Albany Senior AdvisorWhat is the difference between an adult home and enriched housing near Albany?
An adult home must provide supervision and personal care 24 hours a day in a congregate building, while an enriched housing program provides personal care and supervision less than 24 hours a day in apartment-style units with at least one hot meal daily.
Across the nine Capital Region counties, the state roster counts 49 licensed adult care facility buildings holding 3,531 certified beds; 37 carry an adult home license, 12 an enriched housing license (some carry both), and 29 are certified Assisted Living Residences.
Which is better for a parent who needs help at night?
An adult home, or an enriched housing building that staffs overnight by choice, because only the adult home license requires supervision around the clock.
Ask any enriched housing program exactly who is in the building between midnight and six and how quickly they respond to a call button.
Which feels more like an apartment?
Enriched housing usually does: residents have their own apartments, often with kitchenettes, and the setting resembles independent senior housing with services added.
Adult homes tend to have private or shared rooms with common dining. Either can hold ALR, EALR or SNALR certifications.
Do both accept SSI?
Some of each do: SSI's Congregate Care Level 3 rate, $1,688 a month in 2026 with a $262 personal needs allowance, applies to residents of both adult homes and enriched housing programs, but each residence decides whether to accept SSI residents.
Ask before admission, in writing.
How do I tell which license a residence holds?
Look at the license type in our directory or on NYS Health Profiles, where each residence's operating certificate shows adult home or enriched housing program.
Some campuses hold both. Our directory merges them into one building and lists both certificates.
Which license is more common in the Capital Region?
Adult home licenses outnumber enriched housing licenses on the region's roster, and a handful of campuses hold one of each at the same address, usually an adult home wing beside apartment-style enriched housing.
When a campus holds both, a resident can sometimes move from an enriched housing apartment to the adult home side as needs grow without leaving the grounds. Our directory merges those campuses into one building so the two licenses are easy to see together; ask the administrator whether a transfer between them requires a new admission agreement.
Side by side
| Adult home | Enriched housing program | |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation | 18 NYCRR Part 487 | 18 NYCRR Part 488 |
| Supervision | 24 hours a day, required | Less than 24 hours required |
| Setting | Rooms with common dining | Apartment-style units |
| Meals | Three a day | At least one hot meal a day |
Where this page states a rule or a dollar figure, it relies on New York statute or regulation (Social Services Law, Public Health Law, 18 NYCRR and 10 NYCRR), Department of Health GIS messages and directories, CMS, the VA or CareScout, as named in the text. How we source facts: editorial standards.
