How Texas licenses assisted living in McAllen and the Valley

Which agency licenses assisted living in McAllen, Texas?

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC), through its Long-Term Care Regulation division, licenses every assisted living facility in McAllen and Hidalgo County under Texas Health and Safety Code Chapter 247 and the standards in 26 TAC Chapter 553.

The City of McAllen, Hidalgo County and the other Valley cities apply building, fire and zoning codes, but none of them licenses a care setting. The right to accept residents comes only from the state license, which HHSC lists in a public active-license directory and in TULIP, its online provider search. In HHSC's own directory, Hidalgo County facilities fall under Region 11, with the regulatory sub-office for the Valley listed as Corpus Christi.

HHSC's active-license directory of November 5, 2026 lists 16 licensed assisted living facilities in Hidalgo County with 378 licensed places in all, 15 licensed Type B and 1 Type A; 11 of them are small homes licensed for 16 residents or fewer, and they sit in Mission, Edinburg, McAllen, Donna, Weslaco, Pharr.

What is the difference between a Type A and a Type B assisted living facility in Texas?

Texas sorts assisted living by evacuation ability: a Type A facility may serve only residents who can leave the building in an emergency without staff help and do not need routine care at night, while a Type B facility may serve residents who need help evacuating, need attention during the night, or cannot follow directions in an emergency.

Source: 26 TAC Chapter 553, Licensing Standards for Assisted Living Facilities.

A Type B resident still may not be permanently bedfast. The type is printed on the license, appears in HHSC's directory, and decides how far a resident's needs can grow before a move is required. A building can hold only one type for a given license, which is why some campuses carry two licenses for two buildings.

How long does a Texas assisted living license last?

A Texas assisted living license runs for three years: every license in HHSC's Hidalgo County directory shows an effective date and an expiration date three years later, and the operator must renew before it expires.

A license belongs to one operator at one address. When a building is sold, the new owner needs its own license, so the license number and sometimes the facility name change. That is a useful check during a search: if the name on the sign does not match the name in HHSC's directory, ask why. Our assisted living roster shows each license's current term.

How often does HHSC inspect assisted living in the Valley?

HHSC surveys assisted living facilities about every two years, unannounced, and nursing homes about once a year; complaints are investigated in between with shorter visits that can be timed to the shift or day named in the complaint.

An assisted living visit can be a health visit, which looks at care, medications, staffing and records, or a Life Safety Code visit, which looks at the building: sprinklers, fire alarms, exits, emergency power and fire drills. Each citation must be answered with a plan of correction. TULIP lists the citations from recent visits for each facility, and our facility pages reproduce them with the exit date of the visit.

The two-year cycle is a description of practice from the Texas Long-Term Care Ombudsman's guide to regulation. A date older than that on a TULIP record is a reason to ask the building for its latest report, not proof of a missed visit.

Who has to run a Texas assisted living facility?

Every Texas assisted living facility must have a manager responsible for daily operations, and HHSC holds the licensee, the person or company named on the license, accountable for meeting the Chapter 553 standards.

HHSC's directory names the licensee and, where there is one, a management company. In Hidalgo County that ranges from a sole proprietor running a 16-resident home in Edinburg to limited partnerships and management companies operating larger campuses in Mission and Pharr. Ask who the manager is, how long they have held the job, and who covers when they are away. Staff who give medications must be qualified to do so, and every employee must be screened before working with residents; one of the commonest citations in the county's TULIP records concerns tuberculosis screening of staff.