They were pulled because they were decayed. They were decayed because she couldn’t afford to go to a dentist. Jasmine is here at Maplewood, frequently working double shifts so she can maybe save enough money to go back to school and get her high-school GED, because this is the best job she can find. It beats her last job, loading trucks for a Target store at four in the morning. Yet, like so many bottom-of-the-rung jobs in the health-care industry, it offers no health insurance, no sick days, no vacation days, no job security, not even a paid lunch break.

The chasm between the importance of the job and the remuneration is astonishing, but no more astonishing than the chasm between the money spent to build a memory care facility like this and the money spent on employees to keep it running. Maplewood is clean, bright and modern with homey “neighborhoods” and outdoor patios and a big, sky-lit common area with real plants and chirping birds. The interior design, which allows for safe and secure wandering—one of the hallmark behaviors of Alzheimer’s—is carefully conceived and nicely accomplished.

But the place is understaffed, and the staff is overworked. Jasmine and I each care for between 11 and 14 residents on our own. Our training consisted of a six-hour orientation session, most of which was spent reading the employee manual aloud to each other. This was followed by shadowing a more experienced worker for two days. On the third day, we did the job ourselves, with minor oversight. On the fourth, we were on our own.

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