Two markets, and a line down the middle of the city
38 of the 50 records here were listed for six residents or fewer and 11 for twenty five or more, and the two groups sit in different neighborhoods. The houses are east and north, on the postwar single family grid. The larger communities are central and downtown, along the arterial corridors.
The bed figures show why that matters. Those 11 larger records held 1,881 of the 2,127 licensed beds in Long Beach and the 38 houses held 228 between them. A family that wants a quiet house near Los Altos has real choice. A family that wants a large community within walking distance of that same house has almost none, and the honest answer is a short drive toward Atlantic Avenue or one city north into Lakewood.
The share of small homes here, 76 percent of 50 records, also sits below the county's 83 percent. That mix is what lets a family here weigh a house against a building without leaving the city, and the choice between them is worth making deliberately rather than by default.
The middle of the range is nearly empty
The file recorded 1 Long Beach record licensed in the seven to twenty four bed range, holding 18 beds. Across Los Angeles County as a whole, only 34 of 1,648 licensed records sit in that band, so a home of that size is genuinely rare and worth knowing exists.
When it does exist, the middle size can be the best of both. Enough residents for company and a real activity program, few enough that staff know everyone by name. It is worth asking about. It is not worth waiting for, because the band is close to empty across the whole county.
The emptiness is structural. Six is the ceiling for running a license out of an ordinary house with a small staff. Twenty five is the floor for a building that can carry a commercial kitchen, an activity program, and proper shift cover. Between those two points an operator pays business costs on a house sized income, so very few build there.
Hospital discharge, veterans, and the waiver
Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Atlantic Avenue, Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center on Linden Avenue, and the VA Long Beach Healthcare System on East 7th Street are the hospitals inside the city, with Lakewood Regional Medical Center covering the east side from just over the line. A hospital discharge is one of the most common moments a family starts this search at all, and all three of the in city hospitals are central, so that conversation often begins a search that has to travel east or north to reach the small home supply.
The veteran question is worth raising early, and it is easy to raise here, because the VA Long Beach Healthcare System has a campus inside the city. VA Aid and Attendance can be worth a meaningful amount each month toward assisted living for a veteran or a surviving spouse. It takes time to come through, so the application should start on the day the conversation starts rather than after the move.
The Medi-Cal Assisted Living Waiver is the other thing to ask about, and it can change what a family can afford when assisted living looked out of reach entirely. Participation is set facility by facility rather than city by city, and the state licensing file records none of it, so the only way to find out is to ask each home directly. Nobody will raise it for you.
- Ask who is awake overnight and how many residents that person covers.
- Ask what the care level fee is today, what would move it to the next tier, and how much notice you get.
- Ask whether the community participates in the Medi-Cal Assisted Living Waiver, and whether there is a waiting list for a waiver bed.
- Ask what happens if your parent later needs hospice or a two person transfer, and whether that means moving again.
- Read the inspection history on the state record before you sign anything, not after.
What the file records, and where it stops
First license dates in the Long Beach file run from July 1983 to September 2024, and 33 of the 50 records were first licensed on May 2015 or after. A license belongs to the operator rather than the building, so a recent date means a recent operator and nothing more than that.
The 908 ZIP code area holds 1 city name in this file and it is Long Beach, which makes the city look self contained on paper and is not how families here actually search. In the same file, Lakewood carried 12 licensed records, Bellflower 9, Cerritos 21, and Downey 11. Each of those is its own register, and nothing on this page adds them together.
Licensed capacity is a ceiling the state set rather than an occupancy figure, so no row here says whether a home has a bed free this month. Memory care is not a separate California license either, so the file cannot tell you which of these run a secured setting. Those are the two questions we answer by picking up the phone, at no cost to your family, and you are free to call any home on this list yourself instead.
Keep reading
- Assisted living in Long Beach, our advice and placement page
- The Medi-Cal Assisted Living Waiver in Los Angeles County
- VA Aid and Attendance for California veterans
- Licensed care homes in Torrance, the state record
- Every city in Los Angeles County, and what the state file listed in each
- Board and care homes and RCFEs explained
- How to check a California RCFE license yourself
- What an RCFE license lets a home do, and where it stops
- Assisted living in Downey, our advice and placement page
- Senior living costs in Los Angeles and ways to pay
Questions families ask us
- How many licensed care homes are there in Long Beach?
- The state licensing file dated May 25, 2025 listed 50 residential care facilities for the elderly in Long Beach: 38 licensed for six residents or fewer, 1 in the seven to twenty four range, and 11 for twenty five or more. By number of records that is eighth of the 119 city names the file uses across Los Angeles County, below Van Nuys with 51 and above Palmdale with 39. All 50 are named on this page.
- Which part of Long Beach has the small board and care homes?
- The east and the north, almost entirely. Counting only the records licensed for six residents or fewer, the file put 17 in 90815 around Los Altos and Bixby Hill, 11 in 90807 across Bixby Knolls and California Heights, and 8 in 90808 around El Dorado Park. Those are postwar single family neighborhoods, and the houses in them are the shape a six bed license needs. The file put very few downtown, in Alamitos Beach, or along the shore, which surprises families who start their search near the water.
- Where are the larger communities?
- Central and north, along the Atlantic and Magnolia corridors and around downtown. You can see it in the ZIP figures. Counting every licensed record the file put 14 in 90807, but counting only the six bed ones it put 11, and the difference is buildings. The biggest record in the Long Beach file carries a licensed capacity of 300, against a median across the city of 6.
- How much does assisted living in Long Beach cost?
- A six bed board and care home commonly runs about $3,500 to $6,000 a month and a larger community about $4,500 to $8,000 a month, with a secured memory care setting generally adding $1,000 to $2,000. Long Beach spreads across those bands, because it holds both buildings first licensed decades ago and much newer ones. These are typical market ranges rather than prices we set, and no figure here belongs to any home in the table.
- Why is there almost nothing in the table between six beds and twenty five?
- Because the middle band is nearly empty everywhere. The file recorded 1 Long Beach record in the seven to twenty four bed range, and across the whole of Los Angeles County only 34 of the 1,648 licensed records sit in that band. The middle is empty for economic reasons rather than accidental ones. Six residents is the point at which a license can be run out of an ordinary house with a small staff, and twenty five is the point at which a building can carry a commercial kitchen and shift staffing. In between, an operator has the costs of a business and the scale of a house.
- Which hospitals discharge into Long Beach?
- Long Beach Memorial Medical Center on Atlantic Avenue, Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center on Linden Avenue, and the VA Long Beach Healthcare System on East 7th Street. Lakewood Regional Medical Center covers the east side from just over the city line. If your parent is a veteran, mention it early rather than late. VA Aid and Attendance is regularly worth a meaningful amount each month toward assisted living and it is regularly missed.
- How is this page different from your Long Beach placement page?
- This one is the register: the state's own record of what was licensed here, with capacity and license numbers you can verify. The other one is the advisory page, covering how a placement works locally, what the Medi-Cal Assisted Living Waiver involves, and what to ask on a tour. If you want to know what exists, stay here. If you want to know how to choose, read that one.
- Are you one of the communities listed here?
- No. Senior Placement Agency LA is a free placement and referral service for families. We do not own, operate, manage, or inspect any facility on this page, and a listing is a public record rather than a recommendation or an endorsement. You are welcome to contact any of these homes yourself.