Home Care In Belmont, LA

Belmont Village Senior Living La Jolla unveiled its new permanent photography installation, the ‘Lasting Love Gallery,’ on Thursday, Nov. 30. The gallery showcased photos of nine couples who reside in the community.

As the unveiling began, residents gathered to enjoy the photos. The once-empty lounge turned into a lively banquet hall in an instant. San Diego Community Newspaper Group (SDCNG) talked with two couples featured on the wall.

Marilyn and Edward Rauser have been together for almost 50 years, and Selma Lee and Amnon Ben-Yehuda for over 70 years. SDCNG asked them to share their love story and how they have managed their relationship healthily for this long.

“It was love at first sight,” said Edward Rauser.

Marilyn and Edward Rauser vividly remember their first meeting. They first met at a ‘Parents Without Partners’ meeting. Edward Rauser was one of the co-hosts of the meeting, and when he answered the door for Marilyn Rauser, he thought, “Oh my god, she’s here. I’ve been going to all these different meetings, and I finally met the one that I wanted.”

Since she was a new member, she didn’t talk much other than to Edward Rauser, and that was the beginning of their connection.

However, they couldn’t see each other for another two months after the first meeting because there were other men after Marilyn Rauser. Edward Rauser didn’t give up and kept trying to call to arrange another date with her. “He was persistent about it, and I’m glad he was,” said Marilyn Rauser. Finally, they could make their relationship exclusive without interference from other men.

They dated for a couple of years and got married in California. Marilyn Rauser had a daughter, and Edward Rauser had a son. Their son was a pre-teen at that time, so they were worried about whether he would find it difficult to accept a new mother. “About the third day, he came home and said, ‘Mom, I’m going running,’ and I gave him a big hug, and from then on, I’ve been mom,” said Marilyn Rauser with a big smile on her face.

Selma Lee and Amnon Ben-Yehuda met at the Hillel club while they were in college.

“Selma used to lead an Israeli folk dancing group, and I was creating the music. She had an assignment to go from Berkeley to Sacramento on a certain weekend to lead the group over there, and she needed the music. She called me, and I said, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ That was our first week together,” Ben-Yehuda recalled the memory of their first date.

They got married just after the end of junior year. “In those days, you didn’t just move in like you do today. We were in deep love, and we knew we wanted to live together and build our lives together. We said ‘Let’s get married,’” noted Ben-Yehuda.

He got into the car and drove straight to Los Angeles after his last exam, and that was the springboard of their 72-year marriage.

Maintaining a happy relationship, unlike the fairy tales with perpetually blissful princes and princesses, is no easy feat for two people who may be vastly different. SDCNG sought insights from two couples on the key to the longevity of their connections.

“Commitment. It is such an important aspect because as we travel through life, there are challenges, and we are two different individuals, and we don’t always necessarily are in total sync,” said Ben-Yehuda. “And never keep a secret because that is going to eat you up for the rest of your life. It will cause stress and it could shorten your life.”

“Try to work out your compromises with equally taking care of things. You don’t want to have arguments over stuff you won’t even remember what you were arguing about,” noted Edward Rauser.

In Belmont Village, loves that blossomed decades ago still bloom in full, refusing to wither away.

APPLETON − "The Music City" will be the basketball home for Emily La Chapell for the next few years.

La Chapell committed to Belmont University in Nashville on Thursday after recently entering the transfer portal following a solid freshman campaign at Marquette. The 5-foot-11 guard averaged 5.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 32 games for the Golden Eagles, including 20 starts. She made the Big East all-freshman team and was the Big East freshman of the week on two occasions.

Belmont was 23-12 last season and was 17-3 in the Missouri Valley Conference. The Bruins finished as MVC co-champs with Illinois State in their first season competing in the league. Belmont is one of the top mid-majors in the nation, having won five Ohio Valley Conference titles during a six-year span from 2016 to 2022 prior to its inaugural season in the MVC.

La Chapell's familiarity with Belmont head coach Bart Brooks and the rest of the Bruins staff played a big role in her decision.

