By Marilyn Hawkes | Phoenix Magazine
Two years ago, Paul Murphy purchased a North Phoenix home to remodel. His plan was to live there, but as he watched his father diminish physically and mentally after a heart attack, Murphy decided to turn the property into a residential group care home where his father could receive quality 24-hour care. The decision came after touring care facilities around the Valley.
“I couldn’t find one that I’d put him in. It’s just depressing. Basically, people go there to die,” he says. “They don’t go there to live.”
Murphy’s home, Abellavida Assisted Living and Memory Care, is part of a growing trend of residential group assisted-living homes for 10 people or fewer sprouting up in single-family neighborhoods across the Valley and beyond. In addition to housing, group homes provide medical services for seniors, as well as meals, community spaces and planned recreational activities. Some offer private rooms with bathrooms.
“If the elders have physical or mental disabilities that are being treated in the home then the FHA would protect them, if they don’t, then the FHA would not protect them because the FHA does not apply to age.”
