Checking for yourself
Look up any California care home in about two minutes
You do not have to take anybody's word for it, including ours. Every licensed care home in California has a public record: who holds the licence, how many beds, and five years of inspection and complaint history. Here is how to read it, and the step almost every family skips.
Step by step
The state's own search
- 1
Open the Care Facility Search
Go to ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch. This is run by the Department of Social Services, which is the agency that licenses care homes. It is free and you do not need an account.
- 2
Search by licence number if you have one
A licence number is the cleanest way in, because facility names repeat and change. Every home on our Anaheim register is listed with its number for exactly this reason. If you only have a name, search by facility name and city.
- 3
Check the status first, then the dates
You are looking for a current licence, the capacity, and the date it was first issued. A home licensed last year has no inspection history to read, which is not a mark against it but does change the questions you should ask.
- 4
Read the complaint and inspection reports
The site holds five years of information, including complaint investigation reports. Read what the finding actually was rather than counting the number of entries — a substantiated complaint about a missing record is not the same as one about a resident's safety.
- 5
Subscribe to notifications for that facility
The state lets you sign up for e-mail notifications about a specific facility. If your mother is going to live there, this is five seconds well spent.
Type A
The serious one
On the state's own evaluation form, a Type A deficiency is a violation of the regulations or the Health and Safety Code that, if not corrected, has a direct and immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of residents in care.
A Type A is worth asking about directly. Ask what it was, what changed afterwards, and who was responsible then compared with now.
Type B
The common one
A Type B is a violation that, without correction, could become a risk to health, safety or personal rights — or a recordkeeping violation affecting care or the protection of residents' resources, or one affecting the services needed to meet residents' needs.
Most homes with a long history have some. A pattern of the same Type B repeating for years says more than any single one.
The step almost everyone skips
The state tells you the website is not enough
On its own facility search page, the Department of Social Services tells families plainly: never rely on this information alone to make a decision about a facility.
It directs you to call the local Regional Office for the detail behind any citation, and to ask to review the licensee's full facility file — which contains the evaluation visits and substantiated complaints, not just the summary that appears online.
That phone call is the single highest-value hour in this whole process, and almost nobody makes it. If you do nothing else from this page, do that one.
Summarised from the CDSS Facility Search welcome page, read 13 October 2026.
Common questions
Checking a licence, answered
- How do I check if a care home in California is licensed?
- Use the California Department of Social Services Care Facility Search at ccld.dss.ca.gov/carefacilitysearch. You can search by facility name, by city, or by licence number. It holds five years of information, including complaint investigation reports.
- What is the difference between a Type A and a Type B citation?
- On the state's own evaluation form, a Type A deficiency is a violation that, if not corrected, has a direct and immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of residents. A Type B deficiency is one that could become such a risk if left uncorrected, or that affects records, services or protection of residents' resources.
- Is the online search enough on its own?
- No, and the state says so itself. CDSS tells families never to rely on the online information alone, and directs them to call the local Regional Office for citation details and to ask to review the licensee's full facility file, which contains evaluation visits and substantiated complaints.
Checked one and not sure what you are reading?
Send us the licence number and we will tell you what the record actually says, whether we would place somebody there, and what we would ask them. No charge, and no obligation to use us.
Tell us who you are looking after
Four short questions. Nothing you answer is shared with a facility until you say so.
Prefer to talk now? (714) 975-9652, open every day until 6pm.