Family Homes are Unique

Did you know that there is a little assisted living secret the big, corporately managed assisted living homes, with abundant advertising resources, prefer you not become aware of? It is the adult foster care (AFC) Family Home. An AFC Family Home is a state-licensed private residence. It enables a couple to provide assisted living to six or fewer retirees who require help with daily activities but are not bedridden. Licensees of such a home, along with their residents, enjoy the greatest personal freedom and independence in both concept and operation of their shared household; everyone may exercise their full level of independence more than elsewhere. Most people do not like crowds; studies show that occupants of smaller assisted living facilities tend to be happier than residents in larger homes are. In addition, a Family Home, besides providing one caregiver for every 2-3 residents, is often less than half the expense of larger AFC Group Homes and one-third the cost of a nursing home.

There is a host of other reasons for taking a closer look at the Family Home.

Legal Rights

Adult Foster Care (AFC) is state licensed and inspected assisted living guaranteeing residents and their families certain standards of care and caregivers, providing them immediate access to the proper officials for addressing complaints, seeking information, or making comments. Assisted living homes that lack an AFC license do not enjoy these sanctioned benefits; here residents and families must turn to Adult Protective Services to initiate any inquiry. Go to: http://www.michigan.gov/dhs, click on Adult Foster Care/Homes for the Aged Facilities (under “Online Lookups”) for a complete list of AFC Family Homes in your area.

Services

Bigger assisted living homes advertise with big service. Often, many of these cost extra and add quickly to the expense of care. The AFC Family Home, though small and personal, is just as big with service – but all included in one simple monthly fee. Room and board, house soaps, common shampoos, basic supplies, utilities and cable television are included. Laundry, ironing and housekeeping are also furnished. Moreover, it goes without saying, there is around-the-clock presence, assistance with daily routines and, transportation to and from appointments. An AFC Family Home also dispenses and supervises a resident’s medication; something prohibited to unlicensed homes. Expect, too, that a Family Home solicits the help and expertise from other licensed and recognized services like pharmacists, doctors, nurses, physical therapists, church pastors and volunteers, community organizations, pharmaceutical and medical equipment deliveries and, beauticians. Lastly, a Family Home, also, can arrange the “continuum of care” so important to today’s seniors and their families.

Participation

Large assisted living homes often employ activity directors to entertain their residents. But why is this so necessary? Perhaps because residents of large homes live so far removed from fundamental domestic activities, it creates a sensory void that begs replenishment. In contrast, occupants of a Family Home experience life up close. Whether it is cleaning, cooking, baking, laundry, garden, yard work, or recreational games, life is out in the open and available to commensurate participation or vigorous observation. Also, the AFC Family Home homeowners’ interests and hobbies, mingled with those of the residents, become the authentic vital mix of a particular home’s environment. Hence, the specific role that organized entertainment fulfills in large facilities is unnecessary in Family Homes.

Incentive of Ownership

Owners of their own small AFC Family Home have naturally more incentive for its success than hired managers or employees of bigger assisted living facilities. This translates into meaningful advantages for a Family Home’s residents and their respective families. Here, for example, are just a few: Proprietors of a close-knit Family Home are only as “well-off” as their residents’ “well-being” – they must be active advocates for each and every household member. Also, there is not the high turnover rate from poorly paid employees or concern about employees’ possible criminal backgrounds associated with large institutions. Additionally, the caregivers’ vital interest for what occurs within their own private walls is an important shield against those bent on exploiting a senior financially, emotionally, or physically through scams or other forms of abuse.

Advocacy

With one caregiver for just every 2-3 residents, an AFC Family Home is unsurpassed in advocacy for its seniors. No other form of assisted living – licensed or unlicensed – can represent and protect its clients as thoroughly and intensely. Whether as patients at doctors and hospitals, as active members of the community in need of a haircut or desiring to exercise their right to vote, or even as possible victims of exploitation needing protection, residents of a Family Home experience the time and attention from their caregivers that befit their needs.

Future Developments

Two important things are happening. First, existent large retirement/assisted living centers in our area are building additional apartments to attract future occupants. These organizations employ management to fill these rooms and can afford to mount extensive advertising campaigns to do just that. Despite this, the AFC Family Home – if it can raise awareness of itself – should continue to retain its niche as the small, personal, affordable and classy licensed assisted living alternative. There is a simple reason for this, most human beings dislike crowds. Most people, above all the frail elderly and their families, seek a deeper contact and clarity from their surroundings than expansive communities can provide.

Secondly, with Medicare and Medicaid in deep financial trouble, politics increasingly needs to address these popular programs’ funding shortcomings. For example, already there is talk of making the so-called Medicaid Waiver – applicable institutionally only to nursing homes and the most obvious source for potential savings – more difficult to obtain. A nursing home is easily the most cost intensive form of assisted living. Up until now, a whole industry has specialized in helping certain seniors “spend down” their assets (on paper) so that they might take advantage of the Medicaid Waiver covering their high nursing home costs. (In Michigan, this results in 70% of all available Medicaid Waiver monies going to nursing homes). Its sole use towards nursing homes also forces some elderly – for true lack of funds –into an expensive care environment that they do not require and that does not provide them with the stimulus they deserve. Politics is beginning to ask itself two obvious questions: Why is it so easy for seniors with financial means to obtain the Medicaid Waiver? And, why does the Medicaid Waiver force truly financially needy, but relatively healthy, elderly into occupying expensive nursing homes? An AFC Family Home is merely one-third or one-fourth as costly and does so much more justice to these people and the taxpayers. The political debate is seeking to include the option of the less expensive, more individualized AFC Family Home in the restructuring process.

Michael and Cornelia Popp are responsible for the Four Maples Retirement Home (AFC), 2510 East Silver Lake Road Traverse City, MI 49684 Tel./Fax (231) 947-5476