Assisted Living & Mental Health: A Beginner’s Guide to Serving This Population

assisted living bipolar disorder assisted living for schizophrenia assisted living mental health assisted living staff for mental health medicaid mental health assisted living mental health assisted living facility Jul 14, 2025

Thinking about opening an assisted living home that serves people with mental health needs? You might be wondering:

Who are the residents?
What kind of care do they need?
What challenges should I expect?

Good news—you don’t have to figure it out alone! This guide breaks down what it’s really like to run an assisted living home for people with a mental health diagnosis.

Let’s dive in! 🚀

Check out this video, too:

Why It Matters: Mental Health in Assisted Living

When people hear “assisted living,” they usually picture elderly adults in their 80s or 90s. But did you know many assisted living homes also serve people in their 30s, 40s, or 50s who have mental health diagnoses?

✅ Common diagnoses include:

Schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Severe depression or anxiety

Many residents have:

Been on medications for years
Been court-ordered to take meds
Have no family available or willing to care for them
Experienced homelessness before coming to the home

💡 In serving this population, you’re offering a safe, stable home—and that makes a life-changing difference.

👉 Most residents are calm and friendly when their medications are managed. They want to be treated like normal adults—and that’s exactly how you should approach their care.

Step 1: Understand the Care Needs

Caring for people with a mental health diagnosis looks different from caring for elderly seniors.

Here’s what your team will focus on:

✅ Medication management – making sure residents take meds on time
✅ Daily reminders – prompting them to shower, eat, or get dressed
✅ Routine support – helping them stay on track with simple daily tasks

You’ll spend less time on things like:

❌ Lifting and transferring
❌ Toileting or incontinence care
❌ Spoon-feeding or intensive physical care

👉 Most residents are physically independent—they just need gentle prompts and supervision.

⚠️ Be prepared: If a resident misses meds, they might have an outburst or mood change. Staff must stay calm, supportive, and consistent.

💡 Tip: Training your team on how to respond to behaviors is key to your success!

Step 2: Hire the Right Staff

Not everyone is the right fit to work with mental health residents. Here’s what to look for:

✅ Patient and compassionate team members
✅ Comfortable handling verbal outbursts
✅ Able to stay calm under pressure
✅ Strong emotional boundaries

👉 Your staff don’t need to be physically strong—but they do need to be mentally and emotionally resilient.

Pro tip: Encourage staff to be friendly but maintain professional boundaries. Residents need kindness and structure to feel safe.

Step 3: Can You Accept Medicaid?

Yes—you can get Medicaid funding for mental health residents!

Most states offer Medicaid waivers for this population. The names may vary by state, but you may see something like:

Elderly, Blind, and Disabled (EBD) waiver
Mental Health waiver

✅ The resident’s diagnosis and care needs determine which waiver applies.

💡 You may need to help families with paperwork—but it’s worth it to secure funding for care.

👉 Bottom line: Medicaid is a viable funding source for assisted living homes serving mental health residents.

Step 4: Is This the Right Fit for You?

Serving people with mental health diagnoses is rewarding—but it’s not for everyone.

Expect:

✅ Residents who’ve faced rejection, homelessness, or a negative stigma
✅ Days that are emotionally tough
✅ Moments where your home becomes a place of stability and healing

If you’re patient, compassionate, and committed, this might be the niche for you.

💡 And the best part? You’re helping people live with dignity, safety, and respect.

Next Steps: Take Action Today!

🚀 Want to launch your assisted living business in the next 12 months?

✅ Step 1: Download the free Business Plan Checklist
✅ Step 2: Need help figuring out where to start? Join the next Roadmap Challenge and build your launch plan with me.

