CADI waiver housing in Minnesota: where the waiver can pay for you to live

What the CADI waiver is — in one paragraph

CADI stands for Community Access for Disability Inclusion. DB101 Minnesota describes it in a sentence: "The CADI Waiver program provides funding for MA-Waiver services so that adults and children with disabilities can live in the community rather than in a nursing facility." Source: DB101 Minnesota — Community Access for Disability Inclusion (CADI) Waiver.

The legal home of the programme is Minn. Stat. § 256B.49, which covers three disability waivers at once — CADI, the Brain Injury (BI) waiver and Community Alternative Care (CAC). The statute sets the eligibility bar: the waivers serve "persons under the age of 65 who are determined to require the level of care provided in a nursing home and persons who require the level of care provided in a hospital." Source: Minn. Stat. § 256B.49 — home and community-based service waivers for persons with disabilities (CADI, BI, CAC), subd. 11(a).

Two things follow from that sentence and trip people up constantly. First, "nursing-facility level of care" is a clinical finding made by an assessor — it is not something a family or a provider decides. Second, CADI is a Medical Assistance programme: the person has to be eligible for MA first, and the waiver sits on top of it. If either of those is missing, the housing question is premature.

What CADI pays for — and the one thing it never pays for

DB101 publishes the service list. CADI can pay for "adult day care, assisted living services, behavioral support, case management services, consumer-directed community supports, employment services, extended home health aide and nursing services, extended home health therapies, extended Personal Care Assistant services, extended transportation services, family counseling and training, foster care services, home delivered meals, homemaker services, independent living skills, job training services, modifications to home or vehicle, residential care services, respite care, specialized supplies and equipment, and transitional services." Source: DB101 Minnesota — Community Access for Disability Inclusion (CADI) Waiver.

Read that list with a housing question in mind and four items stand out: foster care services, assisted living services, residential care services, and independent living skills. Those are the four ways CADI money reaches a place where a person lives. Everything else on the list is support that follows the person wherever they are.

Rent is not on the list, and that is deliberate

Disability Hub MN puts it in six words: "A waiver doesn't pay your rent or mortgage." The waivers pay for "services you need to live at home or in the community." Source: Disability Hub MN — Waivers: common questions.

So who does pay the rent? In a licensed setting, the room-and-board half of the bill is usually met by the resident's own income, by Minnesota's Housing Support programme, or by a combination. Housing Support is defined in statute as "assistance that provides at a minimum room and board to persons who meet the eligibility requirements," and its room-and-board rate is "a monthly rate set for shelter, fuel, food, utilities, household supplies, and other costs necessary to provide room and board" — explicitly not for medical care, nursing, programme costs or social services. Source: Minn. Stat. § 256I.03 — Housing Support: definitions, subd. 10a and 14a.

The four kinds of home a CADI resident usually lives in

Minnesota does not have a license called "CADI housing." What it has is a handful of licensed settings, each with its own rules about who can live there and how many, and the waiver pays for services inside them. These are the four a case manager will actually be choosing between.

1. Adult foster care — a real house, up to four adults

Adult foster care is "provision of food, lodging, protection, supervision, and household services to a functionally impaired adult in a residence," and it may include personal care, help with living skills and medication, and safeguarding cash. Source: Minn. Rules part 9555.5105 — adult foster care licensing: definitions, subp. 3. The default license is for four beds; a fifth is allowed only "if all persons in care are age 55 or over and do not have a serious and persistent mental illness or a developmental disability." Source: Minn. Stat. § 245A.11 subd. 2a — adult foster care and community residential setting capacity, subd. 2a(a)–(b).

There are two versions. In family adult foster care "the license holder lives in the home"; in corporate foster care "the license holder does not live in the home." Source: Minn. Stat. § 245D.02 — home and community-based services standards: definitions, subd. 8c and 4d. When a case manager says "group home" for a CADI resident with a serious mental illness, corporate foster care is one of the two licenses they usually mean — the other is the 245D setting below. Our adult foster care guide covers the license in detail.

