figure with no state-level detail behind it, and real memory-care pricing varies far more than that. Treat it as a starting point and ask the community for its own memory-care rate.

Estimated cost range · regional

In California, assisted living typically runs about $5,600–$8,400/month.

This is a regional estimate modeled from published survey data (the CareScout/Genworth state median, ±20%) — not this community’s actual price, which it sets privately. Ask the community for its current all-in monthly rate and what each care level adds.

Paying with Medicaid

California Medicaid helps pay for assisted living only in limited circumstances — through a waiver, and not everywhere in the state or for everyone who qualifies.

The California waiver that can pay for it:

Assisted Living Waiver (ALW) — covers assisted living / memory care

California runs a waiting list for this waiver. Qualifying does not mean a place is funded — apply as early as you can, before you need it.

In California: apply or check eligibility ↗ or call 1-800-300-1506.

A waiver pays for care, not for rent. Even where the state covers assisted-living services, room and board is still the resident’s to pay. Full eligibility limits — income, assets, the look-back — are on our California Medicaid page.

One community below is listed under the name on the licence, not the name on the building.

It is marked licence name. A state lists a community under the legal entity that holds its licence — typically a single-purpose company set up for one property — and that community almost certainly operate under a different public name. The state does not publish that name, so we do not have it and will not guess: attaching the wrong community’s inspection record to a familiar brand would be worse than an odd name. If you are looking for a community by its brand and cannot find it here, search by street address instead.