How Much Does the Government Pay for Group Homes in Georgia?

Government payments to group homes in Georgia run from roughly $55 a day at the low end to more than $500 a day at the top. The population served drives most of the spread: small homes for adults with intensive developmental disabilities draw the highest per diems under Medicaid waivers, foster care group homes sit in the middle, and residential settings for frail elderly or physically disabled adults pay the least. Within each program, the resident’s assessed care needs and the number of people living in the home push the daily rate up or down.

Developmental Disability Group Homes Pay the Most

The highest per diem payments in Georgia go to Community Residential Alternative (CRA) group homes funded through the Comprehensive Supports Waiver Program (COMP). A recent rate study set payment tiers based on the resident’s assessed support category and how many people live in the home. Smaller homes and higher-acuity residents both pull the rate up.

Standard CRA group home rates run as follows:

Category 1 (lowest support needs): $294.16 per day in a 3-person home, $248.35 in a 4-person home
Category 2: $323.26 in a 3-person home, $292.42 in a 4-person home
Category 3: $382.32 in a 3-person home, $341.79 in a 4-person home
Category 4 (highest support needs): $507.05 in a 3-person home, $447.57 in a 4-person home

Homes with five or more residents receive a flat $169.93 per day regardless of category.¹ The gap between a 3-person Category 4 home and a home of five or more residents comes out to almost $340 per day per person, reflecting how much more staffing time each resident absorbs in a small, high-needs setting.

Host Home Arrangements

Georgia also pays for host home placements, where a resident lives in the home of a trained caregiver rather than in a licensed group home. Host home CRA rates are lower:

Category 1 (Levels 1–4): $163.33 per day
Category 2 (Levels 5–7): $220.11 per day

Specialized Monthly Models

For residents with the most complex behavioral or medical needs, two specialized CRA models bill monthly rather than daily. The behaviorally-focused model pays $34,424.63 per month, and the specialized transitional model pays $37,121.50 per month. If a resident receives fewer than 15 days of service in a given month, the provider bills half the monthly rate. A third option, an intensive CRA model, uses customizable staffing hours for registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and board-certified behavior analysts, with rates built directly around the actual staffing cost.¹

Foster Care Group Home Rates

Group homes serving foster children are classified as Child Caring Institutions (CCIs) and receive Room, Board, and Watchful Oversight (RBWO) payments from the Division of Family and Children Services.² Per diems are set by the level of supervision and specialized services a child requires:

Traditional Base: $122.90 per day
Base with Watchful Oversight: $155.68 per day
Moderate Watchful Oversight / 2nd Chance: $196.65 per day
Advanced Watchful Oversight (maximum): $219.49 per day
Supervised Independent Living Program: $130.61 per day
Maternity: $122.90 per day

Children with significant behavioral challenges or those in transitional placements command the higher watchful oversight tiers. DFCS adjusts these rates through legislative appropriation, so a provider’s case manager can confirm what the current schedule pays.

Elderly and Disabled Waiver Group Homes Pay the Least

Group residential settings for seniors and adults with physical disabilities receive substantially less than developmental disability homes. These placements are funded through the Elderly and Disabled Waiver Program (EDWP) and the Independent Care Waiver Program (ICWP), both of which focus on personal care coordination rather than intensive habilitation.

A 2023 rate methodology study reported these daily rates for Alternative Living Services:

EDWP group model: $55.00 per day (study target $67.04)
EDWP family model: $55.00 per day (study target $68.97)
ICWP Alternative Living Service: $77.00 per day (study target $91.48)

Whether the study’s target rates have since been adopted is not confirmed in publicly available documents as of early 2026. Even at the target rates, an EDWP group home would receive roughly a fifth of what a Category 4 COMP group home receives for a 3-person setting, which tracks the difference in staffing intensity between the two populations.

Where the Money Comes From

Three funding streams feed these payments, and the stream determines the rate.

Medicaid is the largest source. Home and Community-Based Services waivers authorized under Section 1915(c) of the Social Security Act let Georgia pay for community-based residential care in place of institutionalization.³ The federal government reimburses Georgia for a share of that spending, and the state covers the rest. The NOW and COMP waivers fund CRA group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.⁴ ICWP funds group settings for adults ages 21 to 64 with severe physical disabilities or traumatic brain injury.⁵ EDWP and SOURCE fund settings for frail elderly and disabled Georgians who would otherwise qualify for a nursing facility.⁶

State appropriations flow through the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. The FY2026 budget funds adult developmental disability services, adult mental health residential services, and child and adolescent programs, any of which can pay for a group home placement.⁷

Federal child welfare funds pay for foster care placements. Title IV-E reimburses maintenance costs for eligible children in state custody; children who don’t qualify for IV-E can be covered under the Title IV-B block grant. State DFCS appropriations round out the total.²

What the Rates Do and Don’t Cover

One federal rule cuts across every waiver-funded placement: Medicaid generally will not reimburse the resident’s room and board. Those costs come out of the resident’s own resources, Social Security benefits, or other non-Medicaid sources. What the per diem covers is the service layer on top of housing — staffing, supervision, habilitation, and care coordination.

Foster care RBWO payments work differently. As the name says, they build room, board, and watchful oversight into a single rate, which is one reason the CCI per diems look higher than the EDWP rates even though the baseline residential care is less intensive than what a developmental disability home provides.

Why Two Similar Homes Can Be Paid Very Differently

For CRA group homes, Georgia’s rate study built payment tiers around staffing costs, resident acuity, and home size. Rates attach to service codes; for example, T2033-U4-UP designates a Category 4 resident in a 3-person CRA group home.¹ Two homes serving the same number of residents can be paid at very different rates if the residents fall into different support categories, and the same resident generates a different daily payment depending on how many housemates share the staffing.

For nursing facility-style programs, the Department of Community Health uses a prospective per diem instead of a tiered schedule. Each facility’s rate is built from five cost centers — nursing, dietary, housekeeping and maintenance, administration, and property — divided by total patient days from historical cost reports, with the nursing component adjusted quarterly for case mix. As of July 1, 2025, DCH computes those rates from 2023 cost reports.⁸

Put together, the number of variables is what makes a single “government pays X per group home” figure impossible. The payment is a product of program, population, acuity category, home size, and the specific service code billed on any given day.

1
Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Post Rate Study Provider Training: Community Residential Alternative
2
Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. 2805 Funding Sources
3
Medicaid.gov. Home and Community-Based Services 1915(c)
4
Georgia.gov. Apply to New Option Waiver Program (NOW) and Comprehensive Support Waiver Program (COMP)
5
Georgia.gov. Apply for Independent Care Waiver Program (ICWP)
6
Georgia.gov. Apply for Elderly and Disabled Waiver Program
7
Georgia General Assembly. FY2026 House Health and Human Development Appropriations
8
Georgia Department of Community Health. Reimbursement Rates