Small assisted living homes in Fremont, ranked by inspection data
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Of the 28 licensed assisted living facilities in Fremont, 20 are small homes with 6 beds or fewer. That is 71% of the city's market, consistent with how most California cities are shaped. Fremont follows the small-home default that San Francisco and Oakland invert.
What is not consistent is the safety profile. The 20 small homes have a combined FYI Safety Score average of 5.89. The average across all Fremont assisted living is 5.97. Both are notably lower than the other major Bay Area and NorCal cities. No Fremont small home currently scores Excellent (9.0+), which is rare for a dominant small-home market and worth saying plainly.
Below are the 10 safest, the full distribution, and an honest read on the local picture. The data was pulled from California state inspection records in May 2026.
What a small assisted living home actually is
A small assisted living home is a licensed Residential Care Facility for the Elderly (RCFE) with a capacity of 6 residents or fewer. The license type is the same as a 200-bed community. The scale is not.
In practice: a small home is usually a converted single-family house in a residential neighborhood. The owner-operator often lives onsite or runs the home as their primary business. Families call them small homes, board and care homes, or 6-bed homes. They are the same thing under California law.
The structural argument for the format is staff-to-resident ratio. A 6-resident home with 1 caregiver on shift is a 1:6 ratio. A larger community usually runs 1:10 to 1:15. The format does not guarantee a clean inspection record, though. Fremont is an example of a city where the small-home dominance has not produced a strong safety distribution.
The 10 safest small assisted living homes in Fremont
The ranking is the FYI Safety Score on a 1.0 to 10.0 scale, computed from the public state inspection record. Linked facility names open the full inspection record on their detail page.
| # | Facility | Beds | Score | State visits | Years licensed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lucky Garden Care Home | 6 | 8.4 | 8 | 20 |
| 2 | Heather's Care Home | 6 | 8.2 | 5 | 17 |
| 3 | Royal Palm Residential Home | 6 | 7.9 | 5 | 6 |
| 4 | CMA Care Home | 6 | 7.8 | 5 | 9 |
| 5 | Mission Villa Residential Care Home | 6 | 7.6 | 5 | 21 |
| 6 | Isherwood Care III | 6 | 7.5 | 7 | 18 |
| 7 | CMA Care Home 1 | 6 | 7.5 | 4 | 2 |
| 8 | Muriel's Residential Facility II | 6 | 7.0 | 6 | 21 |
| 9 | Beloved Home Retreat | 6 | 6.1 | 7 | 11 |
| 10 | K & J Residential Care Home III | 6 | 6.1 | 3 | 1 |
A few things worth noticing.
The top of the Fremont list tops out at 8.4. In San Jose's list, the cutoff for the top 10 is 9.6. In Sacramento's, the cutoff is also above 9.6. Fremont's strongest small home would not crack the top 100 in either of those neighboring markets. That is the gap.
The list runs deep on tenure. The bottom of the top 10 includes Muriel's Residential Facility II (21 years), Isherwood Care III (18 years), and Heather's Care Home (17 years). Long tenure usually correlates with stronger records, but in Fremont several long-tenured homes have accumulated findings over time that pull their scores below where their counterparts in other cities sit.
How the rest of the Fremont small-home market looks
A top-10 list is a starting point. Here is what the full distribution of all 20 Fremont small homes looks like.
| Score band | Fremont small homes | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 9.0–9.9 Excellent | 0 | 0% |
| 7.0–8.9 Good | 8 | 40% |
| 5.0–6.9 Fair | 6 | 30% |
| 3.0–4.9 Poor | 5 | 25% |
| Below 3.0 Severe | 1 | 5% |
Zero Fremont small homes currently score Excellent. 40% score Good, but the bottom 30% sits in Poor or Severe combined. That is the highest concerning-end share of any city in this batch.
What this means for families: the Fremont small-home market is not where you go for the format's safety upside. The structural argument for small homes is the 1:6 staff ratio. In Fremont, the inspection record suggests that staff ratio has not consistently translated into clean records. Reading the actual inspection record on the detail page before any tour matters more in Fremont than it does in San Jose or Sacramento.
