Reference
Don't take our word for any of it
We quote California's regulations all over this site. Here is every section we rely on, with the state's own heading and a link to the full published text, so you can check us. There are 27 of them.
California licenses care homes under Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations, Division 6, Chapter 8. The chapter governs Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, and it is the same licence whether the home is a house on an ordinary street with six residents or a community with two hundred. Section numbers run in the 87000s.
Skilled nursing facilities are licensed separately, by a different department, under a different chapter. That is why so much of what families read about “nursing home rules” turns out not to apply to the place they are actually looking at.
Where a section below has a plain English note under it, that is a section we have read in full. Where there is only a heading, we have not summarised it — read it yourself rather than trust a paraphrase. We have got one of these wrong before and would rather say less.
Title 22
Getting in
What has to happen before anybody moves in. This is the group that decides how fast a placement can actually go, and the medical assessment is almost always the slow part.
- § 87457 — Pre-Admission Appraisal
The home has to appraise someone before admitting them, covering their functional capabilities, mental condition and social factors. It applies to a two week respite stay exactly as it applies to a permanent move.
- § 87458 — Medical Assessment
A medical assessment completed by a physician within the last year, on form LIC 602A. Getting a doctor's appointment and signature is the usual reason a move takes a week rather than a day.
- § 87459 — Functional Capabilities
- § 87507 — Admission Agreements
The written agreement between the home and the resident. Read the rate, the notice period and what triggers an increase before signing anything.
- § 87463 — Reappraisals
- § 87202 — Fire Clearance
Title 22
What the home must provide
The floor beneath every licensed home in California. A home is free to offer more; it is not free to offer less.
Title 22
Health conditions
The question behind 'will they take her?'. California splits conditions into three groups, and the difference between them is the single most misunderstood thing in this whole area.
- § 87612 — Restricted Health Conditions
A licensee MAY care for a resident with any of these, provided the care plan and training requirements are met. No written state exception is needed — that requirement belongs to the prohibited list, not this one.
- § 87615 — Prohibited Health Conditions
The conditions a home may not accept. The list is introduced as 'including but not limited to', so it is not a closed set.
- § 87616 — Exceptions for Health Conditions
The route by which a home can be granted a written exception to take a resident it otherwise could not. This is the provision people mistakenly apply to restricted conditions.
- § 87618 — Oxygen Administration - Gas and Liquid
- § 87619 — Intermittent Positive Pressure Breathing (IPPB) Machine
- § 87621 — Colostomy/Ileostomy
- § 87622 — Fecal Impaction Removal, Enemas and/or Suppositories
- § 87623 — Indwelling Urinary Catheter
- § 87625 — Managed Incontinence
- § 87626 — Contractures
- § 87628 — Diabetes
- § 87629 — Injections
- § 87631 — Healing Wounds
Title 22
Hospice
A home needs a specific waiver to keep a resident on hospice, and it has a cap on the number of people it can cover.
Title 22
Being asked to leave
The part families only read once it is happening, by which point the clock is already running.
- § 87224 — Eviction Procedures
The grounds on which a home may ask a resident to leave, and the notice it must give. Thirty days is the general rule; three days applies only in narrow circumstances.
- § 87637 — Health Condition Relocation Order
Common questions
The rules, answered
- Where are California's assisted living regulations actually written down?
- Title 22 of the California Code of Regulations, Division 6, Chapter 8. That chapter covers Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly, which is the licence both a six-bed board and care home and a two hundred bed community hold. Sections are numbered in the 87000s. Skilled nursing facilities are a different licence under a different chapter, which is why the rules you read about a nursing home usually do not apply to a care home.
- What is the difference between a restricted and a prohibited health condition?
- It is the difference that decides whether a home can take your mother, and it is routinely got wrong. A restricted health condition under section 87612 is one the licensee may care for, provided the care plan and staff training requirements are met — no special permission from the state is needed. A prohibited health condition under 87615 is one the home may not accept at all, unless it obtains a written exception under 87616. People frequently apply the exception requirement to the restricted list, which makes homes sound far more limited than they are.
- Does a home need permission to keep somebody on hospice?
- It needs a hospice care waiver, under section 87632. The waiver also carries a cap on how many residents the home may serve under it at one time, so a home can hold a waiver and still not be able to take one more hospice resident this month. It is worth asking for both the waiver and the current count.
- How much notice does a care home have to give before asking someone to leave?
- Section 87224 sets the eviction procedures. Thirty days is the general rule, with a three-day notice available only in narrow circumstances. The grounds are limited and written down, which is more protection than most families realise they have.
- Is this legal advice?
- No. This page exists so you can read the actual regulation rather than take anybody's word for what it says, ours included. Every section below links to its full published text. If something here matters to a decision you are making, read the section and, where it is serious, speak to a lawyer or to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
Section headings are taken verbatim from the published regulation. Links go to the Cornell Legal Information Institute, which publishes the California Code of Regulations at a stable address for each section; all 27 were checked on 13 October 2026. General information for families, not legal advice. If a home's conduct is the problem rather than the rule, the state's own record for that home is the place to look.
Last reviewed . Figures are re-checked against their sources whenever this page is revised.
Or just ask us which homes can take her
Reading the regulation tells you what is allowed. We can tell you which Anaheim homes actually hold the approvals she needs — the non-ambulatory clearance, the hospice waiver — and which have room.
Tell us who you are looking after
Four short questions. Nothing you answer is shared with a facility until you say so.
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