Alice Care was conceived among a group of longtime friends and travel partners on a flight from Mexico to California in 2018.
Among that group, alongside their respective spouses, were our intrepid heroes Trina, Stephanie and Sandra (¡las tres amigas!).
Foremost on everyone’s minds those days was Stephanie’s elderly mother-in-law, who was suffering from increasingly severe Alzheimer’s in spite of being quite able-bodied for her age, not to mention rather rambunctious and mischievous.
Her sole caretaker was her live-in daughter (Stephanie’s sister-in-law), who was able to provide much of her care personally with minimal financial burden, which worked out great at first because they could not have afforded the agency minimums for home care nor the enormous expenses of facility care in the first place.
But as the days wore on, being responsible for all of her care proved to simply be too draining of time and energy.
Stephanie and her family had no choice but to look into other options.
Sadly, after returning from Mexico, the outlook was bleak. Facilities weren’t a good option as there was no need for round-the-clock care and they were too expensive anyway. In fact, the one facility they reluctantly tried for a few days yielded nothing but nightmares and inexplicable injuries.
Home Care wasn’t a good option either. Back then, part-time home care only came in two sizes: several hours a day… or nothing at all. Stephanie and her family simply couldn’t afford the enormous expense when all they needed was occasional relief. Home care agency minimums have long been too pricey for most families.
The frustration over the lack of good options began to boil over.
Discussions began to veer toward the question of… shouldn’t there be a better way?
Meanwhile, Trina’s long-held passion for improving the lives and careers of professional care providers also entered the conversation. Shouldn’t caregivers be able to control their own work hours to some extent, like so many others do in today’s gig economy? Shouldn’t Home Care providers – among the most selfless professionals in any field – be treated with the utmost respect by their employers and clients? Shouldn’t they be rewarded and appreciated for a job well done?
The lack of all of the above, especially in such a rapidly-growing marketplace, was glaring. What if there was a company that could send quality care providers to the thousands of families who need care — not constantly, not indefinitely, not even regularly — but incrementally, occasionally, one-task-at-a-time? What if those families could order Home Care services on demand? What if those families could use their phones and mobile devices to place care orders, just as quickly and easily as they order takeout or groceries or a rideshare? Wouldn’t access to a service like that benefit a ton of people? Especially those with minor needs or those who can’t afford any of the difficult alternatives?
The answer, they concluded, was yes.
So began the arduous undertaking of designing a business model that sought not only to maximize the quality, safety, and flexibility of Home Care services to be offered, but also to maximize the autonomy, security, and job satisfaction of the providers rendering those services. A strong commitment to both the Customers they would serve and the Providers they would employ has been a foundational principle from the beginning.
Just over a year later, after completing their team and collaborating on countless hours of business planning and app development, the idea was finally brought to life in early 2020. The app launched on iOS in February and on Android a few months later, serving the greater Sacramento region.
Unfortunately, Stephanie’s mother-in-law passed away before she and her daughter could enjoy the groundbreaking service that she had helped to inspire.
As it happens, her first name (may she rest in peace) was Alice. Read more about the Alice Care story in USA Today.