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NJ steps toward group home transparency, then pulls back

By: Ashley Balcerzal
and Jean Rimbach
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... New Jersey for the first time recently posted information Online about punishments meted out to poorly performing group homes for adults with developmental disabilities, but then - without expiation - quickly hid the information.
..... The state has histrionically kept the public in the dark about when and why it decides a company is not allowed to accept new residents or that a home must close.
..... To fill that void, NorthJersey.com created a searchable tool using public records requests as part of its Hidden at Home investigative series. The toll allows users to sift through licensing reports and other letters that illustrate serious concerns about a company's performance, ranging from the quality of resident care and staffing levels to the physical conditions of the homes.
..... In the wake of the series, the Department of Human Services - the agency that oversees the group home system - posted a link on its website to a list of companies it had punished. The list was an addendum to its report card, a resource that grades group homes that many families and disability advocates have said they found lacking.
..... the list was briefly linked on the department of Human Services website showed which companies received the most serious punishments between January 1. 2024, and July 31, 2025. the list includes details such as:
* Group homes that couldn't accept new residents.
* Providers under heightened oversight from a state panel.
* Providers who had licenses revoked or not renewed.
* Group homes that had shorter "provisional" licenses issued by inspectors who found issues in homes that "directly endanger the health, safety or wellbeing" of residents.
..... But after NorthJersey.com sent questions about the list and transparency measures on September 2, [2025] the list and transparency of punished companies disappeared.
..... The document remains Online, but without knowing the link to the PDF, the public has no path to get there.
..... The state did not respond to multiple request for comment.
..... Throughout the Hidden at Home series, families an overwhelming and opaque process for choosing a group home for their loved one, with little official information Online about the quality of individual companies and their homes. As a result, families from Facebook and other support groups to share information about their loved ones' experiences.
...... In response to the Hidden at Home series, Disability Rights New Jersey - the state's protection and advocacy agency - called for more information to be available to the public.
..... "We support greater transparency about survey and audit results, data on incident reporting and confirmed allegations, licensing reports, and other metrics of safety that can help individuals and families when deciding on a safe place for their loved one to live," the statement said.
..... The "licensed provider report card" is New Jersey's primary state document that grades companies on a one- to three-star scale that can be difficult to decipher without a key and does not include actual data, as past versions did.
..... It assigns stars based on broad range of whether homes receive provisional licenses, reported concerns and submitted investigation reports in a timely manner, and had large numbers of substantiated cases of abuse, neglect and exploitation.
..... "The report card that they have is too focused on how [group home providers] interact" with the state, said Paul Blaustein, chair of the New Jersey Council on Developmental disabilities. "I personally don't care whether [a provider] gets back to the state in two hours or two weeks."
..... Blaustein said he would rather see more input from residents and families about what they would like improved, and steps group home provider took to respond to that feedback.
..... "Don't think in terms of what is easiest to measure, think of what would be most significant to a prospective family member looking for a place where their child will be cared for," Blaustein said.
..... The Department of Human Services defends the report card. Its spokesman Tom Hester, last year [2024] called it "Family-friendly" and noted that it "was met with great enthusiasm from officials in other states, as New Jersey is unique in assessing provider performance in this way."
..... It does not include sanctions or serious warnings from the state, such as Elwyn, one of New Jersey's largest group home providers.
..... Many people learned about the suspension only from NorthJersey.com , which obtained a state letter to Elwyn that listed concerns about hundreds of staff shortages that the state said contributed to deaths and serious injuries to residents.
..... Elwyn denies that staff shortages led to preventable deaths.
..... NorthJersey.com found inconsistencies on the state's new list that do not line up with documents received through public records request:
* The list does not include Elwyn's admission suspension that began May 30, 2025.
* Friends of Cyrus received 27 provisional licenses during this time, not 22, as listed. One Willingboro home received a shorten license in January 2024, and all 26 homes received provisional licenses in April 2024 after the state found "substantial noncompliance."
* The state failed to renew a supervised apartment in Clifton run by Partnerships for People in March 2024, which is not included on the list.
* First Cerebral Palsy of New Jersey received a provisional license for a Belleville home in Janaya 2025 that was not included on the list.

What the list includes

..... The list of punished companies that was briefly linked on the state website show 69 provisional licenses issued to 26 companies, four companies under admission sanctions, and three companies 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.
..... The list also shows that the state revoked the license for the sole home operated by Unique Home Care & Companionship Services
..... State documents NorthJersey.com obtained from public records requests shoe that New Jersey suspended admissions in May [2025] to Unique Home Care, which had only one resident. When the state revisited the home in July, [2025] inspectors found that the company had not addressed issues the providers said it fixed in a plan of correction to the state.
..... For example, paperwork and medical records were not available, corrected or updated. a stairwell banister was not repaired, even though Unique Home Care attested that it was fixed. And water temperatures in the bathrooms continued to pose an "imminent scalding risk."
..... What's more, the company originally old the state no one would be available for a state inspection, and later that the home was "not ready more safe for anyone to enter" due to construction. the state found "no construction was occurring that resulted in a cause for concern for safety."
..... Katherine Ellu, Unique Home Care's executive director, declined a request for comment.

No response from state

..... It's unclear if the brief appearance of the Online link to a punishments list was a shift in policy toward greater openness, in part because that officials aren't talking. questions posed in writing about the document and any plans to post licensing reports or improve the report card were not acknowledged.
..... Since May, [2025] the Department of Human Services has not acknowledged - or responded to - any queries from the NorthJersey.com reporters who produced the Hidden at Home series.

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