Overall impression: The reviews present a sharply mixed picture of Bonaventure of Gresham. Many families and residents praise the physical campus — a clean, new and attractive building with spacious, well-lit apartments, balconies/full kitchens in some units, and a wide variety of common-area amenities such as a theater, library, cafe, game area, beauty parlor and fitness spaces. The community offers an active social calendar and frequent outings, and multiple reviews singled out particular staff for exceptional service and compassion (examples include named caregivers and administrators). When things are running well the facility can feel warm, community-oriented, and well-appointed.
Care quality and nursing coverage: There is a major and recurring divide in experiences around clinical care. Numerous reviews describe excellent, compassionate aides and care coordinators who go “the extra mile” and make families feel secure. Conversely, many reviews raise serious clinical concerns: no dedicated RN or lack of full-time nursing coverage, medication errors (meds not given, wrong dosages, delays in refills), missed vital checks and late/absent medication delivery. Several reviews describe incidents where falls were not properly evaluated by a nurse, failure to notify family, or other lapses in clinical follow-up. The pattern suggests that while front-line caregivers can be very good, the clinical oversight and licensed nursing presence is inconsistent and frequently inadequate.
Staffing, training and culture: Staffing shortages and high turnover are a pervasive theme. Families report understaffing that leads to long call-button response times, delayed assistance (including lack of two-person assists), and reliance on untrained or minimally trained workers. Some reviews allege staff were put to work before adequate training, and a subset allege poor hiring practices or insufficient background checks. At the same time, many reviews praise individual staff members and note that having consistent faces matters — when turnover is low, the resident experience is often very positive. There are also repeated comments that corporate-level support, pay and training may be insufficient, contributing to the operational problems.
Dining and kitchen service: Food emerges as one of the most polarized topics. Several reviewers describe gourmet, delicious meals and a strong dining experience; however, a larger number report persistent dining issues: cold lunches/dinners, heavy menus with gravies and few lighter/low-sodium options, long waits for service, dirty dishes/coffee cups, removal of salad/soup bars, and mealtime staffing problems (high-school-aged servers noted). Reviews mention decline after staffing or chef changes, and room-service or special-diet needs sometimes not being met. The inconsistency suggests dining quality varies over time and depends heavily on kitchen leadership and staffing levels.
Facilities, maintenance and operations: Physically the building is generally praised for design, cleanliness and amenities, but maintenance responsiveness and operational reliability are inconsistent. There are multiple isolated reports of broken or poorly maintained items (closet doors, elevator downtime, broken coffee maker, delayed rail replacement) and delays in repairs. Some reviews also describe issues with apartment move-in (movers delayed) and early-phase problems for a brand-new facility. Where maintenance staffing is limited, small issues appear to linger and influence overall impressions.
Memory care and safety concerns: Memory care experiences are particularly mixed and in some instances troubling. While some reviews describe supportive memory care programming and kind staff, others allege neglect, poor supervision, mismanagement, overmedication and even abuse. Multiple reviews explicitly warn about substandard conditions in memory care, including allegations of mishandled serious situations, lack of outreach during hospitalizations, and claims that directors were not responsive or even problematic. These are serious red flags and represent one of the most significant negative threads in the reviews.
Management, corporate support and administration: Opinions about management vary widely. Several reviewers praise specific managers and directors for responsiveness, compassion and effectiveness. However, many other reviews accuse management and corporate leadership of poor communication, broken promises (on staffing, amenities, refunds), billing errors, unexplained rent increases, and profit-driven decision-making that undercuts care. There are also reports of unprofessional or alarming conduct (examples include a claim about an executive officer behaving unprofessionally in public). The result is a reputation that depends heavily on the particular leadership team in place at a given time.
Safety, incident response and operational reliability: Recurring operational concerns include slow or nonfunctional call buttons, delayed response to emergencies or falls, lack of after-hours contact, and failures in COVID testing early in the pandemic. Combined with reported medication mistakes and staffing gaps, these operational failures are meaningful safety concerns for prospective residents, especially those with higher medical needs or in memory care.
Patterns and variability: A major theme across reviews is inconsistency. Many families describe exemplary, compassionate care and an excellent environment; others recount neglect, clinical lapses and administrative chaos. Several reviewers note that early months after opening or during staff turnover were especially problematic, and that changes in leadership (new executive director, new chef, new assisted living director) have sometimes led to measurable improvements. This suggests the experience at Bonaventure of Gresham may be highly dependent on current staffing levels, the presence of licensed nursing, kitchen leadership, and corporate support at the time of residency.
Bottom line: Parents, families and residents will likely encounter widely divergent experiences. Strengths include an attractive new campus, abundant amenities, an active activities program, and many caring front-line aides and staff who are deeply appreciated by families. However, the volume and seriousness of complaints about understaffing, nursing coverage gaps, medication errors, inconsistent dining, maintenance delays, memory-care concerns and management failings cannot be ignored. Prospective families should conduct thorough, targeted due diligence: ask for current staffing ratios and turnover rates, verify RN coverage and medication management protocols, get recent state survey/citation history, inquire about dining leadership and special-diet accommodations, request references from current families (including memory care families if relevant), and confirm billing/lease policies in writing. These steps will help determine whether the facility’s present operating reality aligns with the positive anecdotes or the more troubling reports contained in these reviews.
