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Stout says that most clients he helps do not even know about the pension’s existence: “It will help pay for care
in the home, assisted living, nursing homes—any private payments for care. The typical person who comes to see us is down to their last straw. Perhaps they need help with a parent, but they don’t have the money to pay for that help and don’t know they can get any. But the money is available if they know to look.”
Additionally, the VA often tells those who do apply that they do not qualify because of owning too many assets.
In that case, Stout says he can help applicants with financial planning so that they do meet the threshold. “Unlike Medicaid, this pension does not have a five-year look back,” says Stout. “The VA is trying to change that rule on its own, even though Congress has declined
to do so twice, but it’s questionable whether the VA has that authority.”
In the three years he has been volun- teering with U.S. Senior Vets, Stout says he has mostly seen and helped Tennes- see’s World War II veterans (Tennessee still has more than 17,000 of the Great- est Generation), but increasingly the
state’s 39,000 Korean War veterans are reaching the age where they, too, can no longer live unassisted. He says U.S. Senior Vets does not charge veterans for any help it provides and is forbid- den by law from doing so.
Stout also wants veterans to under- stand that the pension he will help them apply for is completely distinct from compensation for PTSD or any of the other service-related disabilities that take so long to qualify for: “That’s the younger guys. The time frame we deal with from application to decision is usually less than three months.”
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