Adult care home

“Adult care home” and “adult care facility” are the license names New York and North Carolina use for residential care. Both states run a system of subcategories underneath the main term, and the subcategory is what actually tells you the size and service level.

North Carolina

North Carolina licenses adult care homes through the Division of Health Service Regulation. Within that category, a family care home serves two to six residents. Anything larger is an adult care home in the general sense, which in practice ranges up to several hundred beds.

Family care home is the term to search for the small residential model. Both categories appear together in the state’s database and in inspection records, so filtering by capacity is the fastest way to find the small ones.

New York

New York uses adult care facility as the umbrella and licenses several types beneath it through the Department of Health.

An adult home provides long-term residential care, room, board, housekeeping, supervision, and personal care. An enriched housing program provides similar services in an apartment-style setting. A family-type home for adults serves four or fewer residents in a private residence, which is New York’s small-home category. Assisted living programs and assisted living residences sit alongside these with their own certifications.

Which one a home holds determines what care it may provide and who pays for it. Ask for the certificate type by name.

Other states using adult care wording

Ohio licenses adult group homes and adult family homes as separate size categories. Nevada licenses residential facilities for groups, plus a smaller category called a home for individual residential care. Michigan has homes for the aged. Connecticut uses managed residential community for its assisted living model, and Wisconsin has the community-based residential facility for homes serving five or more.

These names are not interchangeable in a search box. Each state’s exact term is in the list below, and each of our state directories links to that state’s official lookup tool.

What to verify

In every state on this page, the license subcategory determines whether a resident can stay as needs change. Get the subcategory in writing, look it up in the state database, and ask what triggers a discharge. That last question is the one families most often wish they had asked earlier.