One licence covers two completely different things
On the state register, a house with six residents and a campus with 436 beds hold the same licence: Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. That is why a list of "assisted living facilities near Encino" is almost always a list of two unrelated products jumbled together, and why families come away confused about why the prices look nothing like each other.
We split them at 25 beds. Below that line this catchment holds 305 homes. Above it, 31. In between, none at all. There is no gradual middle to work your way along, so before you read a single listing, decide which of the two you are shopping for.
Everything on this page comes from the California licence register, extracted and published in full on one page of this site, 336 homes with bed counts and licence numbers. We did not choose which homes appear there and we are not paid to list any of them.
Encino itself: 7 homes, 121 beds
6 of the 7 are licensed for six residents or fewer, holding 36 beds between them. The remaining one is licensed for 85 and sits on Ventura Boulevard. By ZIP, 6 of the 7 carry a 91436 address and 1 is in 91316. That is not the same split as the size split: the 85 bed community sits in 91436 alongside 5 of the houses.
In practice that means Encino is a good place to look if a small home suits and one of the 6 happens to have an opening the month you need it. If it does not, or if you want a building with a dining room and a bus, the city has one to show you and then it is done. Everything below is where families go next, and none of it is far.
West along Ventura: Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Winnetka
Tarzana is the first stop west and the most common alternative for families who want to stay close. 20 licensed homes, 16 of them for six or fewer, 4 licensed for 25 or more, the largest at 176 beds, 635 beds in total. Most of them, 18, sit in 91356. Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana is right there, which matters more than families expect when there is a second hospital stay.
Keep going and Woodland Hills holds 34 homes and 1,554 licensed beds, more than any other town in this catchment, because 6 of them are licensed for 25 or more and the largest is licensed for 436. If you want scale, that is where it is. Kaiser Woodland Hills and the Motion Picture campus are both in that corner of the Valley.
Beyond that, Canoga Park adds 18 homes, 17 of them small. Winnetka adds 13, and every single one is licensed for six residents or fewer. If board and care is what you are after and the drive is acceptable, Winnetka is nothing but board and care.
East along Ventura: Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Valley Village
Sherman Oaks is the shortest drive from most of Encino and the easiest for relatives coming over the Sepulveda Pass. 19 licensed homes, 17 small, 2 licensed for 25 or more with the largest at 179, 431 beds in total, spread across 4 ZIP codes rather than clustered.
Studio City is the thinnest town in this catchment, with 2 licensed homes, though one of them is licensed for 121 beds, which is why its bed total of 127 looks out of all proportion to its home count. Valley Village has 10, 8 of them small and 2 licensed for 25 or more, the larger at 100.
North Hollywood sits further east again and is far deeper than its reputation suggests: 52 licensed homes, 50 of them licensed for six or fewer, with 34 in 91605 alone. For a family whose relatives live in Burbank or Toluca Lake rather than the west Valley, that is the direction to look.
North up Balboa and White Oak: Van Nuys, Northridge, Reseda
This is where the supply is, and it is fifteen minutes away. Van Nuys holds 51 licensed homes, 47 of them for six or fewer, 4 licensed for 25 or more with the largest at 195, 803 beds in total, spread over 5 ZIP codes with 26 in 91405. Valley Presbyterian is in the middle of it.
Northridge has 74 licensed homes, more than any other town in this catchment, and 69 of them are licensed for six residents or fewer. 1,172 beds in total, with 5 communities licensed for 25 or more and the largest at 194. 31 sit in 91324 and 30 in 91325. Northridge Hospital anchors it.
Reseda has 36 licensed homes and all 36 of them are in one ZIP, 91335, which makes it unusually efficient to tour. 33 are small, 3 are licensed for 25 or more, and the largest of those is licensed for 271 beds, so the 837 bed total sits well above what 36 homes would suggest.
How to read a row on the register without being misled
- The licence number is the only part you can independently verify. Take it to the state's own record before you take anyone's word, including ours.
- The bed count is licensed capacity, not current occupancy and not availability. A home licensed for 194 can still have no bed for your mother this month.
- Licensed since is the date that licence began at that address. A long run is worth asking about. A recent one is worth asking about too, and neither is automatically bad.
- A street address only appears at 25 beds and above. Below that the home is somebody's actual house, and we do not publish the address of a house.
- A big bed count and a small home count in the same town, as in Woodland Hills or Reseda, means one or two very large communities are carrying the total. Read the town by its homes, not its beds.
Getting from 336 down to three
The funnel is always the same four filters, applied in this order. The monthly budget, honestly stated. The care needs, as assessed rather than as hoped. The drive, measured from whoever will genuinely be visiting most weeks. And openings this month, which is the filter nobody can apply from a website because it changes daily and nobody publishes it.
Run those four and 336 becomes three or four homes worth an afternoon. That is the job. The register is on this site so you can check our work, because a short list is only worth something if you can see the field it was drawn from.
Written and reviewed by Senior Placement Encino, , against the California Department of Social Services licence register.