The Woodlake Senior Living in Sacramento: 2026 Costs, Care and What Families Should Know

It’s one of the most common situations I see in my practice. Mom or Dad has lived in the same Silicon Valley house for 35 or 40 years, they’re starting to need real help day to day, and the son or daughter who’s most involved lives up in Sacramento because that’s where they could afford to buy a home and raise a family. The question is always whether Mom should move closer to them, and if so, where. The Woodlake Senior Living on Expo Parkway is one of the communities families in that spot tend to look at closely, so I pulled together what I’d want to know if it were my own parent: who runs it, what kind of care it offers, the apartments, what daily life looks like, what it costs and how the family home fits into paying for it.

Why Sacramento Keeps Coming Up for Silicon Valley Families

Here’s the reality I see all the time. Over the past 20 years a lot of adult children who grew up in San Jose, Cupertino or Sunnyvale moved to the Sacramento area because they could buy a house with a yard for a fraction of what it costs here. Their parents stayed in the family home. Now the parents are in their 80s, and the child who’s handling doctor appointments, bills and the 2 a.m. phone calls is a two-hour drive away. Moving Mom or Dad closer to that child is often the single biggest thing a family can do to make caregiving sustainable, and I wrote a whole guide on moving closer to family in retirement because the decision has so many layers.

The money side is a big part of it too. According to the California Association of REALTORS® September 2026 report, the median single-family home in Santa Clara County sold for $1,920,000, compared with $555,000 in Sacramento County. That gap shows up in everything from caregiver wages to what senior living communities charge. When a parent sells a longtime Silicon Valley home, the proceeds can stretch a lot further in Sacramento than they would at a comparable community in Los Gatos or Palo Alto.

Who Owns and Operates The Woodlake

The Woodlake has had a change in management that’s worth knowing about before you start researching, because plenty of directory sites haven’t caught up. For years the community was run by Leisure Care. On December 1, 2024 it joined ONELIFE Senior Living, a family-owned developer and operator founded in 2009 and based in Denver, Colorado. The Woodlake was ONELIFE’s fourth California community and its 14th overall, and the company more than doubled the number of communities it manages after merging with Ally Senior Living in early 2025.

Why does that matter to you? A new operator usually means new leadership, new policies, sometimes new pricing and occasionally a rebrand of the care programs. If you see an older review or listing that mentions Leisure Care’s programs, ask the community what’s still in place today. The quickest way to get current answers is the community’s own site at thewoodlake.com, which now points to ONELIFE, or by calling (916) 604-3780.

Where It Is and What’s Nearby

The Woodlake sits at 1445 Expo Parkway, Sacramento, CA 95815, in the Woodlake area just north of the American River and just south of Highway 160. Cal Expo, home of the California State Fair every summer, is right next door, and Arden Fair mall and the shopping along Arden Way are only a few minutes away. The American River Parkway and its paved trail run along the river nearby, which is a nice perk for a resident who still loves a walk or for visiting grandkids on bikes.

For family, the location is very convenient. It’s close to Highway 160 and Business 80, so getting there from Natomas, Midtown, East Sacramento, Arden-Arcade, Carmichael or Roseville is usually an easy drive. Sacramento International Airport is a reasonable trip for relatives flying in, and the major health systems in the region, including Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente and UC Davis Health, all have hospitals and clinics within a short drive. From San Jose, plan on roughly two hours each way depending on traffic, which is doable for weekend visits from the Bay Area siblings who aren’t the primary caregiver.

Levels of Care at The Woodlake

Today The Woodlake focuses on two levels of care, and it’s licensed by the California Department of Social Services as a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, which is the license California uses for assisted living and memory care.

Assisted Living

Assisted living is for someone who wants their own apartment and privacy but needs a hand with daily life. That usually means help with bathing and showering, dressing, medication management, incontinence care and reminders to get to meals and activities. Caregivers are on site 24 hours a day, a licensed nurse oversees care, and residents have both wearable and in-room call systems. Weekly housekeeping and personal laundry are included, which takes a lot off a family’s plate. Every community does an assessment before move-in, and the results determine the care level and the monthly care charge on top of rent.