2. Community residential setting — the 245D version

A community residential setting is a home "where residential supports and services … are provided to adults … and the license holder is the owner, lessor, or tenant of the facility licensed according to this chapter, and the license holder does not reside in the facility." Source: Minn. Stat. § 245D.02 — home and community-based services standards: definitions, subd. 4a. It is licensed under the home and community-based services chapter, 245D, rather than the foster care rules, and follows the same four-bed baseline. Source: Minn. Stat. § 245A.11 subd. 2a — adult foster care and community residential setting capacity. In practice families use "group home" for both of the first two settings; the license on the wall is how you tell them apart.

3. Assisted living, paid as customized living

When CADI pays for services in an assisted living building, Minnesota calls the service package customized living — the same mechanism the Elderly Waiver uses for older adults. DHS publishes monthly ceilings on what the waiver will pay for that package, by assessed case mix. Source: Minnesota DHS, Long-Term Services and Supports Service Rate Limits effective April 1, 2026 (DHS-3945-ENG). The building itself is licensed by the Minnesota Department of Health under chapter 144G. Source: Minnesota Department of Health — Assisted Living Licensure. Our customized living explainer walks through the package; the room-and-board rule above applies here exactly as it does in a foster home.

4. Your own apartment, with services brought in

The fourth option is not a licensed home at all. Independent living skills, homemaker services, extended PCA and home-modification funding are all on the CADI list, so a person can rent an ordinary apartment and have the waiver fund the support inside it. Source: DB101 Minnesota — Community Access for Disability Inclusion (CADI) Waiver. For someone leaving a hospital or an intensive residential programme it is often the goal, and the licensed settings above are the step on the way. The rent, again, is theirs — or Housing Support's.

Getting on the waiver: the county, the assessment, and the waiting list

The waiver is opened through the county or tribal nation, not through a provider. Disability Hub MN's instruction is direct: "You must complete a MnCHOICES assessment through your county agency or tribe," and agencies have "45 days from the request to complete the assessment." Source: Disability Hub MN — Waivers: common questions. The DHS county and tribal directory lists the office for every county. Source: Minnesota DHS — county and tribal human services directory.

The statute also guarantees a choice. "Each person must be given the choice of either institutional or home and community-based services." Source: Minn. Stat. § 256B.49 — home and community-based service waivers for persons with disabilities (CADI, BI, CAC), subd. 12. That is the sentence to quote if anyone suggests a nursing facility is the only funded option.

Yes, there can be a waiting list — and the statute says so

Minn. Stat. § 256B.49 sets "statewide priorities for individuals on the waiting list" and requires counties that keep a waiting list while underspending their allocation to submit a corrective action plan. Source: Minn. Stat. § 256B.49 — home and community-based service waivers for persons with disabilities (CADI, BI, CAC), subd. 11a, 26 and 27. Neither the statute nor any of the public guides we could read publishes how long a given county's list is at a given moment. Ask the county directly; do not trust a provider's estimate, and do not trust ours.

Finding a home that is actually taking CADI residents this month

Being licensed, and even being enrolled with DHS, does not mean a home has a bed for a CADI resident today. Small homes fill; a four-bed foster home with one CADI bed is full the day that bed is taken. The search is therefore about openings, not about lists of licensed providers — and it is a phone job.

Licenses: adult foster care and community residential settings are on the DHS Licensing Information Lookup, Minnesota DHS Licensing Information Lookup. Assisted living is on MDH's facility license search, MDH — Verify a Facility License. Our listings say plainly what license data we hold, and show the number itself on verified listings — but the state's own lookup is the record.

Where the openings are on this site

Every provider on RightCare MN that has recorded CADI acceptance is on the CADI browse page, and every opening a provider has confirmed within the last 30 days is on the openings page, filterable by county and waiver. Waiver acceptance is recorded for a minority of listings, so a listing without a CADI tag means "not recorded," never "refused" — call and ask.

If you are a county case manager, a transition coordinator or a discharge planner doing this search every week, the Openings Digest is a free weekly email of the same confirmed openings, filtered to your counties, care types and waivers, so the phone list arrives before you build it.