Supported living is help delivered in a home the person controls. The lease or the deed is in their name, or in a housing arrangement built so the person is the tenant, not a client occupying an agency's house. Staff come to that home. They may be there for a few hours, overnight, or as a live-in, depending on what the plan authorizes.
The contrast is the group home. In a group home the provider typically operates the residence and staffs it in shifts for everyone who lives there. In supported living the housing and the service are supposed to be separable. A person can change agencies without moving, or move without the agency owning the next address. States implement that ideal unevenly. Some "supported living" contracts still bundle housing and staff in ways a tenant would not recognize.
The billed service might be called supported living, in-home supports, or a form of habilitation. The HCBS settings rule cares about this distinction because a home someone can leave, lock, and furnish is the picture of a community setting. A house that looks like a residence but runs like a facility gets a harder look.
Self-direction can fund the same kind of day, with the person hiring the worker who comes to their home. Supported living can also be agency-employed staff. The apartment does not tell you who the employer is.
Roommates happen. Two or three people sharing a place they chose is still different from a licensed group home, if they chose the roommate and the staff. If the agency assigned both, the name on the brochure is doing more work than the lease.
Overnight coverage is the expensive version. A person who needs someone in the home while they sleep may have a live-in, a rotating awake shift, or remote support added on, each with its own unit on the fee schedule. The arrangement stays supported living only if the person still controls the home.