A federal inspector’s report described a case in Ohio where a medically fragile nursing home resident arrived at a homeless shelter with staff there calling the fire department, underscoring concerns that discharge planning can fail when a person’s housing situation is unstable. In the account, federal oversight documents said the resident came to the shelter “incontinent” and carrying “a large bag of medications,” after a nursing home discharge process left key parts of the placement plan unclear.
The report focused on what inspectors wrote happened to Resident #83 during an Aug. 3, 2023 inspection of Eastland Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Columbus. The federal inspection said a staff member described the resident as “unclear of what was going on, scared, and not sure who dropped her off there,” according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the inspections for Medicare and Medicaid.
Federal inspectors said the case reflected an uncommon, but “increasingly common,” pattern in which Ohio nursing homes transfer patients—often older, poorer and medically fragile—to homeless shelters. The nursing home discharged the woman after staff said she was caught drinking beer at her residence, prompting an involuntary discharge and leaving them with no immediate beds for substance-use rehabilitation, according to the inspection narrative summarized by the Associated Press.
The CMS inspectors said Eastland staff did not contact the county’s psychiatric bed board to find a placement for the woman. Instead, inspectors wrote, the facility took her to a homeless shelter where about 100 people already sat ahead of her on a waiting list. The shelter initially declined to admit her, leaving the resident outside in late-summer heat, according to the inspection account.
Eventually, the shelter relented and allowed her to sit in the lobby with cold water while staff summoned a city rapid response team that included the fire department and a social worker, the inspection report said. The CMS inspectors and Eastland were unable to locate the resident by the time the report was published, and the inspection report said that “the events of what occurred at the addiction recovery center or how/why Resident #83 ended up at the homeless shelter … could not be determined” because the facility could not provide additional information.
Advocates for long-term care residents said the underlying problem is often the mismatch between what nursing home patients need and what shelters are built to provide. Chip Wilkins, who leads the city of Dayton’s Long Term Care Ombudsman program, said the “facilities are so closely monitored on discharges,” yet some still try to send residents to hospitals and do not take them back, or “drop them off at homeless shelters,” describing what he said the office has been seeing more often.
Wilkins said homeless shelter discharges tend to be priority cases for ombudsmen because they are “almost always unsafe,” given that shelters cannot manage the complex medication regimens and mobility needs some nursing home residents require. He said that when residents go to shelters, “typically, within two to three days, the shelter will send them to the hospital because they can’t meet their needs,” framing the practice as a recurring failure point for medically fragile people.
Ohio’s statewide ombudsman Leilani Pelletier said ombudsman offices receive copies of involuntary discharge notices and focus on whether a proposed discharge location is “safe and appropriate.” Pelletier said such discharges to shelters against residents’ wishes are rare, but she estimated about 13,000 Ohioans are discharged from nursing homes each month, and she said nursing facilities have legal obligations to ensure discharges meet safety requirements rather than unilaterally deciding where a person should go.
The Associated Press account also described a second CMS inspection, dated Dec. 29, 2025, involving a man discharged from the Laurels of Hillsboro in Hillsboro, Ohio. The report said state and federal records reflect the previous facility name even though the facility was sold in July 2025 and rebranded as Hillsboro Health and Rehab. Inspectors said the facility’s staff did not give the patient the required notice before an involuntary discharge, describing that he wasn’t given any at least 30 days’ notice and that federal law generally requires 30 days’ notice absent health and safety emergencies.
According to the inspection narrative, the man told CMS inspectors in an interview that nursing home staff never told him he was being taken to a homeless shelter. The report said his former roommate told inspectors that staff misrepresented the discharge as involving an assisted living apartment rather than an emergency shelter that would house him for up to 90 days, and that the man arrived to the shelter without needles to use his medications and had difficulty seeing due to cataracts.
In other CMS-cited Ohio cases described by the Associated Press, inspectors reported failures to ensure that residents received their medications and failures to provide the full 30-day notice window before involuntary discharge to homeless shelters. The account said Meadowbrook Manor in Trumbull County sought to discharge a patient with long-term illnesses and a history of substance use and homelessness and, although the patient was given a 30-day notice, inspectors said he was sent to a shelter 20 days later, with the shelter reporting a “mismatch” with what the facility required given the resident’s mobility limitations. The Associated Press also described a separate case at New Lebanon Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center where inspectors said the facility gave roughly 24 hours before discharging a woman to a homeless shelter despite her being entitled to 30 days’ notice.
Scott Wiley, the CEO of the Ohio Health Care Association, said in a statement that the challenges nursing facilities face in Ohio reflect a broader trend as more residents confront unstable housing. Wiley said the issue “has been growing” as unstable housing rises and said “state oversight and resources are needed” for long-term solutions, adding that the problem requires “a collaborative approach” beyond what any single nursing facility provider can manage.