The neighboring San Jose market (across the southern bay) has 112 small homes, a much deeper top tier, and a healthier distribution. The San Jose small-home list is a useful extension if you have geographic flexibility.
What small homes typically cost compared to larger Fremont communities
Small assisted living homes in Fremont are often lower-priced than the larger communities in the South Bay, but the pricing range is wide. Some Fremont small homes price near the premium tier of larger communities, particularly for residents with higher care needs. Others run meaningfully lower.
The honest read: in a city where the small-home safety distribution is weaker than the regional average, price-sensitive families should be even more careful to verify the inspection record before signing a contract. The lower price is not a safety discount.
What to look for on a small-home tour
Touring a small home is different from touring a 100-bed community. In Fremont specifically, a few questions are non-optional.
- Pull the inspection record before the tour, not after. Every facility's detail page on AssistedLiving.fyi shows visits, citations, and complaints. For Fremont, where the distribution skews weaker, this is the basis for everything else.
- Who is the live-in caregiver, and who covers when they are off? Most 6-bed homes run with 1 or 2 caregivers on shift. If the owner-operator is the primary caregiver, ask what happens when they are sick, on vacation, or in state-required training.
- Whose name is on the license? The license holder is legally responsible for the home. The answer tells you who you are working with.
- What was cited in the last inspection, and what changed? This is the question that separates a home that has owned its findings from a home that hopes you do not ask. The answer matters more than the question.
For the broader framework on evaluating any facility, see the assisted living vibe check. For how to read the inspection record in detail, see how to read a California inspection report.
How to use this list
The score is the gut check. The visit is the field test. The conversations with current residents and frontline staff are the verification.
For Fremont specifically, the inspection record is the most important pre-tour read in this batch. Start at the top of the list. Use the detail page on each facility to see exactly what was cited and when. If you have flexibility across the southern bay, San Jose's deeper small-home market is worth considering.
Browse all Fremont assisted living facilities on the AssistedLiving.fyi map. For the broader citywide picture across all sizes, see safest assisted living in Fremont. For memory care specifically, see memory care options in Fremont. For the full FYI Safety Score methodology, see our safety score page.
Data: Computed from California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD) inspection records, ingested into AssistedLiving.fyi. Safety scores reflect the inspection record as of May 2026 and may change as new visits are documented. The FYI Safety Score is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guarantee or prediction of the safety, quality, or suitability of any facility. Always visit in person before deciding.
Frequently asked questions
How many small (6-bed) assisted living homes are in Fremont?
There are 20 licensed assisted living facilities in Fremont with a capacity of 1 to 6 residents. That is about 71% of the 28 licensed assisted living facilities in the city. Small homes are the dominant format in Fremont, consistent with most California small-home markets.
What is the safest small assisted living home in Fremont?
The safest small assisted living home in Fremont is Lucky Garden Care Home, a 6-bed home with an FYI Safety Score of 8.4. It has 8 documented state inspections across 20 years of licensing. No Fremont small home currently scores in the Excellent (9.0+) band, which is unusual for a dominant small-home market.
Are small assisted living homes safer than larger Fremont communities?
In Fremont, small homes average an FYI Safety Score of 5.89 versus 5.97 across all Fremont assisted living. The two are about even. Both averages are notably lower than other California cities in this batch. About 30% of Fremont small homes score Poor or Severe, which is the weakest profile in the NorCal+Bay batch we are looking at.
How is the FYI Safety Score calculated?
The FYI Safety Score is computed from three components of a facility's public California state inspection record: citations from routine inspections, substantiated complaints, and recency weighting that gives more weight to recent inspections than older ones. Scores run from 1.0 to 10.0. See the full methodology at our safety score page.
About the author
Steve Selzer is the founder of AssistedLiving.fyi. He started this work while searching for assisted living for his mom, who has dementia, after running into the same opaque pricing, sales calls, and impossible-to-read inspection records that every family in the same situation runs into. The site exists to make the information families actually need easier to find.