Some disturbing facts in this article about an unlicensed adult group home. Meanwhile, the waiting list for a bed in a state-licensed home is 18,000 names long.

Parents decry care at Deicke Home in Lombard for disabled adults — chicagotribune.com

Disabled care advocates say the Deicke case provides an inside look at the risks of Illinois’ problematic and woefully underfunded adult-care system, where countless small, unlicensed homes provide much-needed housing but offer little relief to worried families.

“They exist because the system in Illinois is inadequate and broken,” said Zena Naiditch, president and chief executive of Equip For Equality, a nonprofit disabled care advocacy group. “You’re talking about people who are very poor and are looking for a place to live. So you have this secret, behind-the-scenes provider system that, if you shut it all down, would create a crisis. Because there’s not enough beds for everybody.”

The vast majority of group homes for disabled adults are licensed with the Department of Public Health, which provides a set of rules to ensure resident safety: on-site inspections when complaints are filed; background checks for employees; education and training for nurses; and CPR certification and other basic levels of competency.

A family member is lucky to be in one of the better-run, licensed homes. There are activities, but also paid work, and life skills like budgeting are taught to the capable residents too. It’s clean and organized when we visit (if a little noisy), and it could be a lot worse, I guess.