“Wild west of regulation”: Disability Rights Mississippi releases report on unlicensed care homes

Jane Walton Carroll is the communications director of Disability Rights Mississippi. She says personal care homes provide essential services for people with disabilities.

“These are people that maybe need help making sure they're eating or taking their medicine or need assistance getting to and from appointments,” Walton Carroll said. “I think that differentiates it from, say, a boarding home or just an apartment.”

Licensed personal care homes are regulated by the state. However, if there are three or fewer residents in a facility, the home can remain unlicensed. Walton Carroll says this allows owners to operate these facilities virtually unchecked. 

“In our investigations, and our agency has been looking into this for a decade, the risk could really be life or death,” she said. “There have been instances where a home burns down or someone winds up in the hospital with hypothermia because the place they're living doesn't have proper heating and cooling and they're not being cared for.”

Besides residents of these unlicensed homes not always getting the proper care, Walton Carroll says the lack of regulation leaves residents vulnerable to financial malpractice, too.

“Some bad operators will essentially take the entirety of an individual's monthly income,” Walton Carroll said. “Some of these homes that we've outlined in our public report may not have proper heating and cooling or a sprinkler system, but the operator might be bringing in, you know, anywhere from $4000 to $6000 a month.”

She said the group has also heard of home operators charging exorbitant fees for services residents don’t even need.

“So just this wild, wild west of regulation means that it's hard to say what kind of financial exploitation is occurring,” Walton Carroll said.

Disability Rights Mississippi distributed the report to members of Mississippi’s Legislature. Advocate Raven LeSure says she hopes lawmakers will introduce a bill to hold the operators of unlicensed personal care homes responsible for neglect and malpractice. 

“In legislation, we need something in writing that holds individuals accountable,” she said. “This is the ultimate goal. When you think of the safety of residents, it's a no brainer.”

State Senator Sollie Norwood, a Democrat who represents Mississippi’s 28th district, says he’s already drafting legislation to require all personal care homes to be licensed. 

“That way there will be some accountability  in and out, regardless if there's one person or ten people,” he said.  

The report suggests that Mississippi also consider “state-sponsored or subsidized training programs for personal care home staff to help operators meet staffing and training requirements without incurring significant costs.”

There are 197 licensed personal care homes in Mississippi. However, according to the Disability Rights Mississippi report, there may be triple that amount of unlicensed homes in the state.