Setting
Six-person house model
Also called: small residential program, six-guest program.
Short definition
The six-person house model is residential treatment in a private home holding six or fewer guests at once, which allows staffing ratios near one-to-one and a day built around individual rather than group therapy.
At the small end of residential treatment, the program is not a facility at all but a house, with six or fewer people living in it and a clinical team assembled around that handful. The number is the design: with six guests, staff know everyone, individual therapy can be the spine of the day rather than an add-on to groups, and privacy is architectural rather than promised.
The model contrasts with campus-scale residential programs, which hold dozens of guests and offer structured community, larger clinical rosters, and a fuller program week. Neither is better in the abstract; they are different instruments. The house suits people who want concentrated individual work and minimal exposure; the campus suits people who do well in structured community.
Malibu holds one of the better-known clusters of six-person houses, and the model also anchors the top of the market's pricing: fewer guests per property means each one carries more of the cost of the team and the house.