Across Pennsylvania, approximately 1800 licensed Personal Care Homes currently
care for 79,800 residents. Given those numbers, Personal Care Homes (also
known as Assisted Living Residences or ALRs) clearly play a major role in
the state's continuum of long term care facilities. This paper looks at the
plight of personal care home residents, as reported in the records of the
Department of Public Welfare (DPW), the State's licensing and regulatory agency
for PCHs. It also reviews recommendations and studies, from 1978 forward,
that have sought to ensure the health, safety, dignity and quality of life
of residents of these facilities. It examines the existing statutes and regulations
governing PCHs/ALRs to determine whether the laws, as applied by DPW, are
adequate to protect the elderly and persons with physical and/or mental disabilities
who reside in these facilities.
Click on any of the following links to view a section of our Report on Pennsylvania's Personal Care Homes and Assisted Living Residences. These links will open with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
(Please note: the larger documents may take a few minutes to download.)
· Regulatory Changes Needed for Personal Care Home and Assisted Living Residences (23 KB)
· Statutory Changes Needed for Personal Care Homes and Assisted Living Residences (15 KB)