What is a board and care facility, and is it different from a board and care home?

They are the same thing. Board and care facility, board and care home, boarding care facility, residential care home, small assisted living home, and board and care homes for seniors are all everyday names for one licensed setting. California's official term is Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, or RCFE. The wording changes depending on who is speaking, a hospital discharge planner, an operator, or the state, but the license and the setting do not change.

What does RCFE mean, and are RCFEs the same as board and care homes?

RCFE stands for Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, the California license for non medical residential care of older adults, issued by the Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division. All board and care homes are RCFEs, but not all RCFEs are board and care homes, because the same license also covers large assisted living communities. Board and care describes a small RCFE, usually six beds or fewer in a house.

How do I find board and care homes near me in Los Angeles?

Start with the state's public facility search on cdss.ca.gov, which lets you look up licensed homes by city and shows license status and licensed capacity. That gives you addresses rather than quality, so pair it with visits and with someone who knows the operators. Widen your radius before you narrow your standards. In Los Angeles County a twenty five minute drive often buys a far better home for the same money than a five minute one.

How much do board and care homes cost in Los Angeles?

Board and care homes in the Los Angeles market commonly run roughly $3,500 to $6,000 a month, with shared rooms at the low end and private rooms with heavy care at the top. Larger assisted living communities commonly run roughly $4,500 to $8,000, and memory care roughly $5,500 to $9,000. These are typical market ranges rather than quotes. Each home prices the individual after an assessment, and location moves the number as much as care level does.

How many residents live in a board and care home?

Six or fewer in most Los Angeles homes, which is why people call them six bed homes. Some RCFEs are licensed for seven to fifteen residents and still feel small, though that is not usually what families mean by board and care. Ask the operator for the licensed capacity and confirm it on the state's public facility record, since a home housing more residents than its license allows is a serious problem, not a technicality.

Are board and care homes licensed and inspected in California?

Yes. They are licensed as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly by the California Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division, which sets rules covering staffing, medication handling, food, resident rights, and the building itself, inspects homes, and investigates complaints. The record is public. Unlicensed homes do exist and are usually cheaper. Ask for the license number before you tour, and look it up before you sign anything.

Is there a nurse on site at a board and care home?

Usually not. RCFEs are non medical settings, so caregivers provide the hands on help and assist with medications within the limits of the license, and most small homes have no nurse in the building. Some contract with a nurse for assessments or coordinate closely with visiting home health and hospice teams. Ask each home exactly what clinical support it has, when that person is actually present, and who gets called at night.

Can someone with dementia live in a board and care home?

Often yes, and the quiet routine and the same few caregivers every shift suit many people with dementia better than a large building does. What matters is whether the home is set up and approved for it. A home using locked doors, delayed egress, or a secured yard generally needs a specific waiver from Community Care Licensing. Ask about exit seeking, overnight supervision, and how the home handles sundowning before you decide.

Does Medicare or Medi-Cal pay for board and care?

Generally no in both cases, for different reasons. Medicare does not pay for long term custodial care in a board and care home, only for limited short skilled nursing after a qualifying hospital stay, which is a different setting under a different license. Medi-Cal generally does not pay room and board in residential care. California's Assisted Living Waiver can cover care services for eligible enrollees in participating facilities, with a waiting list. Verify current rules with the programs.

Can a board and care home take someone in a wheelchair or who needs two person transfers?

Many can, but not all, and the limits are real rather than negotiable. A home generally needs the appropriate fire clearance to accept residents who cannot leave the building on their own, and a two person transfer requires two caregivers awake and available at the moment it is needed. Ask about the fire clearance, about staffing on every shift, and about whether the home uses a mechanical lift. Settle it before move in.

What is included in the monthly rate at a board and care home?

Typically a bedroom, all meals and snacks, housekeeping, laundry, personal care such as bathing and dressing, assistance with medications, and supervision around the clock, all in a single figure. Incontinence supplies, transportation to appointments, private duty caregivers, and a second person for transfers are the items most often billed on top. Ask for the total in writing after the assessment rather than working from an advertised starting rate.

Can a board and care home care for someone on hospice?