"Coach Brooks and his staff recruited me during my initial recruitment in high school and were one of my final choices when making my decision at the time," La Chapell said. "Due to COVID protocols, I was never able to visit them − or other schools − so I never got a true picture of what they had to offer. Meeting with their staff and support teams, I was really impressed with their commitment to student-athletes."

The timetable was unexpectedly accelerated, according to La Chapell.

"I did not anticipate committing this early to a program and planned on visiting several other schools," she said. "We had a short window to decide, because I wanted to commit to a new program before the 'Summer II' session."

She added that the coaching staff has yet to decide whether she will redshirt or ask for a waiver to play this season.

"Either way, there is a plan moving forward," she said. "The extra year will allow for some extra opportunities academically, which will be nice too. "

La Chapell was an Associated Press all-state first-team pick her junior and senior years. She had a banner career at Appleton East, finishing with 1,885 points and a trip to the WIAA Division 1 state title game her senior season. She was the named the Fox Valley Association co-player of the year her senior season after averaging 20.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.8 steals.

"I am grateful for the opportunity and would like to thank all the schools that contacted me," she said. "They were all great and very professional and patient with my process. It's not an easy thing to do, to be honest, so the schools' patience and understanding was greatly appreciated by both myself and family."

A year ago, Angelica Belmont’s life felt chaotic.

She often got called in to cover afternoon shifts at a Los Angeles CVS with just a few hours’ notice. She frequently had to close the store at 10 p.m. and open at 6 a.m. the next day.

Her irregular work schedule interfered with her sleep and often left her scrambling to find someone to pick up her three kids from school.

Since last April, she and her family have had more stability, thanks to a new city law requiring that large retailers provide employees with their schedules at least two weeks in advance. L.A.’s Fair Work Week ordinance says any changes within that 14-day window must come with so-called predictability pay. Businesses must also give employees at least 10 hours of rest between shifts or provide extra pay for that work.

These days, Belmont knows her schedule three weeks ahead. For a change with less than two weeks notice, she earns an extra hour of pay at her regular rate of $18.78. If she agrees to work back-to-back shifts, she earns time and a half for the second shift.

She and her partner now coordinate school pickups, and she makes appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday, her days off.

“I need to have a set schedule for my kids — it’s just important,” said Belmont, 35. “I just like the stability that this has brought to my life.”

CVS strives “to ensure our employees have ample notice and predictability to their work schedules,” company spokesperson Matt Blanchette said in a written statement.

Employees in lower-wage industries are increasingly at the mercy of scheduling algorithms designed to maximize efficiency and minimize labor costs. When staffing doesn’t match expected customer demand, workers might be called in at the last minute or sent home early.

Workers are forced to bend their lives around their shifts, patching in child care, school, medical appointments and time with family. Unpredictable work schedules lead to unstable incomes, as well as poor sleep and psychological distress, researchers at the Shift Project, an initiative from Harvard University and UC San Francisco focused on service-sector workers, have found.

L.A. is among several cities nationwide, including Seattle, New York and Chicago, that have adopted scheduling laws — part of a growing recognition that schedules are as important to well-being as living wages and sick pay.

Of the more than 147,000 retail workers in L.A., more than three-fourths were people of color and nearly two-thirds earned low wages, according to a report from the UCLA Labor Center and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which drew on census data from 2016.

Under the L.A. law, which applies to retail chains with more than 300 employees globally, an employee must notify their employer of any violations. If the employer doesn’t correct the alleged violation within 15 days, the employee can file a complaint with the city’s Office of Wage Standards.

An employer who is found to have violated the law must pay the employee a one-time penalty of up to $500 for each violation. It must also pay the city up to $50 each day that predictability pay was unlawfully withheld.

The city started enforcing the law in October after a six-month education period. The city is investigating two reports related to the law and looking into three others to see if further investigation is required, according to Oliver Hall, a spokesperson with the Department of Public Works.

“Workers know that they have a recourse, and it provides employers with a standard that they can adhere to,” said L.A. City Councilmember Curren Price, who proposed the law. “This has been a real important step to just making sure that everybody is treated fairly and equally, and that those that are providing services that we all benefit from are treated fairly.”

