§ 4600. Legislative findings and purpose. The dramatic increase in the
numbers of elderly people, especially those seventy-five years of age
and older, coupled with the special housing and health care needs of
this growing segment of the population, requires the development of new
and creative approaches to help ensure the care of older people in
residential settings of their own choice. If carefully planned and
monitored, life care communities have the potential to provide a
continuum of care for older people that will provide an attractive
residential option for such persons, while meeting their long term care
needs for life. To ensure that the financial, consumer, and health care
interest of individuals who enroll in such communities will be
protected, such communities must be effectively managed and carefully
overseen.

The intent of the legislature, therefore, is to allow for the prudent
development of life care communities. The legislature further intends
to require that the relevant state agencies coordinate the regulation of
such communities in order to ensure that there are adequate safeguards
for those elderly who become residents and to assist in the orderly
development, of such communities. Although lead responsibility for the
interagency coordination of the regulation and establishment of such
communities is vested in the department of health, the legislature does
not intend that such communities become or be perceived as primarily
medically-oriented facilities. The legislature intends, instead, that
such communities be viewed as an attractive and innovative residential
alternative for older New Yorkers who are seeking to maintain, to the
extent possible, an independent and active life in a community in which
their long-term care needs will be met.