Many do, and it is common for a resident to remain in the home through the end of life with a hospice agency coming to the house. The hospice team provides the clinical care, medication, and equipment, while the home's caregivers continue the daily support the resident already knows. Homes need the right arrangements in place to keep a resident at that stage, so ask early rather than during a crisis.

What is the difference between a board and care home and a nursing home?

Different licenses, different regulators, and different care. A board and care home is an RCFE licensed by the California Department of Social Services and provides non medical help with daily living. A skilled nursing facility is licensed by the California Department of Public Health and provides nursing care, therapy, and medical oversight. If someone needs daily nursing assessment, intravenous medication, or complex wound care, an RCFE is the wrong setting.

Who should not move into a board and care home?

Someone social, mobile, and mentally sharp usually does poorly in a six bed house, because five frail housemates and a quiet living room make a thin social world, and loneliness is a real clinical risk rather than a preference. Someone who needs skilled nursing belongs in a nursing facility. Someone whose behavior would be disruptive at close quarters, or whose transfers one caregiver cannot manage safely, needs more staff than a small home has.

Board and Care Homes in Los Angeles: A Family Guide

The short answer

A board and care home is a licensed residential care home, usually an ordinary house on a residential street with six residents or fewer, where older adults get meals, housekeeping, laundry, help with bathing and dressing, and assistance with medications for one monthly rate. In California these homes are licensed as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, or RCFEs, by the Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division, which is the same license large assisted living communities hold. In the Los Angeles market they commonly run roughly $3,500 to $6,000 a month, usually less than a larger community at the same level of care.

What a board and care home actually is

A board and care home is a small licensed home where a handful of older adults live together and receive daily care. In Los Angeles that almost always means a regular single family house on a regular street, with bedrooms instead of apartments, a kitchen instead of a commercial dining room, and caregivers on duty around the clock. Six residents or fewer is the usual size, which is why people call them six bed homes.

You will hear the same thing called several different names, and the variety confuses people more than anything else in this search. Board and care home, board and care facility, boarding care facility, residential care home, small assisted living home, group home for seniors, and board and care homes for seniors all describe the same category of place. The state calls it a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, an RCFE. Discharge planners say board and care. Families usually just say the little house on the corner.

The care is non medical. Caregivers help with bathing, dressing, toileting, walking and transfers, meals, laundry, and, within the limits of the license, with medications. What a board and care home does not provide is skilled nursing, which is a different license under a different agency, and that distinction decides both what a home may legally accept and who pays for it.

Board and care homes and assisted living hold the same California license

This is the fact that surprises almost every family we speak to. A six bed home on a residential street in Van Nuys and a two hundred apartment community with a fountain in the lobby are usually licensed under the same category: Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, issued and overseen by the California Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division.

Board and care is not a separate, lesser license. It is a market word for a small RCFE. The rules on care plans, staff training, medication handling, food service, resident rights, and inspections come from the same place for both. What changes between them is scale, price, and what an ordinary Tuesday feels like.

That has a practical consequence worth holding onto. When you weigh a small home against a large community, you are not comparing a regulated option against an unregulated one. You are comparing two operators working inside the same rulebook, which means the operator matters far more than the category does. A well run six bed house beats a poorly run community, and the reverse is just as true.

Some approvals do sit on top of the base license. A home that accepts residents who cannot get themselves out of the building generally needs the appropriate fire clearance, and a home using locked doors, delayed egress, or a secured yard for dementia care generally needs a specific waiver. Ask about both directly rather than assuming a home has them because it says it takes memory care.

What the monthly rate usually covers

Small homes almost always quote one all inclusive number. Here is what that number typically buys.

A bedroom, private or shared, and use of the whole house, including the living room, kitchen, and yard
Three meals a day plus snacks, cooked in the kitchen for the people who live there that week
Housekeeping, laundry, and linens
Help with bathing, dressing, grooming, and toileting, as often as the person needs it rather than on a schedule
Help with walking, transfers, and repositioning, within the home's staffing and fire clearance
Assistance with medications inside the limits of the RCFE license, from reminders through to setup and administration by trained staff
Supervision overnight, with either awake staff or staff sleeping on site depending on the home, which is a question worth asking plainly
Coordination with visiting providers, since home health, physical therapy, hospice, podiatry, and mobile physicians all come to the house

What is usually billed on top

Incontinence supplies, transportation to medical appointments, private duty caregivers for one to one time, and a second caregiver for two person transfers are the items most often charged separately. Some homes include supplies, some do not. Ask about each one by name instead of asking whether anything costs extra, because the general question reliably produces a general answer.

The bigger structural difference is how the two settings price care at all. A larger community typically quotes a base rent and then adds a care level charge after assessing the person, and that charge moves as needs change. A small home more often absorbs the care into a single rate. That is why a board and care home can end up cheaper for a person with heavy needs even when the advertised starting prices look similar. Ask for the all in figure in writing after the assessment. It is the only number worth comparing.

What daily life is actually like in a small home

Mornings are quiet. A caregiver helps your mother get up, wash, and dress, and she comes to the kitchen table where four or five other people are eating the same breakfast. There is a television on in the living room. Someone is in the next room rather than down a corridor and around a corner.

Meals are cooked for the people who live there, which means the food can be adjusted for a person instead of a menu. Many Los Angeles homes cook to a particular cuisine and are staffed by caregivers who speak a particular language. For a resident who grew up eating that food, or who is more comfortable in Spanish, Armenian, Tagalog, Russian, Korean, or Farsi, that is not a small amenity. It is often the difference between eating and not eating.

The caregiving ratio is what families feel first. In a six bed home, one caregiver is responsible for six people, and many homes run two during the busy morning and evening hours. Help arrives in the time it takes to walk across a house. Caregivers notice a smaller appetite, a new bruise, or an unusually quiet afternoon, because they see the same six people every single day and know what normal looks like for each of them.

Familiarity is the other half of it. The same two or three faces come every shift. For someone with dementia that repetition does more good than any activity calendar, because the person who helped her shower yesterday is the one helping her today, and already knows she wants the water cooler and the door left partly open.

Afternoons are slow. A walk in the backyard, a nap, a visit, cards, a program on television, a caregiver folding laundry nearby. Some families find that peaceful and exactly right. Others find it lonely on their parent's behalf. Both reactions are worth taking seriously, because they are usually accurate readings of the same room by people who know two different residents.

The honest trade-offs

We recommend board and care homes constantly, and we talk families out of them regularly. Here is what you give up, stated plainly, because a family that knows the trade-offs going in does not end up moving twice.

Activities. There is no activity director and no calendar of outings. What happens on a given day depends on the caregivers on shift and on who visits.
Peers. Five housemates, some of whom may be much frailer or barely verbal, is a thin social world for someone who still enjoys conversation.
Clinical staff. RCFEs are non medical, and most small homes have no nurse in the building. Some contract with one for assessments or lean on visiting home health. Ask what is actually there and when.
Amenities. No dining room service, gym, salon, theater, or scheduled transportation. Getting to appointments generally becomes the family's job or a paid ride.
Room to spread out. A bedroom in a house, often a shared bathroom, and less space for furniture than an apartment offers.
Consistency between operators. Two licensed six bed homes on the same block can be run completely differently. The category tells you almost nothing. The operator tells you everything.
Staffing fragility. When one caregiver in a six bed home calls out, you notice. Ask who covers, how often the same person works doubles, and what the home does when a caregiver quits.

What board and care costs in Los Angeles, and why it costs less

In the Los Angeles market, board and care homes commonly run roughly $3,500 to $6,000 a month. Shared rooms sit at the low end. Private rooms, heavy hands on care, two person transfers, and dementia support sit at the top, and homes do go above that range for genuinely complex needs. Those are typical market ranges we see across the county rather than prices we set, and every home quotes its own figure after assessing the person.

Larger assisted living communities in the same county commonly run roughly $4,500 to $8,000 a month, and memory care commonly runs roughly $5,500 to $9,000, whether it is a secured community or a small home that specializes in dementia. Geography moves the number as much as care does. Westside and Beverly Hills adjacent addresses run highest, while much of the San Fernando Valley, the San Gabriel Valley, and the South Bay is more moderate for comparable care.

Board and care is usually cheaper for two structural reasons. The first is what you are not paying for. There is no lobby, no dining venue, no activity department, no marketing office, and no purpose built building on a commercial boulevard. A converted house in a residential neighborhood carries a very different cost per bed, and the rate goes toward care and housing rather than amenities.

