Integrated community supports, usually called ICS, is one of the newer services on Minnesota's disability waivers, and one of the most misunderstood. Families hear "ICS apartment" and picture a group home, or assume it covers everything. It is neither.
This guide explains how ICS works, using the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) Community-Based Services Manual page on ICS, last updated by DHS in October 2026. Rules change, and every support plan is different, so confirm the details with your county case manager. If you're deciding between ICS and support in a home you already have, start with ICS or Individualized Home Supports?.
What ICS is
DHS defines ICS as services that provide support and training in community living to a person who lives in a living unit of a provider-controlled ICS setting, for example an apartment in a multi-family building. ICS can be delivered up to 24 hours a day, in the person's own unit or out in the community.
There are two kinds of help inside ICS:
- Support: cueing, guidance, instruction, help with daily activities, help coordinating community living, or direct supervision during an activity.
- Training: building the skills to get, keep and improve life in the community, based on the person's own needs.
Which waivers cover ICS
ICS became available on the Brain Injury (BI) and Community Access for Disability Inclusion (CADI) waivers in 2021, and on the Community Alternative Care (CAC) and Developmental Disabilities (DD) waivers in 2023. If you're not sure which waiver your family member has, see CADI waiver eligibility in Minnesota.
What counts as an ICS setting
This is the part that makes ICS different from every other service. The housing and the service are connected.
- The provider controls the housing. The ICS provider owns, operates or leases the living unit, or has a financial interest in the property.
- Each unit is a real apartment. DHS defines a living unit as self-contained, with living, sleeping, eating, cooking (a full kitchen) and bathroom areas.
- There are at least three units. An ICS setting has a minimum of three living units.
- ICS can't take over a large building. In a building with five or more units, ICS can be in fewer than 25% of the units, unless DHS approves a site-specific review meant to make sure the setting doesn't isolate people.
- It can't be attached to an institution. ICS can't be authorized in housing that adjoins or shares property with a nursing facility, hospital, ICF/DD or institution for mental disease, or that such an institution has a financial interest in.
- DHS approves each setting. The provider files a Setting Capacity Report for every ICS setting, and only one provider can deliver ICS in each approved setting. DHS publishes a list of approved settings.
An ICS setting doesn't count as the person's "own home," and it isn't a community residential or family residential program either. It's its own category.
Who qualifies
According to DHS, to receive ICS a person must:
- Meet the overall waiver service requirements.
- Live in an approved ICS setting.
- Have an assessed need in at least one of the four community living areas below.
If the provider doesn't control the housing, the service is individualized home supports instead.
The four areas ICS covers
ICS support and training must fit the person's assessed needs in at least one of these areas:
- Community participation: getting around safely, using community resources, building a support network, communication skills, planning leisure and social time, and learning to meet transportation needs.
- Health, safety and wellness: arranging health care and appointments, support with self-care including daily activities, health services support, and strategies to reach health and wellness goals.
- Household management: routine household care and maintenance, household safety, tenancy support and advocacy, budgeting and money management, cooking, meal planning and nutrition, and personal-needs shopping.
- Adaptive skills: crisis prevention, positive support strategies, problem-solving, and support to increase positive behavior and reduce challenging behavior.
What ICS doesn't cover
According to DHS, ICS doesn't cover:
- Transportation.
- Nursing.
- Care for family members, minor children or the household as a whole.
- Supervision on its own. Supervision is covered only when the person needs it while actively doing one of the covered activities. DHS says ICS doesn't cover "watchful supervision, monitoring or observation" without a covered service.
Services that can't be combined with ICS
Because ICS already covers so much, a person receiving ICS can't also receive services that duplicate it, including:
- 24-hour emergency assistance
- Adult foster care, community residential services or family residential services
- Customized living, including 24-hour customized living
- Individualized home supports, in any form
- Night supervision
- Respite
Some services can be added, as long as a different provider delivers them and the support plan shows they don't overlap with ICS: chore services, home-delivered meals, homemaker services and personal care assistance (PCA).
Rights a resident keeps
ICS ties housing and services together, so DHS builds in protections:
- Choice of services. Living in an ICS setting doesn't require receiving ICS. A resident can choose other services from a provider who doesn't control the setting. But if they do receive ICS there, it can only come from the provider who controls the setting, and that provider can't deliver other waiver services in the setting, except transportation and extended home care nursing.
- A real lease. When the provider subleases the unit, the resident must have a lease that follows Minnesota landlord and tenant law (Minn. Stat. Chapter 504B).
- Choosing a roommate. If people share a unit, the provider can't decide who lives together. Each person chooses, within the lease rules, and the provider documents that choice.
- The apartment is the resident's space. Provider staff can't live in a resident's unit or use it for business, such as an office or break room.
- Written reports. The provider sends written reports to the county and the person at least once a year, or more often if the support plan says so.
How to get ICS
- Ask your case manager whether ICS fits your family member's needs, and how ICS compares with support in their current home.
- Ask about openings. ICS is tied to approved settings, so it depends on a provider having an approved setting with a unit available.
- Go through assessment and planning. ICS is authorized through the support plan after a MnCHOICES assessment.
- Visit and ask questions. Our questions to ask a 245D provider apply, plus a few ICS ones: Who holds the lease? How are roommates decided? What happens if I later want a different provider?
ICS with Midway Homes
Midway Homes Adult Care LLC is a Minnesota 245D-licensed provider offering ICS supportive housing and individualized home supports across Ramsey, Hennepin, Dakota, Scott, Washington, Chisago and Pine counties.
Because we offer both, we'll tell you plainly which fits, including when the honest answer is a different provider or service. Call 612-416-8555 for a free assessment.