Housing for adults with intellectual disabilities in Clearwater, Florida
Adults with intellectual disabilities in Florida have three main residential options through the Agency for Persons with Disabilities: a licensed group home with staff on site, supported living in the person's own home with a visiting coach, or a licensed foster care home. Skycrest Place operates three group homes in Clearwater, Pinellas County, for adults aged 18 and over. Support is usually funded through the APD iBudget Medicaid Waiver, and Florida's rule requires both significantly sub-average intellectual functioning and significant deficits in adaptive functioning, both manifesting before age 18.
This is the broadest of the eight conditions and the one families most often search for in plain words — housing for adults with intellectual disabilities. Here is what a licensed group home in Clearwater actually provides.
Three homes in Clearwater. Every resident has a private bedroom.
Luna Bay, our newest home, is reserving private rooms now.
What living here looks like
- Daily living supported at the person's own level — cooking, laundry, money, shopping — with staff doing it alongside them rather than instead of them wherever that is possible.
- Safety awareness handled quietly and constantly, which is usually the real reason a family stops being able to manage at home.
- Help with medications from staff trained and validated to give them under APD's rules.
- Transport and support to day program, work or volunteering, so the week has a shape.
- A private bedroom in every one of our homes, and housemates rather than a ward.
We take anyone APD finds eligible. Our homes hold a standard group home license — no Behavior Focused, Intensive Behavior or Special Medical designation. We support adults whose plans call for standard residential habilitation, and if a plan calls for one of those designations we will tell you so rather than take a placement we are not licensed for.
Adults only. Our homes are for adults — 18 or older. APD serves children as well, but a Skycrest Place home is an adult home.
Who pays for it?
For an adult APD has found eligible and enrolled on the iBudget Medicaid Waiver, the waiver pays the home for the support. Room and board is separate and comes from the person's own income — two different things with two different payers, which is the part nobody explains.
Does Medicaid pay for a group home in Florida?What Florida's rule says about intellectual disability
Florida's rule asks for two things at once, and families often only know about the first. An IQ score two or more standard deviations below the mean is not enough on its own — there must also be a significant deficit in everyday functioning, and both must have shown up before age 18.
“Intellectual Disability is evidenced by the concurrent existence of: significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning evidenced by an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) two or more standard deviations below the mean on an individually administered standardized intelligence test; and significant deficits in adaptive functioning in one or more of the following areas: communication skills; self-care, home living; social and interpersonal skills; use of community resources and self-direction; functional academic skills; work, leisure, health and safety awareness and skills; which are manifested prior to age 18; and constitute a substantial handicap which is reasonably expected to continue indefinitely.”
APD determines eligibility — a home cannot, and we never try to. We explain what the published rules say and link the state sources they come from. This is not legal advice and it cannot tell you how an individual case will be decided; a Waiver Support Coordinator is the person who helps a family work through it.
Read from the adopted rule text on September 20, 2026. All eight conditions Florida recognizes.
Our three homes, all in Clearwater
Luna Bay has private rooms available
104 N Orion Avenue, Clearwater, FL — Opening later in 2026 — now reserving private rooms
Questions families ask us
What housing is available for adults with intellectual disabilities in Florida?
For adults found eligible by Florida's Agency for Persons with Disabilities and enrolled on the iBudget Medicaid Waiver, the main residential options are a licensed group home, supported living in the person's own apartment with visiting support, and foster care homes. A licensed group home provides residential habilitation with staff on site. Skycrest Place operates three in Clearwater, Pinellas County.
Is an IQ test enough to qualify for APD in Florida?
No. Rule 65G-4.014(4), F.A.C. requires two things to exist at the same time: significantly sub-average intellectual functioning evidenced by an IQ two or more standard deviations below the mean on an individually administered standardized test, AND significant deficits in adaptive functioning in at least one listed area. Both must have manifested before age 18 and must constitute a substantial handicap reasonably expected to continue indefinitely.
What is the difference between a group home and assisted living in Florida?
They are licensed by different agencies for different populations. An APD group home is licensed by the Agency for Persons with Disabilities under Chapter 65G-2, F.A.C. for adults with developmental disabilities, and support is usually funded through the iBudget Medicaid Waiver. An assisted living facility is licensed by the Agency for Health Care Administration and is generally aimed at older adults. They are not interchangeable.
Other conditions APD serves
Come and see one
You will learn more in twenty minutes in a house than in a week of reading. Call 727.254.1196 or send a note and we will arrange a visit.