Basic Disability Housing Strategies

Late last year, an old, old friend of my parents died at age 96. She had a disabled son (in his 60s I think) who had been living in the downstairs unit in their duplex home.

The trustee that they had identified decades earlier had disappeared.

I see this future and it scares the ******* out of me.

Is it too soon to plan or panic about disability housing for my son?
How in the world do you make financial and care plans that have to work decades later?

I just don’t know.

It does seem to be the trickiest piece of disability financial planning.

And no choice is a choice… and probably not a good one.

As always, our “Poverty by Design” disability services system takes a hard problem and makes it much worse…

Let’s start with the standard options…

Stay at Home

Why not just have your adult disabled child stay at home? This works to some extent, though in the perverse logic of the US disability services system, providing housing for your own child is considered a Resource that can count against their eligibility for Medicaid and SSI.

To be clear – the US penalizes disabled adults who have parents who are willing to pay out-of-pocket(!) for their housing as an adult… at the same time the US will (sometimes) pay those same parents to provide care services through IHSS (In-Home Support Services) to avoid institutionalization…

You may actually be better of setting up “rent” that is paid for by state disability services (most common) – in fact, you probably NEED to do this to ensure your disabled adult child continues to be eligible for disability services… or possibly transfer your house into a special needs trust. (Do your homework, your mileage may vary a lot by state and other jurisdiction).

This may delay the problem – even for decades – but there will come a point at which you won’t be able to take care of your disabled adult child…. Then what?

(I’m nine years older than my wife and I worry about potentially leaving her – or my daughter – with the responsibility for taking care of my son after I die)

State- Funded Group Home

If you don’t have a plan, the government has a plan for you and you may not like it the default available disability housing housing for disabled people is a group home.

If a space is available.

Group homes in the United States are state contracted / state funded entities. They are what replaced the old institutions and asylums.

They are typically not owned by the state, but run as contractors to the state (in the US, you can buy one as a “Residential Income” investment property though most primarily serve elderly people who cannot afford private “assisted living” facilities (the Elderly version of the Poverty by Design problem… see Universal Disability and Elderly Services Insurance)

They share all of the challenges of nursing homes for elderly people… most are owned by individuals and vary wildly in quality… And they have become a target for private equity… so things may be getting even more “exciting”.

See Inside a ‘Hell on Earth’ in Oklahoma for an example of how wrong things can go.

Continue to Disability Housing Strategies Part 2 other options if you have more time and/or money.

(BTW – A sibling stepped in to help and everything seems to have worked out for my father’s friend’s son…)