During the 1960s and 1970s, awareness was growing in the medical community that the long-term care system in the United States needed vast improvements to effectively serve the needs of a growing older population. Older adults were increasingly being institutionalized unnecessarily and inappropriately. A lack of coordination and integration of services left many with unmet needs, while at the same time creating a costly duplication of services. Escalating costs were reducing access and squeezing the financial resources of older adults, their families and public programs at the state and federal levels.

Community Care founder Kirby Shoaf envisioned a different kind of long-term care. “What I saw in those early days was the need to get people back into the community rather than in residential care,” says Shoaf. He devoted himself to figuring out how to do it. “That’s been the emphasis throughout my career.”

In 1977, Shoaf created Community Care as a community-based, private, non-profit organization to serve people with long-term health care and social service needs. It was organized for philanthropic, educational and scientific purposes, and was granted 501(c) 3 status as a not-for-profit, non-stock corporation. Community Care would function as a service provider, a service broker, a managed care organization and an insurance company, all in one.

A Kellogg Foundation grant and a federal waiver funded the original Community Care program. The popular, statewide initiative Community Options Program was modeled on our program.

In 1990, Community Care became one of the first organizations to administer programs using the nationally renowned PACE model, or Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly. Our PACE-model program, which continues today as Community Care’s largest program, is designed to provide a coordinated system of in-home and community-based services for the frail elderly. Community Care’s PACE program has been supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and aided by grants from more than 25 other local and national foundations. PACE participants are served at our Adult Day Health Centers located in four Milwaukee neighborhoods to serve the needs of program participants close to, and in, their homes.

Community Care is one of only 40 PACE providers nationally and is now the third largest. In 2003, Community Care’s PACE moved beyond demonstraton status to becoming an official PACE Medicare provider program.

Another major Community Care program, the Wisconsin Partnership Program, eventually grew out of the PACE model program in 1996 and allows participants to see a community-based physician. Community Care operates the Wisconsin Partnership Program in Milwaukee and Racine counties.

PACE and the Wisconsin Partnership Program are the only comprehensive programs in the nation that fully integrate all Medicare and Medicaid covered institutional and community-based services.

Community Care has initiated numerous creative and sustainable partnerships with complementary organizations and providers, including the Medical College of Wisconsin, the City of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee County Department on Aging. Since inception, more than a dozen Community Care demonstration programs have been supported by more than $2 million in grant awards from more than 20 different foundations. We have also received United Way funding for more than 20 years.

At Community Care, we maintain our dedication to the mission of enhancing the quality of life for older adults and helping them stay in the community as independently as possible for as long as they are able. With almost 30 years of service to the elderly, Community Care has earned a national reputation for conceiving and embracing innovative models of care and creating successful, sustainable programs.