Anecdotally, compliance with the city’s law appears to be mixed at this point, said Amardeep Gill, director of the grocery and retail campaign for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which pushed for the ordinance.

“Any policy as big as this … it takes some time,” she said, comparing the policy implementation to that of minimum wage hikes.

Gill’s team has fanned out to shopping centers to speak with retail workers — especially those who aren’t in a union. They’ve heard that some employers are complying with the law. Others aren’t informing workers of the predictability pay provision and, she said, are “doing everything in their power not to comply.”

The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Los Angeles County Business Federation, the California Retailers Assn. and the California Grocers Assn. did not provide comment for this story.

Some businesses say they need the ability to adjust staffing, such as for unanticipated sporting events or bad weather, said Kristen Harknett, a UC San Francisco sociology professor who studies working conditions for hourly employees in the service sector.

But the laws don’t “limit employers from calling people in at the last minute,” Harknett said. “It’s just you have to pay them a little extra when you do.”

And there is at least one clear benefit for employers, said Harknett, who is also a principal investigator for the Shift Project.

“When schedules are more consistent and predictable, employees stick around and are more loyal, and that benefits the company,” she said.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a similar schedule ordinance in April, according to Lenée Richards, a spokesperson for Supervisor Holly Mitchell.

“These protections help strengthen our workforce and will allow employees, many of whom are low-income earners from communities of color, to better care for their families and themselves by having increased control and predictability over their own schedules,” Mitchell said in a written statement.

In the meantime, Jasmine Brandon, a 30-year-old part-time clerk at a Food4Less in the unincorporated L.A. County community of Willowbrook, must check an app or visit the store on Friday afternoons to find out her schedule for the following week. She makes $17 an hour and doesn’t work any set days or shifts.

A representative for Food4Less didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Sometimes Brandon closes the store, and sometimes she opens. Occasionally, she works those shifts back-to-back, picking up her 2-year-old son from child care and commuting by bus or rideshare.

She feels perpetually tired and stressed. With her schedule constantly changing, she can’t nail down medical appointments for her son and teenage daughter, or a regular therapy appointment for herself.

“There is no consistency at all,” she said. “You have to pretty much work around their schedule.”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative,focusing on the challenges facing low-income workers and efforts being made to addressthe economic divide in California. More information about the initiative and its funder, the James Irvine Foundation, can be found here.

Belmont Village La Jolla – a luxury senior living community that boasts coastal views and lavish amenities for its residents – will be opening a first-of-its-kind living lab.

In collaboration with the UC San Diego Center for Healthy Aging and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging, the La Jolla senior living property will add a research center to its extensive list of modern facilities on Aug. 2.

The inaugural living lab will be run by UC San Diego researchers and faculty and dedicated to bettering the well-being of aging individuals.

“The institute of UC San Diego is very unique in that it draws on multiple disciplines – pharmacology, social science, engineering – to collaborate in unique ways in order to forward research on aging, in particular wellness in older years,” said founder and CEO of Belmont Village Senior Living Patricia Will. “We started planning this with the university prior to even breaking ground on the building.”

The unique location of the lab – being directly located within its targeted research group – came from the idea of a more in-depth and natural approach.

“At any given point in time, the leaders in these fields, as well as fellowship students, can engage with our residents to do their research and provide unique insights. It gives the researchers the opportunity to interact with residents in a very unique way,” said Will. “It hasn’t happened anywhere in the country, so we are very excited to be the first.”

A multitude of research topics is ready to fill the walls of the soon-to-be living lab. UC San Diego researchers plan to utilize the grounds and collaborate with Belmont Village La Jolla residents to explore areas such as sleep, cognitive testing, resilience, and even the possibility of AI aiding elderly individuals.

Residents have even been encouraged to propose their own research ideas they would like to see explored. Some of these topics include fall prevention and ways to mitigate the risk, as well as intergenerational engagement between medical students and the elderly.

