Joey Shevenock suffered repeated urinary tract infections, kidney stones, partially amputated toes, and a broken hip during his last years living in a Reading-area group home for people with intellectual disabilities.
Then, on July 2, the 52-year-old with a history of swallowing difficulties choked and breathed in rice while he was being fed. That led to cardiac arrest. Shevenock died three days later at Reading Hospital.
The Shevenock family has hired a lawyer and plans to file a lawsuit claiming that negligence led to his death, which came 15 months after state regulators had revoked the license of the operator of his Exeter Township group home, Supportive Concepts for Families.
State law allows the nonprofit owned by Inperium Inc. to continue operating while it appeals the revocation, which followed at least four deaths, 11 abuse incidents, and dozens of cases of neglect at Supportive Concepts’ homes in the year ended February 2025.
The license revocation covered 103 of its group homes across northeastern Pennsylvania, including those in Berks County.
Joey Shevenock’s brother, Jeff, questions why state law gives Supportive Concepts so much time.
“I’m a chef, and they’ll shut a restaurant down for X, Y, or Z, and they don’t let you reopen until you correct whatever the violations are,” he said.
“It just blows me away that they know this is going on, but they’re like, well, we’re going to give you six months, a year, whatever, to work on it,” he said.
Supportive Concepts CEO Colleen Miller declined to comment, citing privacy laws. “We remain committed to the health, safety, and well-being of the individuals we serve,” she said in an email Wednesday.
Inperium did not respond to questions about the license revocation.
Homes like the one where Joey Shevenock lived for more than 20 years are regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, which said it “cannot comment on specific incidents or investigations, and we cannot comment on pending appeals.”
Like many states, Pennsylvania gives operators time to correct deficiencies, with no set timeline on how long an appeal can go on. “It’s not unusual to allow them to continue operating,” said Mark Davis, CEO of Pennsylvania Advocates and Resources for Autism and Intellectual Disabilities, a Harrisburg trade association for service providers.
During appeals, providers are subject to more frequent, unannounced inspections.
The death at Supportive Concepts reflects a bigger problem in Pennsylvania’s system of care for adults with autism and intellectual disabilities, said Dee Coccia, cofounder of Vision for Equality, a Philadelphia nonprofit advocacy group for these individuals and their families.
Shevenock’s death, detailed to The Inquirer by his family, follows 25 choking-related deaths reported in Pennsylvania group homes for intellectually disabled individuals in the last 3½ years through June 30, according to state data.
“You wouldn’t stand for it if you were taking care of animals,” Coccia said.
Deteriorating conditions for Joey Shevenock
Cyndi Shevenock, Jeff’s wife, started closely monitoring Joey’s care about eight years ago, after her in-laws moved to South Carolina.
Joey was blind, had cerebral palsy, and needed a wheelchair to get around. He required support for most daily living activities, including dressing, eating, and getting into bed.
After the July Fourth holiday weekend in 2025, a Supportive Concepts staffer took Joey to the hospital with a urinary tract infection, Cyndi recalled.
Cyndi said a nurse called while she and Jeff were driving from their home near Baltimore to the hospital and told her that Joey’s urine had become a concerningly dark iced tea-like color.
The nurse also shared that, according to the aide who brought Joey to the hospital, his urine had started smelling three or four days earlier.
Cyndi said “by the time they took him in, the infection was so bad” that the nurse advised the family to report the incident to Adult Protective Services. The investigator found no signs of neglect, Cyndi said.
Cyndi subsequently reviewed 1,448 pages of Joey’s medical records and found a half dozen urinary tract infections in the last couple years, two choking incidents that he survived, and 26 hospitalizations between January 2020 and his death.
Joey was prone to urinary tract infections and kidney stones because he was incontinent and spent all his time either in his wheelchair or lying down.
He sat in wet diapers far too long before being changed, Cyndi said, and almost always had sores in that area. Regulators consider bed sores a sign of poor care, often found in nursing homes.
In Cyndi’s view, the lack of dignity in his care extended beyond medical needs.
Every visit, she would check his clothes, to make sure they were clean. She invariably found that they “were just shoved into drawers, inside out, wrinkled, shoved in any drawer,” she said. “Sometimes, the clothes weren’t even his.”
Ongoing troubles at Supportive Concepts
A week after Joey’s death, Inperium announced its founding CEO Ryan Smith had returned to Supportive Concepts as acting president.
Smith had started at Supportive Concepts in 1993, rising to CEO in 2000. He remained in that position until 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He continues to serve as CEO and chairman of Inperium, a nonprofit also based in Reading, which Smith founded a decade ago to acquire Supportive Concepts — and since then dozens of other typically financially struggling nonprofits.
After acquiring a nonprofit, Inperium consolidates back-office and other business functions in a subsidiary called Apis Management Services to save money.
For example, Inperium told investors recently that Apis saved $8 million at Philadelphia-based Resources for Human Development, which it acquired in 2024.
Smith’s return to Supportive Concepts has not ended its license revocation affecting operations in 15 northeastern Pennsylvania counties, including Berks. Under the terms of the revocation, the organization cannot open any new homes or accept new clients in existing properties.
State regulators have also found significant violations of care standards at Supportive Concept group homes in Western Pennsylvania. Since February, 17 facilities have been operating under provisional license, Inperium disclosed in a recent bond offering statement. The provisional status requires them to implement a correction plan.
The sanctions have led to sharply lower profits for the Supportive Concepts, according to Inperium’s bond statement.
Last year, Pennsylvania revoked the license of another Inperium subsidiary, Abraxas Academy, to operate a secure detention facility for youth in New Morgan, Berks County, citing “gross incompetence, negligence, and misconduct in operating the facility.” The facility is operating under a provisional license after reaching a two-year settlement with the state in April that requires close monitoring.
The state sanctions haven’t stopped Inperium from making additional acquisitions in Pennsylvania as Smith aims to build a $1 billion enterprise. (Inperium reached $819 million in revenue for the 12 months that ended June 30.)
Inperium’s most recent sizable acquisition brought into its portfolio KidsPeace, a financially troubled provider of youth mental health services based in Lehigh County.
Inperium’s track record is troubling, said Leonard G. Villari, a Philadelphia lawyer hired by the Shevenock family to represent them in a lawsuit against Joey’s death. He pointed to its ability to keep growing a business largely funded with Medicaid through acquisitions with little state intervention.
“This looks like a very concerning company to me,” he said. “It’s only getting bigger, and they’re aggressive. They’re bolder.”
Bright spots for Joey
Before his choking death, Joey had some memorable relationships with Supportive Concepts staff, the family recalled.
A part-time caregiver would go to Joey’s house on Sundays, give him a fresh shave, make sure he had a nice shirt on, and take him to church with her. After church, they would go out to lunch, Cyndi said, noting the visits ended when the woman stopped working at Supportive Concepts.
In an Instagram comment to a family post about Joey’s death, another former caregiver recalled how much they loved listening to oldies music like Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Joey knew every word of Wizard of Oz and Home Alone, she wrote.
“We’d sit outside together and he was always interested in what the birds and squirrels doing. He’d laugh at the cutest stuff,” she wrote.
The Fourth of July was a significant holiday for Joey and their father, Jeff said. Even though he couldn’t see the fireworks, he loved the sound.
Jeff was so saddened by the thought of his brother dying on that day that the family waited to end his life support the next day.