Milwaukee Protestant Home for the Aged v. City of Milwaukee

Traditionally, in America old people’s homes provided for the necessitous poor. Usually, such homes for the aged were established and maintained by religious and benevolent associations. Typically, they required for admission a lump-sum entry fee, in consideration for which the resident secured a life contract for the providing of board, lodging, medical services if needed and other incidental services. Often enough, such old folks’ homes represented the only available alternative to the trip “over the hill to the poorhouse” or county almshouse.

Recent decades have added new dimensions to…