“I think hearing what matters to our residents – what they would like to work on and improve – will come very naturally because it’ll be organic,” said Will. “The university generates some absolutely groundbreaking research that will transpire with us, but will have implications that will reach far and wide.”

The grand opening of the living lab will come one year after Belmont Village La Jolla opened its doors.

“Being a senior myself, the limit is really our imagination,” said Will. “I’m looking forward to enhancing the quality of life for the seniors that live with us, and for better solutions over time for the senior population.”

Residents of the senior-living community are putting together custom outfits using donated clothing items in a project also featuring other Belmont Village locations.

By Ashley Mackin-Solomon

Aug. 20, 2023 8 AM PT

La Jolla has stores that provide offerings from some of fashion’s most iconic houses. But the residents of the nearby Belmont Village La Jolla senior-living community are creating something unlike anything you’ve seen with the La Jolla Legacy Project fashion house.

The residents are putting together custom outfits using donated clothing items to create their own fashion line and emphasize the importance of sustainability and upcycling — reusing something so it becomes more valuable than the original.

Residents from other participating Belmont Village locations across Southern California (Aliso Viejo, Rancho Palos Verdes, Cardiff by the Sea, Sabre Springs) are doing the same and will get together to showcase their creations on the runway of a fashion show in Aliso Viejo in Orange County on Friday, Sept. 8.

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To prepare, Belmont Village La Jolla residents have held weekly fashion workshops in which they sketch, look at available materials, put together concept outfits and brainstorm ideas. Their theme is “From Old to New, Borrowed and Blue,” a take on the bridal adage that something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue be worn on one’s wedding day. Thus, some have contributed white and blue clothing and even a wedding dress.

“It’s amazing what residents have brought to the project,” said Belmont Village La Jolla enrichment leader Gianna Meaglia. “They have such storied pasts and such creative backgrounds from every corner of the world. So for them all to come together to share their perspectives and visions of what an outfit can look like, or what a belt can do, or how to repurpose a skirt, is amazing.”

Six to 10 looks will be created and tailored to each model based on taste and comfort level. The models also are residents.

“I hope everyone involved is able to stretch their artistic muscles, but most importantly, I think they are building a community and working together, which is so heartening,” Meaglia said.

Resident (and maybe model) Mornie Wolfson said she wanted to participate for her love of fashion and because “it is for a good cause.”

She especially loves hats, she said, motioning to a fedora she had just put on her head. “I used to go to the racetrack in New York and always had to have a special hat and a special suit,” she said.

Though Wolfson said she is “not very artistic,” she feels good about her participation.

“I love that we are all working together and everyone is having a good time,” she said. “I know this is going to be special and we are going to make the statement that we are great and fashion-oriented.”

She said there is excitement to walking the runway, but also some nerves. “If I don’t think about it, it will be fun,” she said with a laugh.

The clothes are intended to de-emphasize fast fashion — the practice of selling trendy, cheaply made clothing that often is discarded as the trend fades.

“Our initiative was to … educate our residents about fast fashion and how detrimental it is for the environment,” said Michelle Meyer, Belmont Village memory program director. “We opened our town hall and had residents donate clothes or swap, so everything we are working on has been donated.”

Though there was some initial reluctance among residents to participate, once they were aware of the sustainable nature of the project, they were more enthusiastic about it, Meyer said.

“The big question we got was why we were doing this,” she said. “So we spent time educating residents about fast fashion and the importance of thrifting. It was hard at first to get the residents motivated, but once they did, they got involved.”

Residents from every program at Belmont Village have found a way to get involved. The facility has floors for memory care, assisted living and independent living. Those on the more care-intensive floors who could not participate in the design components would cut fabric if needed or help in other ways.

Resident Genevieve McConnell said the project has shown participants that “no matter how old you are, you still have creative juices if you are not shy about sharing them with people.”

She added that she appreciates the upcycling associated with the project.

“It’s taking these clothes we have and making them more fun by changing them and making them exciting,” she said. “And [I like] knowing we are not polluting the planet and saving [the clothes] we love … and giving them a new life, that we can create these lovely things.” ?