My mom (92) lives in an independent living facility in Bakersfield, Ca. She has early onset dementia but is quite independent. She is very ambulatory, showers and dresses on her own, goes to meals and activities and is very social, she takes no medications but because she has a diagnosis of dementia in California they will not allow her to move into Independent living and says she must go to Memory Care. That is not where she belongs and is there anything we can do.
I'm in SoCal and one ALF said they would keep a resident in assisted living as long as possible before moving upstairs to memory care
She may not be eligible for IL any longer but certainly look into assisted living before memory care
I would say read her apartment lease. It should list the grounds for asking someone to leave.
My mom was in a rehab that we chose in part because it had an AL attached. Mom' s vascular dementia, a result of her stroke became obvious and they declined to admit her to their AL. There were other ALs that were happy to evaluate her and accept her as a client.
Where my Dad was living he was in Independent Living and eventually he needed to move over to Assisted Living... now within Assisted Living is a Memory Care floor which is no different than regular Assisted Living except the Staff is trained in how to relate to those residents that have Alzheimer's or Dementia. Dad loved the extra attention he was getting in Memory Care, and that it was cheaper than his Independent Living where he was paying for extra levels of care.
I know I was baffled when the facility called me in saying it was time to move Dad to Memory Care. Any time I had visited Dad apparently he was "showboating" thus I didn't think he needed Memory Care. When I wasn't there, well out would come the dementia. Even his private caregiver had mentioned to me that my Dad was getting more forgetful. I guess we want to think our parent isn't having these problems :(