Memory Care with the Luminate Program

Memory care at The Woodlake is a secure neighborhood for people living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. ONELIFE calls its program Luminate, and it centers on structured daily routines, personalized care plans and a lot of music and movement, since familiar songs are one of the best ways to reach someone with memory loss. Caregivers are trained in dementia care, and the community has a Medical Director providing medical oversight. If you’re comparing memory care communities, the community’s own explainer on signs it’s time for memory care and the difference between board and care and memory care is a helpful read.

One thing I always tell families is to ask exactly what happens if care needs change. Will Mom be able to move from assisted living into memory care in the same building? Are there any conditions the community can’t manage, like certain insulin regimens or two-person transfers? Getting those answers up front can save a second move down the road, and second moves are hard on people with dementia.

Apartments and Floor Plans

The building has 137 apartments. Here’s what the published floor plans show:

• Assisted living studio: 378 square feet with one bath
• Assisted living one bedroom: 510 square feet with one bath
• Assisted living two bedroom, one bath: 805 square feet
• Assisted living two bedroom, two bath: 909 square feet, a great fit for a couple
• Memory care private suite: 337 square feet with a private bath
• Memory care shared suite: 254 square feet, shared with a neighbor

Assisted living apartments come with kitchenettes, plenty of closet space, large wheelchair-accessible bathrooms with walk-in showers and grab bars, and windows with views. The two bedroom plans are worth a look for couples where one spouse needs more care than the other, since they can stay together and the second bedroom can work as a den, an office or a guest room for family visits.

If your parent is coming from a 2,000-square-foot house in Willow Glen or Cupertino, 378 to 510 square feet is a big adjustment. That’s not a reason to rule it out, but it does mean the downsizing has to start early. My guide to clearing out before a move walks through how to tackle 40 years of belongings without wrecking anyone’s weekends or relationships.

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Amenities, Dining and Daily Life

The common areas at The Woodlake are designed to feel more like a nice hotel than a care facility. There’s a spacious lobby with a piano and chandelier, lounges with stone fireplaces, a movie theater complete with a popcorn machine, a library, a game room, an arts and crafts room, a fitness room and a full-service salon. Outside, landscaped courtyards and patios with umbrellas and walking paths give residents a safe place to get fresh air, and there’s a community garden for anyone who misses their backyard tomatoes.

Dining is a big deal in senior living, and here it includes a full-service dining room with chef-prepared meals, a cozy bistro, an anytime dining option and a private dining room for birthdays and family celebrations. Ask to see the current menu and, if you can, schedule your tour around lunch so you can taste it yourself. You’ll learn more about a community in one meal than in an hour of the marketing presentation.

Activities run through a monthly calendar that includes group fitness and therapy-led sessions, hobby clubs, live entertainment, themed events, art and music programs and outings in the community’s accessible van. The community is also pet-friendly, which matters more than people think. For a lot of older adults, the question of what happens to the cat or the little dog can make or break the whole move.

On-Site Health Services

One of the things that stands out at The Woodlake is how much care comes to the residents rather than the other way around. The community lists:

• Medical Director oversight for residents’ care
• Tranquility Onsite Dental, a mobile dental service whose dentists are Certified Dementia Practitioners
• Podiatry visits every six weeks
• A partnership with Fox Rehab for physical, occupational and speech therapy

For an adult child who works full time, every appointment that happens in the building instead of across town is a half day of PTO saved. When you tour, ask which of these services are running right now, how often each provider is on site and how they bill, since some go through Medicare and others are private pay.

Reputation, Reviews and Licensing

The Woodlake says it was the only senior living community in Sacramento to receive A Place for Mom’s Best of Senior Living award for 2025, which is based on resident and family reviews. On that site it holds a 4.4 out of 5 average across 48 reviews, with cleanliness and staff friendliness rated highest. The community also announced that its annual state licensing inspection on October 16, 2026 came back deficiency-free, which is good news for any community.

Reviews and awards are a starting point, not the finish line. California makes inspection reports public through the Community Care Licensing facility search, and I’d read them for any community you’re seriously considering. If you’ve never looked at one of these reports, my guide on how to vet an assisted living facility explains what to look for and what questions to bring to your tour. Many families also use a placement advisor to compare options, and it’s worth understanding how senior placement specialists get paid before you work with one.

