My mother is 77 and has multiple sclerosis, along with a host of other issues, I am 35 and have cerebral palsy. We both have Social Security disability as our sole source of income. We are thinking about the possibility of her needing to go into a nursing home and wondering what the financial situation would be.
I know when one partner in a marriage goes into a nursing home and the other stays in the family home, the spouse remaining at home is entitled to part of the nursing home spouse's SS check to prevent impoverishing the spouse at home. And I know that a disabled adult child of an elderly parent who is going to a nursing home is allowed to keep their parent's assets without penalty under the Medicaid "look back period".
What I'm wondering is, if an elder who is receiving SSDI goes into a nursing home, and they have an adult child with a disability who also receives SSDI (drawing off other deceased parent's work history) who will be staying in the house that the parent and adult child lived in together prior to the nursing home admission, is the adult child entitled to any of the nursing home parent's SS? We don't own our house but I would like to stay here, but I can't afford the rent for it plus all my other bills on just my SS check.
I've tried and tried to Google the answer to this with no luck, so either our family is the very first time in the history of America that this particular circumstance has presented itself (which seems unlikely) OR I've just been wording my query all wrong so that the search engine can't figure out what I'm trying to ask (probably).
There are resources out there for you. Just have to know where to start looking. Your County Disabilities would be where I'd start.
What you can also do is check with your senior center to see if it offers free legal consults. In my area, most do, either weekly or bi-weekly. That could help define more what kind and which firms in your area might be able to offer advice. The first consult may be free, just to determine whether or not you could or would be a client they could help.
But it would help define the parameters of your questions.