How South Carolina licenses assisted living in Greenville

Who licenses assisted living facilities in Greenville, South Carolina?

The S.C. Department of Public Health (DPH), through its Healthcare Quality office, licenses every assisted living building in Greenville and the rest of the state under the legal name community residential care facility (CRCF) and the standards in S.C. Code Regs. 60-84.

DPH is a new name for an old job. Until mid-2024 the licensing agency was the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC). Act 60 of 2023 split DHEC on July 1, 2024: health programs, including facility licensing, inspections and enforcement, became the Department of Public Health, and environmental programs became the Department of Environmental Services. The CRCF regulation was then reissued as Regulation 60-84 in the State Register on May 23, 2025, replacing DHEC's Regulation 61-84. Many brochures, older articles and even some facility paperwork still say “DHEC”; the work now sits with DPH.

The City of Greenville and the four counties do not license care settings. Local zoning and fire codes apply to the building, but the right to operate comes from the DPH license, and that is the record to check first.

What counts as a community residential care facility in South Carolina?

DPH defines a CRCF as a facility that offers room and board and, unlike a boarding house, provides or coordinates a degree of personal care for more than 24 consecutive hours for two or more adults who are not related to the licensee within the third degree; facilities that meet the definition may call themselves assisted living.

The same definition also covers facilities that offer a protected environment for adults with mental illness or disabilities, which is why some licensed CRCFs in the Upstate are small community residences run by county disabilities boards or the Department of Mental Health rather than senior communities. DPH's data lists 68 licensed CRCFs in the four counties with 3,996 licensed beds; 7 of them are small community residences run by county disabilities boards or the Department of Mental Health, leaving 61 senior-serving CRCFs, 33 of them in Greenville County.

South Carolina does not split assisted living into tiers. A 10-bed residential home on a quiet street and a 120-bed building with a dementia wing hold the same CRCF license; what differs is the size, the services each one chooses to offer and whether it runs an Alzheimer's special care unit.

What does a CRCF license cost, and why does that matter to families?

South Carolina's annual CRCF license fee is $10 per licensed bed or $75, whichever is greater, and a late renewal can add a fee of $75 or 25% of the license fee, whichever is greater (Regulation 60-84, Sections 103.J and 103.K).

The fee is the reason the licensed-bed figure on DPH's roster is a reliable size measure: the operator pays on its licensed beds. A license covers one licensee at one location and runs a year at a time; a sale or a move means a new license, which is why our directory pages show the licensee's legal name alongside the facility's name. When the two look unrelated, as they often do with national operators, the licensee name is the one that appears on enforcement orders.

Who runs a CRCF, and what must the administrator have?

Every South Carolina CRCF must have an administrator licensed as a community residential care facility administrator by the S.C. Board of Long Term Health Care Administrators, which sits within the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, plus a designated staff member to act when the administrator is away (Regulation 60-84, Sections 101.C and 502).

The regulation also requires a criminal background check for every staff member and direct-care volunteer before employment, and bars anyone convicted of, or who pled no contest to, abuse, neglect or exploitation of a child or vulnerable adult (Section 501.A, under S.C. Code 44-7-2910). DPH's roster lists the administrator's name for each license; our facility pages reproduce it so a family can ask for that person by name on a tour.

How does DPH inspect assisted living in the Upstate?

DPH inspects every CRCF before it is first licensed and then as it deems appropriate, and any facility can be inspected or investigated at any time without notice; when standards are not met, the facility must return a signed written plan of correction by the date on the inspection report (Regulation 60-84, Section 202).

The plan of correction must explain what was done to fix each cited problem, what was done to prevent it from happening again, and when each step was or will be completed. Inspection and investigation reports, with the facility's response, are available to the public on written request, with individuals' names redacted (Section 202.E). South Carolina does not post CRCF inspection reports online, so the practical step is to ask the facility for its most recent report and to request a copy from DPH if the answer is vague.