Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 1749, H.D. 2, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Health to disclose the criminal history of a prospective resident applicant seeking entry into an adult residential care home.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by a concerned citizen. Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Health. The Office of Information Practices submitted concerns and recommended a technical amendment.

Your Committee finds that adult residential care homes (ARCHs) serve a critical function within our state healthcare network by providing housing for individuals with physical or mental impairments who would otherwise have no stable home environment. Your Committee further finds that the safety and well-being of the ARCH operators, as well as other residents and the surrounding neighbors should be a factor in the decisions to place certain individuals within an ARCH setting. Your Committee further acknowledges that ARCHs are appropriate settings to offer community-based long-term care to certain individuals, whose physical or mental impairments may be debilitating, but for whom a change in housing may be unnecessarily disruptive and adversely affect their physical or mental health. Thus, your Committee agrees that in these situations, if the ARCH operator and the Department of Health agree, individuals should be able to remain in the same ARCH placement, and live out the remaining years of their lives in the place they have come to know as home.

Upon further consideration, your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1749, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1749, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary.