Steve Sarton and Donna Collins met while living in a nursing home in Maple Shade. They became friends, then married. But as long as they lived in the home they could not even share a room and had no private time, stuck with roommates and living on the schedule of the nursing home staff.
Using federal dollars from Medicaid’s “Money Follows the Person” demonstration program,, the New Jersey Department of Human Services, began the “I Choose Home NJ” initiative. The money was initially provided via the federal Deficit Reduction Act. The program has since moved 1,675 people back into community settings and has become a demonstration project of the Affordable Care Act and is available in many states across the country.