The second is the pricing structure. Care levels compound in a community and are absorbed into a single rate in a house, so the gap widens as needs grow. For a frail person with high needs, board and care is frequently both the better care setting and the less expensive one, which is not a combination this market offers often.

Most families pay privately, from income, savings, a long term care insurance policy, the sale of a house, or several of those together. Medicare generally does not pay for long term custodial care in any RCFE. Medi-Cal generally does not pay room and board in board and care or assisted living, though California's Assisted Living Waiver can cover care services for eligible enrollees in participating licensed facilities while the resident pays room and board from their own income, and it operates with a waiting list. Veterans and surviving spouses may qualify for VA Aid and Attendance, which adds to a monthly pension for those who meet the service, medical, and financial requirements. Benefit rules change, so verify current rules with the program before you build a plan on them.

How to check the license before anyone moves in

Every legitimate board and care home for older adults in California holds an RCFE license, and the state publishes the record for free. The California Department of Social Services, through its Community Care Licensing Division, maintains a public facility search on cdss.ca.gov where you can look up a home by name, by city, or by license number and see license status, licensed capacity, and inspection and complaint history.

Ask for the license number before the tour rather than after it. A legitimate operator hands it over without hesitating. Names in this business are unreliable, since homes get renamed and a single operator may hold licenses on several houses on different streets, so the number settles in one step what a name search will not.

Read the record for patterns rather than for a score. Confirm the license is current and that the licensed capacity matches what you were told. Check whether the license changed hands recently, because a new licensee did not earn the older record either way. Read what the citations were actually for, and look for repetition. A paperwork lapse six years ago under a different administrator is not the same thing as a medication or supervision citation from last quarter.

Unlicensed board and care homes do exist in Los Angeles County, and they are usually cheaper. That discount is the entire risk. There is no inspection, no complaint process, no training requirement, and no recourse if something goes wrong. If an operator cannot produce a license number, treat it as disqualifying rather than as an oversight to sort out later.

What to look for on a tour of a small home

Touring a house is nothing like touring a community. There is no model apartment, no marketing director, and no scripted route. You are walking into a business that is also somebody's home, and if you know where to look you learn most of what matters in the first ten minutes.

Go near a meal, and sit down if they offer. You see the food, the staffing, and how residents are spoken to, all at once.
Look at the residents who already live there. Are they dressed, clean, groomed, and up in the living room, or all parked in front of a television? Are they at a similar level of need to your parent?
Notice the smell. A passing odor happens in any home caring for incontinent adults. A settled smell in the hallway is a staffing and housekeeping answer.
Count the caregivers on duty right now. Then ask who is here at three in the morning, whether that person is awake, and what happens if someone falls at night.
Ask who owns the home and how often they are physically in it. An owner who is present most days runs a different house than an absentee owner with a rotating manager.
Ask how long the current caregivers have worked there. In a six bed home, turnover is the single best predictor of quality you can get in one question.
Look at the bathroom your parent would use. Grab bars, a shower chair, room for a walker, and how far it is from the bed at two in the morning.
Ask what the home cannot do. Every home has a line: mechanical lifts, two person transfers, exit seeking, insulin, oxygen, feeding tubes, behavior that disturbs the others. Get the line in words before you move in, not after.
Ask what happens when needs increase, who makes that call, and how much notice a family gets to find somewhere else.
Ask about the notice period, the deposit, what is refundable, and what happens to the rate if your parent goes into the hospital or dies. These terms vary enormously and nobody ever reads them at the right moment.
Visit twice. Once scheduled, once unannounced, at a different time of day.

When a board and care home is the wrong answer

Board and care is a poor fit more often than its advocates admit, and choosing wrong costs a family a deposit, a move, and a great deal of upheaval for someone who has already had enough of it. These are the situations where we say no.

The person is social, mobile, and mentally sharp. A quiet living room and five frail housemates will make an active person lonely and resentful. A larger community with a real calendar is usually the right answer, and worth the extra money.
The person needs skilled nursing. Intravenous medication, complex wound care, a ventilator, unstable medical conditions, or daily nursing assessment belong in a skilled nursing facility, licensed by the California Department of Public Health rather than by Community Care Licensing.
The transfers do not work. If your father needs a mechanical lift or two people to move safely and the home staffs one caregiver on shift, the arithmetic does not hold no matter how kind the operator is.
Dementia with significant exit seeking, in a home that is not approved or physically set up for it. An unlocked front door on a residential street is not a plan.
Behavior that would be unmanageable at close quarters. Loud nights, aggression toward other residents, or a need for constant one to one supervision is very hard in a house where five other people sleep six feet away. A specialized memory care program with more staff and more space usually serves that person better.
The family needs scheduled transportation, on site therapy, or visible daily programming. Small homes generally do not have any of it.
The person wants an apartment and their own front door. That is a reasonable thing to want, and a small home cannot offer it.

Where board and care homes cluster in Los Angeles County

Board and care homes exist in nearly every part of Los Angeles County, but they are not evenly distributed, and the reason is real estate rather than demand. The model needs a house with enough bedrooms, a workable single story layout, and a purchase price that pencils out against six monthly rates. Where houses cost more, there are fewer homes, and the ones that exist charge more.

In practice, the San Fernando Valley has the deepest supply in the county across the widest range of prices. The South Bay and the San Gabriel Valley also have a great many homes. Central and southeast Los Angeles have homes at more moderate rates. The Westside, Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, and the beach cities have noticeably fewer, and the homes there tend to sit at the top of the range or above it, which is exactly what you would expect from the underlying property values.

This is worth planning around rather than discovering late. Families usually begin by searching for board and care near me, then find that insisting on a home within ten minutes of the house narrows the list to two places, neither of which fits. Widening to a twenty five minute drive across the county often buys a substantially better home at the same price. Choose the drive you will genuinely make several times a week, keeping real traffic in mind rather than map distance, and then look at everything inside it.

One page is the right way to think about this. Board and care homes are not a neighborhood product where the options change block by block. They are a countywide market where the right home for your parent may be nine miles from where you started looking.

How we help, and how we are paid

Our help is free to your family. We are paid a referral fee by the home or community when a family we introduced moves in, which is the standard model in this industry, and you should know that about anyone offering free help, including us. It means our incentive is a move in. The way we manage that is by telling families plainly when the answer is to stay home a while longer, or when a home they liked is not going to hold up. A family that has to move a parent twice in six months is not a good outcome for anyone.

What we do is listen to what the person actually needs today and where they were six months ago, tell you honestly whether a board and care home or a larger community fits, and point you at licensed homes that have a real opening and can take that care level. If you want company on the tours, ask. If you would rather do it yourself with a short list and the right questions, that is fine too. Call (323) 675-2991, or use the form on this page.

A note on this information

This page is general information, not medical, legal, or benefits advice. Costs, license status, program rules, and what any individual home is able to accept all change over time. Confirm current pricing and license status with the home itself and with Community Care Licensing, and verify current benefit rules with the program before you rely on them.

