Park Cities senior care options are limited inside Highland Park and University Park, so Dallas families should plan nearby assisted living, hospital access, and payment early.
By Dallas Senior Advisor Care Team · October 10, 2026
Families searching for Park Cities senior care options usually discover the same thing within a week: Highland Park and University Park are two small, fully built-out Dallas County municipalities, and they contain very few licensed senior living communities. Both towns are almost entirely single-family streets, Highland Park Village, SMU, and the Preston Road and Mockingbird Lane corridors. Because so little land is zoned for multi-unit care, a parent who has lived on a Beverly Drive or Armstrong Parkway block for forty years often cannot move to an assisted living community inside the Park Cities at all. The real decision is how far to go, and in which direction, not whether to stay in the 75205 or 75225 ZIP codes.
That geography matters because Dallas is a car-dependent metro. A parent who gives up driving in the Park Cities is not stranded the way they might be in a far-flung suburb, since Highland Park Village, Snider Plaza, and Knox-Henderson are close, but the nearest licensed assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing options sit across Northwest Highway, up Preston Road in Preston Hollow, or out in North Dallas and Lake Highlands. Families who plan the drive time before the crisis, rather than after a fall, keep far more choices available and keep visiting practical for the spouse who stays behind in the family home.
Because options inside the towns are scarce, families typically widen the search to a ten to fifteen minute radius. Preston Hollow and North Dallas along Preston Road, Greenville Avenue, and Walnut Hill Lane hold the largest concentration of communities, and our separate Preston Hollow memory care guide covers that pocket in depth. Lakewood and Lake Highlands to the east offer older, smaller communities and often slightly lower monthly rates. Uptown and Oak Lawn to the south have a handful of urban-format communities for parents who want to stay close to Turtle Creek and the Katy Trail rather than relocate to a suburban campus.
Pricing follows the same pattern as the rest of Dallas County, with the Park Cities postal addresses commanding a premium. As a 2026 planning range, assisted living across the metro runs roughly $3,800 to $5,800 per month and memory care roughly $4,800 to $7,000, with the upper end concentrated in Park Cities, North Dallas, and Frisco. A community that advertises a Highland Park or University Park address, or sits within a mile of one, can price toward the top of that band before care-level add-ons. Ask each community how its base rent and care levels are structured so you can compare real monthly totals rather than headline numbers.
The Park Cities sit unusually close to a cluster of major hospitals, which is one reason many families hesitate to leave. Baylor University Medical Center, Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, Medical City Dallas, and Methodist Dallas Medical Center are each a short drive away, and UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Health are reachable via Harry Hines Boulevard. A parent with a long-standing cardiologist or neurologist near Baylor or Presbyterian can usually keep those physicians after moving to a community in Preston Hollow or Lakewood, which makes continuity of care an argument for staying in the central part of the county rather than moving to a distant suburb.
Hospital proximity also shapes discharge planning. After a hip fracture or stroke, the hospital case manager will ask which skilled nursing facility you prefer, and Medicare covers a short skilled nursing stay only after a qualifying inpatient admission of three days, not time spent under observation status. Ask the case manager directly whether your parent was admitted or placed under observation, and tour two or three Dallas County nursing facilities before the hospital forces a same-day decision. Texas nursing facilities are licensed under Health and Safety Code Chapter 242, and you can pull inspection history from the HHSC provider search and Medicare Care Compare.
Many Park Cities families choose to keep a parent in the house, and for good reasons: the homes are paid for, the neighbors are familiar, and the walkability around Snider Plaza and Highland Park Village is better than almost anywhere else in DFW. In-home care in Dallas runs roughly $26 to $34 per hour in 2026, so a few hours a day is manageable, but around-the-clock coverage on a two-story, older Park Cities home quickly exceeds the monthly cost of assisted living. Check whether the home has a first-floor bedroom and bathroom before committing, and see our aging-in-place guide for two-story houses.
The driving question deserves its own plan. Even a walkable neighborhood does not reach a cardiologist near Baylor, a pharmacy on Preston, or a church across town. Adult day programs in Dallas County typically cost $50 to $85 per day and include transportation in many cases, which gives a caregiver relief and gives the parent a social anchor. Dallas Area Agency on Aging, operated by The Senior Source, can connect families to paratransit, meals, and caregiver support, and calling Texas 2-1-1 or the HHSC Aging and Disability Resource Center is a free starting point.
Park Cities homeowners face a financial puzzle that is different from most of Dallas. A parent may have a house worth well over a million dollars and still run short of liquid cash, which makes Medicaid eligibility complicated. Texas STAR+PLUS and the HCBS waiver apply income and asset tests, and a primary residence is treated differently from other assets, but Texas also pursues Medicaid estate recovery after death for covered long-term care. Families should speak with a Texas elder law attorney before retitling or selling anything, since transfers made within the five-year look-back period can trigger a penalty.
Texas homeowners age 65 and older also have a school district property tax ceiling, and the over-65 homestead exemption can reduce the annual bill, which matters when a parent decides whether to keep the house during a care transition. Veterans should ask the Dallas VA Medical Center about Aid and Attendance, and long-term care insurance policies should be reviewed for elimination periods. A common Park Cities strategy is selling the house to fund several years of assisted living; run that math with a financial planner before listing, accounting for capital gains rules, moving costs, and what you would do if care costs outlast the proceeds.
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