The Legislature hereby finds and declares:
(a) The Legislature has taken steps in recent years to develop a continuum of long-term social and health support services for older persons in the community that provide a range of options for long-term care and residential care facilities for the elderly are central in that continuum.
(b) These efforts require a reevaluation of residential care for the elderly outside the constraints of the Community Care Facilities Act.
(c) The Community Care Facilities Act was enacted in 1973 with the primary purpose of ensuring that residents of state hospitals would have access to safe, alternative community-based housing.
(d) Since that time, due to shortages in affordable housing and a greater demand for residences for the elderly providing some care and supervision, a growing number of elderly persons with health and social care needs now reside in community care facilities that may or may not be designed to meet their needs.
(e) Progress in the field of gerontology has provided new insights and information as to the types of services required to allow older persons to remain as independent as possible while residing in a residential care facility for the elderly.
(f) The fluctuating health and social status of older persons demands a system of residential care that can respond to these needs by making available multilevels of service within the facility, thus reducing the need for residents with fluctuating conditions to move between medical and nonmedical facilities.
(g) Residential care facilities for the elderly which are not primarily medically oriented represent a humane approach to meeting the housing, social and service needs of older persons, and can provide a homelike environment for older persons with a variety of care needs.
(h) It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature to require that residential care facilities for the elderly be licensed as a separate category within the existing licensing structure of the State Department of Social Services.
(Added by Stats. 1985, Ch. 1127, Sec. 3.)