low income assisted living in NJ for Residents

New Jersey is home to one of the highest rates of low income assisted living NJ facilities per capita in the United States. Atlantic City and Newark are two of the highest ranking impoverished cities in the state. Whether a person is facing a physical disability, a developmental disability, or old age, long term care requirements for residents can be difficult to come by. Fortunately, there are several organizations dedicated to finding funding that is necessary for these residents to find the care they need. With one of the highest homelessness rates in the country, these offices are quite busy locating the proper care for their residents. Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars that pass through Atlantic City every week, this is a city in perpetual crisis. None of the capital generated from the casinos is returned to the city itself, and with a dangerously high crime rate, tourists do not frequent establishments near the casinos for fear of their personal safety. Thus, Atlantic City has become a depressed area with many residents in need of full time care yet lacking the appropriate funds to receive it.

Atlantic City is by far not a stand alone city in crisis. Much of the state’s coastline has been highly developed and profit heavily from tourism while the inland residents tend to suffer from severe poverty. Finding the funds to house the growing population in need of long term care is certainly no easy task. In the coming years it is speculated that nearly eight and a half percent of the state’s population will need long term residential care with another ten to twelve percent requiring at home long term care. With roughly sixty percent of the entire state carrying adequate health insurance coverage, this number is threateningly high. Sub acute care centers have become a viable option for many residents. Sub acute care centers are able to focus on short term rehabilitation to return a patient to a basic level of self care ability. These centers deal with such issues as stroke recovery, joint replacement therapy, disease treatment recovery, strength therapy, and stabilizing medications in order to return the patient home. With short windows of opportunity to get patients returned to a minimum ability to care for oneself, it is not uncommon to see patients relapse and once again in need of emergency long term care.

Of course much has been done to meet the growing needs of residents who require long term care. There are more facilities directed at moderate to low wage earners being built than in most other states. The organizations entrusted with matching funds to recipients state that there would need to be at least twenty additional facilities erected to house the cases that are waiting on desks at this time. Any facility in the area that is suitable for governmental assistance must pass the guidelines for the Department of Social Services to approve more residents. In 2006, four facilities failed a surprise spot inspection and were forced to temporarily close their doors. This left nearly 500 residents without care or even a roof over their heads. Funding that is awarded to residents for long term care is very specific, and transferring patients from a closed facility to an open one that matched the same funding criteria was nearly impossible.

Health care associations have opted trying to find funding for out of state service for clients near the Pennsylvania border. The idea was that Philadelphia had better quality services for less and should the funding be approved, there would be housing for nearly four hundred residents in need of care. These numbers did not reflect the care needed for juveniles under the age of eighteen. The state government however, showed a stronger interest in housing juveniles out of state rather than providing for adult services. This caused a hot political debate as most families searching for long term care for juveniles did not have the funds to regularly visit their children outside a twenty five mile radius, let alone outside the state.

certification for assisted living

The great debate continues and more residents contact social service programs looking for long term care facilities every day. This will continue to be a topic of heated discussion as the demand for help grows and resources decline. Many residents who applied for help a year ago are now finding themselves chronically hospitalized, which is better than the alternative of living out on the street. As the state government changes hands this issue will be of greater concern throughout elections and political decisions. Residents are quite concerned that their needs won’t be met as the baby boomer generation rapidly ages and sees the basic long term care housing requirements they will utilize dwindle before their very eyes.