By Indy Senior Advisor Care Team · October 14, 2026
Senior care on the Marion County south side runs through Perry and Franklin townships and ends at County Line Road. Here is what our directory shows, which township office helps, and how to weigh crossing into Greenwood.
A side of town defined by a line on the map
Ask five Indianapolis families where the south side ends and you will get five answers. The legal answer is simple: County Line Road. South of it is Johnson County and Greenwood. North of it is Marion County, and that part of the county is mostly two townships, Perry and Franklin. For a family choosing care, that line matters more than it looks like it should.
Perry Township sits in southern Marion County. County commissioners set its boundaries in 1822, and it is named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Southport was platted in 1849 and incorporated in 1853 as its first community. Between 1950 and 1970 the township's population nearly tripled, from about 25,000 to about 74,000, and it kept growing. The city of Beech Grove, an excluded city under Unigov, sits inside its borders and runs its own government.
Franklin Township is the next one east and south. This matters for a reason most families do not expect. Franciscan Health Indianapolis, the big hospital people think of as the south side hospital, is at 8111 S. Emerson Ave. and sits on land in Franklin Township that the system bought in 1991. The new hospital opened there in 1995. The original St. Francis Hospital in Beech Grove dedicated its building in 1914 and closed its inpatient and emergency services in March 2012.
What this site's directory shows, and what it does not
We keep a directory of senior care communities across the six-county Indianapolis area. It is not a census of every building. Within it, the Marion County south side looks different from the north side. The communities we list there are mostly skilled nursing and rehab: SouthPointe Healthcare Center on War Admiral Dr., Majestic Care of Southport on S. Madison Ave., The Waters of Indianapolis on S. Keystone Ave., and University Heights on East County Line Road South.
The one listed campus with a full range of levels is Altenheim on East Hanna Avenue. Per its operator, CarDon, it offers independent living, assisted living, rehabilitation, long-term care, memory support and on-site dialysis. The Waters lists a dedicated memory care unit, and University Heights lists memory support. Franciscan Hospice House on Franciscan Lane is an inpatient hospice house.
Read that carefully. It does not prove there is no assisted living on the Marion County south side. It says our directory lists little of it. If you want a standalone assisted living apartment close to a parent's neighborhood, expect to look at Altenheim first, then across the county line. Greenwood has a deeper bench of assisted living and memory care, which we walk through in our Greenwood guide.
The County Line Road decision
Here is the scene we see most often. A mother lives in a ranch house off Madison Avenue in Perry Township. She has had two falls. Her daughter drives down from Fishers every Sunday. The daughter tours three places. The two nearest her mother are nursing facilities. The attractive assisted living apartments are four miles south, in Greenwood.
Crossing the county line is not a problem by itself. Many families do it. But it changes four practical things. The pharmacy and doctors may stay in Marion County while the residence is not. The ombudsman does not change, because the same Region 8 program covers Marion and Johnson counties. The Area Agency on Aging does not change either: CICOA Aging & In-Home Solutions serves both. What does change is township assistance, which follows where a person lives.
Before you decide, ask one blunt question of every community: if my parent runs out of private money in two years, what happens? Indiana's PathWays Waiver pays for care services, not room and board. Room and board help for a Residential Care Facility resident comes from RCAP, a separate program, and a building can hold one agreement, both or neither. We explain the split in our PathWays and RCAP guide. Get the answer in writing before the move, not after.
Which township office is yours
Township trustees run emergency assistance for people who live inside their boundaries and have run out of other options. They are a local safety net, not a care program, and each office sets its own process. The Perry Township Trustee is at 4925 Shelby St., Suite 400, and answers at 317-788-4815. Its website says to call for an appointment, and it describes help with rent or mortgage, utilities and burial costs for permanent residents of the township.
The Franklin Township Trustee is at 6231 S. Arlington Ave., 317-780-1700. We could not confirm its list of services from the pages we checked, so call before you assume anything. Beech Grove is a separate city inside Perry Township, and we did not verify how its residents reach township help. Ask.
We also cannot hand you a clean dividing line. No consumer source we found states exactly which blocks fall in Perry and which in Franklin, and a single street can be the boundary. Look up the parent's parcel on the city's property card tool at maps.indy.gov/AssessorPropertyCards, or dial 211. Our township trustee guide covers how these offices work in general.
Hospital discharge when the hospital is in a different township
The south side's main hospital is Franciscan Health Indianapolis, and a discharge from there will often push a family toward the closest skilled nursing beds. That is natural. It is also where families get hurried.
Start with the observation question. A hospital stay billed as observation does not count as an inpatient stay under Original Medicare, which can affect skilled nursing coverage afterward. Ask the case manager, on day one, whether your parent is admitted as an inpatient or placed in observation. Our discharge guide covers the hospital systems in the metro, and the Medicare rehab guide covers how plan type changes the math.
The nearest beds are not automatically the best beds. Ask for a list, not a recommendation. Then look up each facility's inspection record before you say yes. Our page on verifying a facility license shows how, and Indiana's public inspection search is the primary source.
Visiting logistics are the hidden cost
A care decision on the south side is also a driving decision. If you live in Carmel, Fishers or Zionsville, the drive south on I-65 or I-69 and then surface streets is real. A parent in Perry Township and a daughter in Hamilton County means a trip of well over half an hour each way, longer at rush hour. We have not measured it and will not quote minutes. Test it yourself, at 5 p.m. on a Tuesday.
Families underestimate how much a parent's well-being depends on how often someone shows up. A residence that is 12 minutes from a sibling who lives in Southport can be a better choice than a prettier one 40 minutes from everyone. Weigh it as heavily as the activity calendar.
If the closest nursing facility is the right level of care but not the right place to live for years, say so to the staff early. Some families use a short rehab stay to buy time and then move to assisted living once their parent is stronger. That plan only works if you start touring assisted living while the rehab clock is running.
What costs look like, honestly
There is no published Indianapolis or Marion County cost figure we can trace to a primary source, and there is none for the south side specifically. The CareScout survey publishes Indiana statewide medians, not city numbers. Any article that gives you a south side assisted living price is guessing. We do not.
Memory care is the same. No cost median is published for it anywhere, because it is not a surveyed category. For a real number, ask each community for its full fee schedule in writing, including the level-of-care fees that rise as needs rise. Our cost overview shows what is published and what is not.
If money is tight, call CICOA before you tour anything. CICOA's Resource Center is 317-803-6131, and its main line is 317-254-5465. It serves Marion, Hamilton, Hendricks, Johnson, Boone and Hancock counties, so the same call works for a Perry Township parent and a Greenwood one.
A practical order of operations
First, pin down the address and township using the parcel tool. Second, call CICOA and ask what your parent may qualify for at home before a move. Third, have the doctor or hospital case manager state in plain words what level of care is needed: assisted living, memory care or skilled nursing. Those are different licenses with different rules, and in Indiana assisted living is licensed as a Residential Care Facility, one license type.
Fourth, tour at least one place in Marion County and one across County Line Road, and use the same checklist for both. Our tour checklist works for either side. Fifth, if the tour includes a memory care unit, ask for the written Alzheimer's and dementia special care disclosure. Indiana requires that disclosure under IC 12-10-5.5. It is not a state certification, and a nice lobby is not a credential.
If something looks wrong after a move, a facility licensing complaint goes to the Indiana Department of Health at 1-800-246-8909, though IDOH notes that line often goes to voicemail and recommends its online form. Suspected abuse, neglect or exploitation of an adult goes to Adult Protective Services at 1-800-992-6978. The Long Term Care Ombudsman for the region is 317-631-9424. Keep all three numbers where you can find them.