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The Parent's Home Transition Plan

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What The Woodlake Costs

The Woodlake doesn’t publish prices on its website and offers a cost calculator instead, which is common. The starting rents listed on A Place for Mom as of this writing are:

• Assisted living: studio from $5,490, one bedroom from $6,490, two bedroom from $7,790 per month
• Memory care: shared suite from $6,290, private suite from $7,790 per month

Those are starting rents, so plan on a care charge on top that depends on the assessment, plus a one-time community fee at move-in for many communities. For context, the CareScout 2025 Cost of Care Survey put the national median for assisted living at $6,200 a month, up 5% from the year before. Bay Area communities routinely run well above that, so Sacramento pricing is often noticeably lower than what families see in Santa Clara County. Always ask for a written quote that shows rent, care level charges, any second-person fee for couples and how often rates have gone up over the past few years.

Most residents pay privately, often with help from long-term care insurance, VA Aid and Attendance benefits for eligible veterans and surviving spouses, or the proceeds from selling a home. That last one is where I spend most of my time.

How the Family Home Pays for Care

For most of the families I work with, the house is the biggest asset by far, and it’s usually what makes a move like this possible. The tricky part is timing. Communities want the first month paid at move-in, while a well-prepared home sale can take a couple of months from start to close. There are good bridge options, and I explain them in paying for assisted living while the house sells.

Taxes deserve attention too. The federal home sale exclusion lets a single owner exclude up to $250,000 of gain and a married couple up to $500,000, and there’s a helpful special rule in IRS Publication 523: if someone becomes physically or mentally unable to care for themselves, time spent living in a licensed care facility can count toward the two-year use test, as long as they owned and lived in the home for at least one year first. With longtime Bay Area homes, gains often blow past those limits anyway, so it’s worth reading my piece on capital gains tax when selling a Silicon Valley home and talking to a CPA before you list.

If one spouse is moving into The Woodlake and the other wants to buy a smaller place nearby, Prop 19 can help. Homeowners 55 and older can generally carry their existing property tax base to a replacement home anywhere in California, including Sacramento County, and my Prop 19 guide covers how the math works.

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Selling Mom or Dad's Home to Pay for Care?

Bay Area assisted living runs $7,800 to $8,300 a month, and the house is usually the only asset big enough to cover it. This guide walks you through timing the sale, who has legal authority to sign, the capital gains rules for seniors in care, and how a sale affects Medi-Cal and VA benefits, so the decision gets made from strength instead of in a crisis.

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Is The Woodlake the Right Fit?

From what the community offers and where it sits, The Woodlake looks like a strong fit for a few kinds of families. It makes a lot of sense when the primary caregiver lives in the Sacramento area, when a parent needs assisted living now and may need memory care later, when a couple wants to stay together in a larger two bedroom apartment, and when a family wants hotel-style amenities and on-site health services without Bay Area pricing.

It may be less ideal if your parent needs skilled nursing, which is a different license entirely, or if every family member lives in the South Bay and nobody’s going to be nearby for regular visits. In that case one of the communities in my senior living community guides, like Oakmont of Mariner Point in Alameda, might be a better match. And if you haven’t started the conversation with your parents yet, my tips on talking to aging parents about selling the family home can help you open that door gently.

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Questions to Ask When You Tour

Bring a notebook, and if possible bring the parent who’ll be living there. Here’s my short list:

• How is the care level assessed, how often is it reassessed and what does each level cost?
• What are your current staffing levels on day, evening and overnight shifts, especially in memory care?
• What has changed since ONELIFE took over, and how long has the Executive Director been here?
• Which on-site health services are running right now, and how are they billed?
• What’s included in rent, and what costs extra, like transportation, guest meals or incontinence supplies?
• How much have rates gone up each of the last three years?
• Are there any move-in incentives right now?

These questions come straight out of the planning I do with families through my Best Move Method, where we work out the care, the money and the house together before anyone commits to a move.

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In a 30-minute call, we'll estimate your parent's net proceeds after selling costs and taxes, map that against the care costs you're looking at, and sort out timing: sell before the move, after it, or bridge the gap. You'll leave with real numbers and a clear order of operations. No listing agreement, no pressure.

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If you’re helping a parent move to The Woodlake or anywhere else in the Sacramento area, and the family home back here in Silicon Valley is part of the plan, I’d love to help you think it through. I’ve spent more than 23 years helping older adults and their families sell longtime homes, and I can coordinate the sale, the clear-out and the timing so the move goes smoothly on both ends. You can book a free Best Move Strategy Session with me here or call 408-413-3087.

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