The California Community Care Facilities Act provides for the licensure and regulation of community care facilities by the State Department of Social Services, including various adult residential facilities, as described. The act includes legislative findings and declarations that there is an urgent need to establish a coordinated and comprehensive statewide service of quality community care for the mentally ill, the developmentally and physically disabled, and children and adults who require care or services. Existing law, the California Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of residential care facilities for the elderly, as defined, by the department and expresses the intent of the Legislature to require that those facilities be licensed as a separate category within the existing licensing structure of the department.
This bill would require the department to collect and publicly report data from licensed adult residential facilities and residential care facilities for the elderly, including whether the facility accepts residents with a serious mental disorder, as defined, and the destination for all residents with a serious mental disorder who exited during the previous 12 months, among other information. The bill would also require the department to publicly report on a quarterly basis how many licensed residential facilities primarily serving low-income residents closed permanently in the prior quarter and to create guidelines to ensure that the county in which a facility is located is notified when that facility notifies the department that it is closing. The bill would authorize the department to contract with a third party that specializes in creating a searchable database to create a searchable database for these purposes.