Have questions? Drop them in the comments—I’d love to help! ⬇️

▶️ Watch on YouTube

Show full transcript 👇

Transcript

00:00:04
hey friend it is Brandon Gustafson welcome to Assisted Living investing excited to have you here with me on the channel this morning um and on the Facebook group if you're live over there excited to get into a topic today that uh I hear a lot of people ask about sorry I'm trying to make sure that everything is working on my computer while I do this um it is getting talking about assisted living and mental health and working with a mental health popular ation um so I want to do that I'm having internet

00:00:33
issues I really hope this live stream comes all the way through um this morning uh but wanted to make sure I get the topic out to you as well so we're going to add this to the screen I want to remind you to get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net and if you go to Assisted Living investing. netb checklist I'll link that down below you're going to get access to a business planning checklist that I've created that's going to give you all the just little things that you need um to get

00:00:58
yourself started on your journey to to creating a solid business plan which is one of the most important things you can do as you are starting your Assisted Living business it can help you get funding it's going to help you um just know what you're doing so you can make progress and and start your business so I want to remind you to get over there but we are going to be talking about assisted living in mental health uh assisted living for mental health in today's topic um so I want to give you a

00:01:24
quick introduction of who I am and why I'm qualified to teach you uh some of this so I own and operate two assisted living facilities and I created Assisted Living investing to help people like you learn the ins and outs of investing in Assisted Living so welcome here to the channel um I am excited to to help you out through this process uh I I own those facilities out of state as well I live in Utah one of my facilities is in Colorado the other is in Idaho so I operate those remotely I've been able to

00:01:54
secure over 1 and a half million in SBA funding as well so I really understand that process can help coach you through that help you get the funding know how to talk to lenders know how to talk to the different people that are involved in the acquisition process and coach you through that so that you can obtain your own start your own business and obtain your own business uh as I mentioned one of my facilities the one in Colorado deals with a population of mental health so we have a lot of residents that have

00:02:22
schizophrenia or bipolar disorder uh I'm going to talk about that here as we get into the video today and the live stream if you have questions as I go through this make sure you comment those down below so that I can answer them as well and if you are new here if you're a newbie then type that in there down at the bottom so I know who's here and if you need some help or you're you're interested in doing this yourself and how to turn this into that type of a facility type in operator down below i'

00:02:50
love to see who's here and and talking about this and also one last thing I do have a masters in healthcare administration I've worked in the industry net for over a decade and have a lot of exper experience working in healthcare so have you know I can I can coach you through this I know exactly what I'm doing here um so let's get into the type of Resident you would be working with if you're working with a mental health population and I I put this picture on here and it's not

00:03:15
because you're dealing with somebody that um is necessarily going to be like this but they struggle and if you've dealt with somebody in your life that struggles with mental health depression anxiety schizophrenia or bipolar even you're going to notice that um they go through struggles themselves often times the residents that we are dealing with in this population are a younger population they are not your typical that you think of when you think Assisted Living um you know that's 90

00:03:43
years old it oftentimes we have 40 ye olds 30 year olds even um that come into our home and we're working with them and helping them through uh the some of the struggles that they they experience so it's a very different population than you would typically see um they're going to be dealing with with that mental health diagnosis as well uh that that you're just going to have to deal with it's something that they have struggled with they're often medicated for it you're going to be helping them out

00:04:11
through that through giving them the care that they need to help them through those struggles you're the family of these residents they're often unable or they're unwilling to care for them which is really sad and disappointing but it it is the reality you're going to be working with these residents who their families are at their wit's end and they just can't handle it anymore and so that's the type of Resident you're going to be dealing with when you get into this you want to just kind of be aware

00:04:38
that that that is the case and sometimes they're even homeless they're part of the homeless population because their family and friends are at their witsend and they can't do it anymore they've tried to go somewhere else and they end up on the streets and you know it's it's really sad it's very unfortunate but if you are um compassionate and caring and uh you you are uh passionate about serving this population you can do so much good in in the world in in helping these people so I want to talk to you a

00:05:07
little bit about that so what are some of those mental health diagnoses that um we see so there are oftentimes it is schizophrenia or bipolar disorder those are the two most common that we see they um come into into the house oftentimes they have been medicated um they they are in court-ordered medications sometimes as well um so that they when oftentimes you'll see this when they are on their medications they are normal you would have no idea that they struggle with these things I love going and

00:05:37
seeing our residents at our at our Colorado facility that deal with some of these struggles they're so much fun to talk to um they're they're just a joy and I love communicating with them and helping them out uh and and getting to know them a little bit more these are the diagnosis that you're probably going to be seeing if you have this type of facility now let's talk about Medicaid with mental health can you do it I talk a lot about Medicaid um here on this channel and why it's actually a really

