Our History
At Richmond Residential Services, Inc., our story began in 1979 with a simple but powerful belief. Every person deserves to belong. Not in an institution, but in a true home filled with care, dignity, and connection.
Building a Place Called Home
When our first group home opened, it offered individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities a life beyond institutional walls. It created opportunities for empowerment, personal growth, and meaningful participation in community life.
What started as one home has grown into a vibrant community of services designed to help individuals live their best lives. Today, Richmond Residential Services operates 17 residential programs and employs more than 140 dedicated team members. While we continue to support dozens of individuals through residential care, our reach extends far beyond, offering financial management, housing assistance, and community-based services to hundreds of individuals across the Richmond region.
As needs have evolved, so has our commitment to person-centered care rooted in diversity, advocacy, safety, and healthy relationships.
In the late 1990s, we offered Sponsored Placement, thoughtfully matching individuals with sponsor families who opened their homes and their hearts. Our team provided training, Individual Support Plan development, and ongoing coaching to ensure that each person experienced support tailored to their unique goals, preferences, and strengths.
With support from Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, we became one of the first providers in Richmond to offer Supported Living services. Individuals lived in apartments throughout the city, supported by dedicated staff who walked alongside them in daily life. Our teams helped individuals build confidence and independence by learning public transportation routes, managing finances, grocery shopping, attending medical appointments, maintaining benefits, and setting personal goals.
As Virginia’s Medicaid Waiver system expanded, we added In-Home services, allowing individuals to remain in their own or family homes while receiving supports that promote safety and long-term stability.
Aging in place is central to our mission. As individuals grow older, their needs change, and so must the supports around them. We are deeply committed to ensuring that each person we serve can continue living in familiar, safe, and supportive environments as they age. Our homes have been thoughtfully redesigned, renovated, or newly acquired to promote accessibility, safety, and long-term comfort.
For individuals who have called RRSI home for many years, aging in place provides stability, preserves dignity, and allows meaningful relationships to continue without disruption. This commitment reflects our respect for every person’s lifelong journey.
As Supported Living expanded, we continued to build on that early innovation, developing four apartment-based programs where individuals live independently with 24-hour on-site staff available to provide support. Alongside our 13 group homes, these services create a full spectrum of housing options that reflect each person’s evolving needs, abilities, and preferences.
Over the years, families have shared their concerns and hopes with us. Many expressed a need for trusted, high-quality short-term care, which led to the creation of our Respite Services program. These services give caregivers time to rest and recharge, while ensuring that their loved ones continue to receive compassionate, individualized support in familiar, safe environments.
Financial stability is a cornerstone of long-term independence and well-being. Our Representative Payee Program, which began by supporting individuals within our own programs, soon grew to serve others in the community who faced financial hardship or housing instability. Today, we serve more than 200 individuals through this program, providing financial security, preventing crises, and helping each person build a foundation for lifelong stability.
Our long-standing partnership with Virginia Housing began by managing just a few Housing Choice Vouchers. That partnership has grown significantly, now providing stable, affordable housing to more than 300 individuals in the Richmond community, including veterans through the HUD-VASH program. Access to safe and secure housing remains central to our vision of life enrichment, personal empowerment, and lasting community inclusion.
From the very beginning, our mission has been about more than care. It has been about dignity, belonging, and the belief that people matter. Today, as we continue to grow and evolve, one constant remains: we are Making a Place Called Home. Through strong partnerships with Richmond Behavioral Health Authority, Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover Community Services Boards, Virginia Housing, and countless other collaborators, we continue to advocate for inclusive, person-centered supports that honor the dignity of every person we serve. Our vision remains clear: to enrich lives, to empower individuals, and to ensure that every person we support has the opportunity to live their best life.
