[Tagging] nursing homes and group homes

[Greg Troxel]

Martin Koppenhoefer <dieterdreist at gmail.com> writes:

> Recently we have discovered (in a thread on the Italian ML), that someone
> has deprecated amenity=nursing_home by putting a disclaimer on the wikipage
> [1] to use
>
> amenity=social_facility
> social_facility=group_home
>
> because the tags are newer.

That sounds like wikifiddling.

> From my understanding, these are different things, where a nursing home is
> a place for people in need of permanent care (maybe in groups but more
> likely not), while group_home is a very specific kind of structure for
> which (small) groups (of the people to be looked after) are necessarily
> required.

Agreed, mostly.  In en_US (these terms are often different in different
countries), there is:

  assisted_living: you have an apartment, and get meals, cleaning, and
  washing of sheets.  Basically for people physicall unable to live on
  their own, or because of dementia.  You can get more help (showering,
  medication management, more laundry, etc.), but they can't put pills
  in your mouth or give injectable medications.  You often aren't
  allowed to have a stove or anything dangerous like that.  There is a
  nurse around sometimes, sometimes not.  Usually a large building with
  many people.  Feels like a dorm for old people.   Has a big obvious sign
  out front, saying something like "Sunny Acres Assisted Living" or
  "Sunny Acres Senior Residence".

  "nursing home", also "long-term care".  As above, but has nurses 24x7
  and a doctor most of the time; they can handle injectable medication,
  people who need 2 people to get them in and out of bed, and people
  that can't get out of bed.  Often a joint long-term care and rehab
  hospital.  People often move from assisted living to nursing home when
  they deteriorate.  Feels almost like a hospital.  Again usually a
  largish facility.  Has a big obvious sign out front, saying something
  like "Sunny Acres Nursing Home".

  "group home".  Almost always for people whose issues are mental,
  substance abuse, or behavioral rather than physical.  They almost
  never have nurses; they instead have "counselors" who look after the
  residents, try to keep them functioning, try to keep them out of
  trouble, and call the police to find them when they go missing.
  Usually a regular house type building in a regular neigborhood.  Often
  only 4-8 residents plus several staff.  Part of the point is to make
  it feel de-institutionalized and more like a bunch of roommates, even
  though that's not how it is.  Almost never has a sign, and tries to be
  low profile.  Can sometimes be called halfway-house (in that it is
  intermediate between a psychiatric hospital and regular society),
  although that term is probably considered derogatory now.

There is also

  "independent living" An apartment like assisted living, but they don't
  help you with medications or showering.  They will often have 1 meal
  served per day and do housekeeping.  You have a functioning kitchen.
  Calling this "social_facility" seems wrong.

  "rest home"  An old-fashioned word that is not used much.  Probably
  would denote independent living, but could mean assisted_living.
  Should not be tagged because it is ambiguous.

  "over 55 condo": regular condo, but you have to be >=55 and not have
  children to live there.  Definitely not social_facility - just regular
  dwelling units with a rule about who can move it (normally such rules
  are illegal).

> Some nursing homes might also be group homes, but not all of them are (and
> there don't seem to be social facility tags to cover all nursing home
> instances, likely on purpose, because there is already an established
> nursing home tag).

In my experience, nursing homes and group homes do not overlap.  If
there were a small nursing home with 8 people, no one would call it a
group home.  But nursing homes are never small, because you need
multiple LPNs (1st level of US nurse certification) on duty 24x7, and
small ones would not make sense economically.


I find "social_facility" to be a strange tag (no one would call any of
those places that name), but the important thing from the en_US
viewpoint is to keep assisted/nursing/group/independent separate.
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