00:06:06
good thing for you to consider as you start your Assisted Living business and the answer here is yes you can absolutely work with the your residents that deal with these types of of situations these types of struggles they will qualify for Medicaid the the diagnosis and uh the experience is going to dictate which type of waiver there's several different types of waivers that um people are going to fall under for for their Medicaid it's just dependent on the diagnosis that they have and the type of care that they need

00:06:39
your State's going to be different they will probably call it something different than what my States would call it oftentimes we get like an elderly blind and disabled is is a waiver and then we have another one that's like a mental health focused one and I just can't remember the the acronym for it and what it means um but those are the two big ones but your state might have something that's that's slightly different and that's okay okay you're still going to be able to deal work with

00:07:03
Medicaid with this population and oftentimes actually they are going to be on Medicaid so they will be a Medicaid they will need a little bit more help than some of the other residents in getting that long-term care insurance that long-term care uh in place so that they will qualify for Medicaid so you might have to help them out there but you're still going to be able to help them out the the thing that I would say here is the type of care that you're going to be offering to your your residents and the stuff that your staff

00:07:32
are going to be doing are a lot more centered around medication management you're going to be working with them quite a bit uh in that area so you just want to be aware that uh there's not going to be a ton of like toileting and dressing oftentimes these are younger people and they can do those things it's more prompts hey I need you to get dressed hey you need to take a shower and then you're helping manage their medications is a lot of the type of care that your staff are going to be

00:07:59
providing fing to these types of residents now let's talk a little bit about the type of staff that you need you need to like you need to recognize that you're dealing with a very different population here and your staff should recognize that as well they should be aware that uh you're dealing with this population it's a little bit more it's a little rougher I the the residents themselves are are younger so you're not going to have to do some of those heavier liing types of of of cares

00:08:29
that you would typically do in a an elderly care facility but it's a lot more mentally straining because you might have a resident who missed their meds or has an outburst or something like that and they will yell and scream and and create tension in the home and amongst the staff and so you want to be aware of that with the staff that you have and make sure that that's communicated to them so they know exactly what they are getting into because it is it's different and it's a struggle and it can be really really

00:08:59
hard really can I've had some very just heartfelt conversations with our staff at our Colorado facility because of situations that have come up with our residents there and um I'm so grateful for those people because they deal with this population that needs this care they really do and I'm so grateful that we get to to provide that your staff um also needs to just treat the resident like normal just go in and uh just just be their friends um and and help them and and love them you still have to be

00:09:30
firm you still have to give them um Direction and and and help them out you can't be buddy buddy friends but you want to treat them like normal these are people that oftentimes they don't get that experience from a lot of people in the world and the more that we can help them and treat them like normal and and treat them like human beings the the more beneficial the less um episodes they're going to have because they feel comfortable in our home that's something I've learned as we've been doing this

00:09:56
for over three years now um if there are any questions out there please comment them down below even if you didn't make the live I'd love to you know if you have questions about the mental health population that I get the opportunity to serve I would love to hear some of those questions for you and answer them and kind of take away some of the stigma that surrounds this population because it is such a unique and special population and I want to remind you also to like the video subscribe and ring the

00:10:23
bell as well so you get notified every time we go live on the channel we're doing this on a weekly basis I have a really exciting one uh for next week so make sure you tune in uh we are going to start that at 100 p.m. eastern time 10:00 a.m. Pacific time um so make sure you get on there get notified uh ring the bell so you get notified when I go live I have some really exciting news that I want to share with you uh so make sure you are tuned in for that and uh if you're not a part of the Facebook group

00:10:51
also join there because there's going to be announcements and things on that as well uh reminder also get over to the website Assisted Living investing. net BP checklist to get your your free business planning checklist again I will link that down below you can also get our accelerator course which is our our 12we um Pro our 12we process to help you get to ownership to get on the path to ownership owning your own facility creating that time and Financial Freedom and and helping you start your own

00:11:18
Assisted Living business I want to thank you for watching thank you for being here excited to uh talk to you next week and uh with that thanks for watching and have a great day

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