Residential care homes in Fairfield County

What does a residential care home provide?

A Connecticut residential care home provides a room, meals, supervision and help with daily living and medications under its own DPH license, for people who do not need nursing care.

Homes are usually smaller and simpler than assisted living communities, with a household feel. See the rules.

How many residential care homes are in Fairfield County?

DPH's license export shows 10 active residential care home licenses in Fairfield County, in Bethel, Bridgeport, Danbury, Greenwich, Norwalk, Shelton, Stamford.

Several share an address with a nursing home or an assisted living agency. The roster lists each license with its dates.

Who pays for a residential care home?

Most residents pay privately, and some rely on Social Security, SSI with Connecticut's state supplement or VA pension; Medicare does not pay for room and board.

Ask each home for its monthly rate and what it includes, and whether it has a waiting list.

Where are Fairfield County's residential care homes?

They are scattered rather than clustered: some sit on campuses with a nursing home or assisted living agency, such as Bethel's Parklawn Drive campus and an address in Shelton shared with a nursing home, while others are stand-alone homes in Bridgeport, Greenwich, Norwalk, Stamford and Shelton neighborhoods.

With so few homes in the county, families often widen the search to neighboring towns, or compare a residential care home with a smaller assisted living community.

How do we check a residential care home?

Confirm the license in Connecticut's eLicense system, ask for the most recent DPH inspection results and any plan of correction, and ask the Long-Term Care Ombudsman (1-866-388-1888), which serves residential care home residents, about residents' rights.

Visit at a mealtime, ask how many residents live there and how many staff are on overnight, and ask what happens when a resident's needs increase.

Who is a residential care home not right for?

It is not right for someone who needs regular skilled nursing, two-person transfers, a secured dementia environment or frequent medical monitoring; those needs point to a nursing home or a dementia special care unit.

A visiting nurse, home health or hospice can come in for some needs, but the home itself does not provide nursing care.

Where is residential care homes licensed across Fairfield County?

Here is how the state and CMS records distribute active residential care home licenses across Fairfield County's towns; 16 of the 23 towns have none.