Keep reading

Questions families ask us

What is a board and care home?: A board and care home is a licensed residential care home where a small group of older adults, usually six or fewer, live in an ordinary house and receive meals, housekeeping, laundry, help with bathing and dressing, and assistance with medications for one monthly rate. In California these homes are licensed as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly by the Department of Social Services. The care is non medical and is provided by caregivers rather than nurses.
What is a board and care facility, and is it different from a board and care home?: They are the same thing. Board and care facility, board and care home, boarding care facility, residential care home, small assisted living home, and board and care homes for seniors are all everyday names for one licensed setting. California's official term is Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, or RCFE. The wording changes depending on who is speaking, a hospital discharge planner, an operator, or the state, but the license and the setting do not change.
What does RCFE mean, and are RCFEs the same as board and care homes?: RCFE stands for Residential Care Facility for the Elderly, the California license for non medical residential care of older adults, issued by the Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division. All board and care homes are RCFEs, but not all RCFEs are board and care homes, because the same license also covers large assisted living communities. Board and care describes a small RCFE, usually six beds or fewer in a house.
How do I find board and care homes near me in Los Angeles?: Start with the state's public facility search on cdss.ca.gov, which lets you look up licensed homes by city and shows license status and licensed capacity. That gives you addresses rather than quality, so pair it with visits and with someone who knows the operators. Widen your radius before you narrow your standards. In Los Angeles County a twenty five minute drive often buys a far better home for the same money than a five minute one.
How much do board and care homes cost in Los Angeles?: Board and care homes in the Los Angeles market commonly run roughly $3,500 to $6,000 a month, with shared rooms at the low end and private rooms with heavy care at the top. Larger assisted living communities commonly run roughly $4,500 to $8,000, and memory care roughly $5,500 to $9,000. These are typical market ranges rather than quotes. Each home prices the individual after an assessment, and location moves the number as much as care level does.
How many residents live in a board and care home?: Six or fewer in most Los Angeles homes, which is why people call them six bed homes. Some RCFEs are licensed for seven to fifteen residents and still feel small, though that is not usually what families mean by board and care. Ask the operator for the licensed capacity and confirm it on the state's public facility record, since a home housing more residents than its license allows is a serious problem, not a technicality.
Are board and care homes licensed and inspected in California?: Yes. They are licensed as Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly by the California Department of Social Services through its Community Care Licensing Division, which sets rules covering staffing, medication handling, food, resident rights, and the building itself, inspects homes, and investigates complaints. The record is public. Unlicensed homes do exist and are usually cheaper. Ask for the license number before you tour, and look it up before you sign anything.
Is there a nurse on site at a board and care home?: Usually not. RCFEs are non medical settings, so caregivers provide the hands on help and assist with medications within the limits of the license, and most small homes have no nurse in the building. Some contract with a nurse for assessments or coordinate closely with visiting home health and hospice teams. Ask each home exactly what clinical support it has, when that person is actually present, and who gets called at night.
Can someone with dementia live in a board and care home?: Often yes, and the quiet routine and the same few caregivers every shift suit many people with dementia better than a large building does. What matters is whether the home is set up and approved for it. A home using locked doors, delayed egress, or a secured yard generally needs a specific waiver from Community Care Licensing. Ask about exit seeking, overnight supervision, and how the home handles sundowning before you decide.
Does Medicare or Medi-Cal pay for board and care?: Generally no in both cases, for different reasons. Medicare does not pay for long term custodial care in a board and care home, only for limited short skilled nursing after a qualifying hospital stay, which is a different setting under a different license. Medi-Cal generally does not pay room and board in residential care. California's Assisted Living Waiver can cover care services for eligible enrollees in participating facilities, with a waiting list. Verify current rules with the programs.
Can a board and care home take someone in a wheelchair or who needs two person transfers?: Many can, but not all, and the limits are real rather than negotiable. A home generally needs the appropriate fire clearance to accept residents who cannot leave the building on their own, and a two person transfer requires two caregivers awake and available at the moment it is needed. Ask about the fire clearance, about staffing on every shift, and about whether the home uses a mechanical lift. Settle it before move in.
What is included in the monthly rate at a board and care home?: Typically a bedroom, all meals and snacks, housekeeping, laundry, personal care such as bathing and dressing, assistance with medications, and supervision around the clock, all in a single figure. Incontinence supplies, transportation to appointments, private duty caregivers, and a second person for transfers are the items most often billed on top. Ask for the total in writing after the assessment rather than working from an advertised starting rate.
Can a board and care home care for someone on hospice?: Many do, and it is common for a resident to remain in the home through the end of life with a hospice agency coming to the house. The hospice team provides the clinical care, medication, and equipment, while the home's caregivers continue the daily support the resident already knows. Homes need the right arrangements in place to keep a resident at that stage, so ask early rather than during a crisis.
What is the difference between a board and care home and a nursing home?: Different licenses, different regulators, and different care. A board and care home is an RCFE licensed by the California Department of Social Services and provides non medical help with daily living. A skilled nursing facility is licensed by the California Department of Public Health and provides nursing care, therapy, and medical oversight. If someone needs daily nursing assessment, intravenous medication, or complex wound care, an RCFE is the wrong setting.
Who should not move into a board and care home?: Someone social, mobile, and mentally sharp usually does poorly in a six bed house, because five frail housemates and a quiet living room make a thin social world, and loneliness is a real clinical risk rather than a preference. Someone who needs skilled nursing belongs in a nursing facility. Someone whose behavior would be disruptive at close quarters, or whose transfers one caregiver cannot manage safely, needs more staff than a small home has.

Board and Care Homes in Los Angeles: What They Are and How to Choose One