New SLO business matches caregivers with people needing in-home help
A new caregiving business that’s part of a national chain has opened in San Luis Obispo to provide in-home help to seniors and other clients.
And, the owners say, they aren’t just here to help meet basic needs.
“It’s not just a caregiving service. We do matchmaking, too,” Tessa Williams quipped about her new Right at Home location on the Central Coast.
The CAO and her business partner Morgan Carson know that top-quality caregiving also requires the emotional and friendship bonds that can — and should — form between all the participants.
For instance, beyond caregivers being friendly, sociable and possessing the obvious qualifications, “If an outgoing patient loves baseball, a caregiver we select should at least understand the game,” Williams said.
“We want to make sure we know what the clients really want, need and feel comfortable with,” the 34-year-old said.
Right at Home has hired 20 caregivers locally so far, while interviewing and actively hiring more. The firm sends them out to people in their homes across the county, for as little as three hours to full days.
Williams and Carson got their start in the Right at Home franchise in Modesto after his parents, Rick and Diane Carson, launched the business in 2008.
The Carsons were inspired to get into caregiving after a good friend of their then 16-year-old son was shot and became disabled. Then Morgan Carson’s paternal grandparents had difficulties adjusting to a senior-care facility.
After the Carsons retired, their son and Williams bought the Right at Home business in 2024.
In January, they officially opened their sister franchise in San Luis Obispo. They’ve been gradually adding caregivers and clients there ever since, matching growth with the capacity to provide quality care.
The two franchises are licensed separately because they’re so far apart geographically, but they’re part of the overarching national Right at Home company based in Omaha, Nebraska.
Family situations prompted career changes for Right at Home owners
Going into the caregiving industry was an extremely personal decision for each partner.
When Morgan Carson was a 19-year-old photographer in 2008, he helped his parents launch the Modesto franchise.
“He was ‘volun-told’ he was going to be part of the firm,” starting out in the office, Williams said with a chuckle.
Carson’s friend’s traumatic incident and subsequent paralysis was a background influence on his parents’ launch of the firm, he told The Tribune.
But it was what his grandparents had endured that directed the Carson family toward caregiving as a career, with an emphasis on caring.
For instance, “My grandfather loved woodworking. He always was building something,” Carson said. “And when he moved into a facility, he lost his workshop and the ability to tinker on whatever project he had going,”
The loss of that freedom for his grandfather “started igniting this passion for me … watching my grandparents choose to move into a facility, and seeing how it never felt like home for them,” Carson said.
“That freedom is something I want to help people keep,” the 35-year-old Fresno native said, by making it easier for them to be cared for at home.
Family was also Williams’ motivation for switching careers, she said of her decision to stop being a retail trainer.
Her grandparents had retired to Arroyo Grande.
After the 2011 death of her grandmother, Bernie Kautz, a founder of the Clark Center,it was obvious that her ill grandfather, Ron Kautz, needed assistance, Williams said.
Researching in-home care options for her grandfather, she discovered she needed to fill “not only his need for a caregiver, but for a companion,” she said
That option wasn’t available then.
Filling that gap is now a focus for Williams and Carson in their own franchises.
“We try to understand and empathize, not only providing care but providing that companion,” Williams said. “They’re spending all day with our clients, so we want to make sure the caregiver is the type of person they want.”
They run their Right at Home franchises in two locations
How does it work?
Williams splits her time between the San Luis Obispo and Modesto franchises.
The Orange County native lives in Manteca with her husband and two children three days a week, working in the office of the Modesto franchise.
Then, four days a week, she manages the San Luis Obispo franchise in person while staying in an Oceano condominium.
“I’ve really taken the lead in the SLO office. It is my passion, really close to my heart,” Williams said. “My clients and caregivers are like my babies, my whole world along with my family. I want to take care of them all.”
Completing the partnership juggle, CEO Carson is similarly in charge in Modesto, while also handling many of the administrative duties for the San Luis Obispo office.
“For both offices, I manage the finances, billing, payroll … computer systems, phones and any other technology systems,” he said. “I manage the office staff in Modesto while Tessa is in the SLO office, also implementing new programs that are passed down from our corporate office.”
Right at Home caregivers provide variety of services
“I’ve been in the industry for 10 years, and I know we’re nothing without our caregivers,” Williams said.
They’re all state-licensed homecare aides, not nurses or medication aides.
“They can supervise medications but cannot put them into the patient’s body,” she said.
So what exactly do the caregivers do in a normal day?
“It’s hard to put in a box for one day. We want to let them live their normal lives with our assistance,” Williams said. “The caregiver’s duties will vary client to client. For some Alzheimer and dementia patients, we’re there so they’re not there alone. We could do enrichment activities, going for outings, preparing meals, doing some light housekeeping.
“On the other side of the spectrum for patients who need personal care, we’d be doing all their bathing, toileting, getting them dressed, changing the linens, repositioning them if they’re bed bound and watching for bedsores, along with laundry, running errands and doing meals. Even helping with gardening and hobbies, if that’s what they need,” she said.
Right at Home charges $40 to $45 an hour for a caregiver.
Applicants don’t have to be a pro to join Right at Home’s caregiver roster. But to get the job, they must have the right temperament, persona and a willingness to learn.
“I can train skills. I cannot train personality,” William said. “For each client, the caregiver has to be the right person and with the right knowledge.”
Caregiving can lead up to hospice
Of course, each case is different, and needs change as the patient’s condition varies and progresses.
“We’ve had thousands of clients over the decades,” Williams said. “Some come to us when they’re younger and have a need for short-term care. As they age, they come back off and on to the very end.
“At that sad, stressful time, Right at Home caregivers work with hospice,” she said.
Hospice nurses, aides or volunteers “are there with the client for an hour or so at a time, maybe three or four times a week,” she said. “But the need for care goes on, and we’re there when they’re not.
“I’ve seen that end-of-life process thousands of times,” Williams said. “It’s not new to me, but it’s new to each family. That’s when our caregiver’s bond with the family is especially important. It’s a group caring time, with our support there for everybody.”
Find out more
Right at Home San Luis Obispo is at 3591 Sacramento Drive, Suite 10, and on Facebook.
For more information, call 805-702-7272.
