Search NorthJersey.com's interactive database of NJ group home violations and penalties
New Jersey rarely penalizes companies that run group homes for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
What's more, if the state does penalize a provider, there is no online resource for residents and their families or guardians to look up whether the company is under a sanction — the sort of online tool that other states have.
Unless someone at the group home or a support coordinator — essentially a caseworker — alerts them, residents and families may have no idea the company isn't allowed to accept new residents or is under increased state oversight.
So NorthJersey.com built a database showing group home violations and penalties so families have more information to work with, filled with documents obtained through public records requests.
The database includes provisional licenses doled out between 2018 and 2024, gathered by NorthJersey.com through public records requests.
A provisional license means the company didn't meet licensing requirements and these problems 'directly endanger the health, safety or wellbeing' of individuals who live in the home, or there is 'substantial noncompliance' with licensing rules. Users can read the licensing reports that detail the concerns inspectors found.
For example, if you search:
Arc of Atlantic County: Staff found a Hamilton apartment (SA265) filled with so much trash in November of 2020 that they couldn't initially get in. The floors and countertops were covered in trash and feces, bugs flew throughout the rooms, and the odor was 'too much to withstand.'
Devereux: The toilet in the first floor bathroom in a Glassboro house was leaking, so 'the shower is presently being used until repairs are completed,' the manager said in September 2023.
Heart to Heart: In February 2019, a thick black substance came out of a bathroom sink in a West Deptford apartment. Shower heads in four different units were completely covered in a black substance. There was no proof that nine staff members were trained in diabetes and administering insulin.
There are also instances where inspectors returned and found the same problems unaddressed, from poor medical care to decrepit conditions in the house — usually after the company promised in a 'plan of correction' that the problems would be fixed. In these cases, companies would receive a 'repeat provisional license.'
The database also shows if the state imposed a harsher penalty on a provider between 2014 and 2024, such as a halt on admissions, or a non-renewal of a home's license.
Since 2014, New Jersey:
Revoked all licenses for one provider: Bellwether Behavioral Health, after years of reported failings, is the only company the department assigned an independent monitor to oversee, and the only provider it revoked all licenses for — turning over care of its 460 residents to other companies.
Suspended admissions for four providers: Friends of Cyrus and PennReach were each barred twice from accepting new residents. Delta Community Supports faced a suspension between 2022 and 2023, as did Bellwether between 2018 and 2019.
Did not renew licenses at six providers: The state shut down supervised apartments run by PennReach after finding an 'extensive breadth of repeat deficiencies." A Partnerships for People supervised apartment program in Clifton wasn't renewed after earning three provisional licenses and not correcting issues it said it had corrected, such as following up on medical appointments. The state did not renew an additional nine licenses held by Lutheran Social Ministries of New Jersey, Living in Freedom Inc., Advancing Opportunities and Kelsch Associates.
The database includes letters to companies that were placed under a 'Quality Management Team,' or QMT — the highest level of state supervision. A QMT is a panel of high-level state employees that closely oversees a company and routinely meets with group home executives to discuss longstanding problems and how to fix them.
QMTs are rare and have been imposed on only six companies: Community Options, Bellwether, REM New Jersey, Delta Community Supports, PennReach and Friends of Cyrus.
The state has warned two providers — the Arc of Cape May and EIHAB Human Services — that QMTs could be assigned if 'critical' issues weren't resolved, such as a lack of food for residents.
If a company is not in the database, it does not mean inspectors or state employees have not found concerns in the home. This database only includes information when a licensing punishment was given, and not all annual reports created by licensing inspectors.
The database also does not include reports of abuse or neglect. Those documents — called unusual incident reports or investigation reports — are not publicly available. NorthJersey.com sent multiple public records requests to the state for these documents and was denied. This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Search NorthJersey.com's database of NJ group home violations
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