Find Residential Care Facilities Near You

Residential care facility is the umbrella term. It's used by federal researchers, academic studies, and by state agencies that prefer a formal, generic label over the folksier names like board and care home or adult family home. A residential care facility is any licensed home or building where older adults live together and receive help with daily activities, without rising to the level of skilled nursing care.

Several states use some variation of this phrase in their formal licensing vocabulary. California has Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, commonly abbreviated as RCFE. Oregon has residential care facilities as a distinct license category separate from adult foster homes. Colorado uses the term assisted living residence with similar meaning. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the National Center for Health Statistics both use residential care facility as their umbrella category when publishing national data on senior living.

The scale of a residential care facility varies enormously. On one end you have six-bed single-family houses that feel exactly like a home, with a shared dining table and a caregiver who knows everyone's favorite breakfast. On the other end you have three-hundred-bed buildings that look and operate much like traditional assisted living. AgeSong focuses on the small end of the spectrum: facilities with fifteen or fewer residents. These are the homes where residents know each other's life stories, where atmosphere is quieter and more personal, and where a new resident can settle in without feeling lost in a crowd.

If you're searching for care and you don't know which term your state uses, residential care facility is your safest generic starting point. From there, use the state directory to find out the local term (RCFE in California, adult family home in Washington, personal care home in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and so on) and narrow your search. Every AgeSong listing includes the state license number and a direct link to the official state licensing database, so you can verify any home's status and inspection history yourself.