Delaware Veterans Home in Milford

The Delaware Veterans Home opened in 2007 on 24 acres in Milford and offers skilled nursing on four units with 144 beds, plus short-term and rehabilitation stays and hospice. Who can be admitted. The Home's August 2026 long-term care application sets these minimums: an honorable discharge from active service, peacetime or wartime, with at least 181 days of service; or National Guard service overseas with at least 181 days of active service; or a reservist with at least 181 days of active service; or any Guard member or reservist eligible for retirement pay at 60; or "a Gold Star family member". Every applicant must also have lived in Delaware for at least one year before applying and have a medically determined need for long-term care. The Home's web page still lists 180 days and does not mention Gold Star families; the application is the newer document. A general discharge is not named, so ask before assuming it is refused. Spouses. The Home says a non-veteran spouse of a veteran rated 100 percent may be admitted but pays privately or through Medicaid, and married service-connected veterans may share a room. What it costs, and where the Home's own documents disagree. The application gives a daily rate of $320 for a semi-private or private room and a projected VA per diem of $148.71, leaving $171.29 a day or $5,138.70 a month for the veteran. Its payment list says that at 70 to 100 percent service-connected, "VA covers stay". Its frequently asked questions say the Home "does not bill Veterans who are 70% or more disabled" and that a 100 percent veteran incurs no fee. But the rate table headed "Veterans Service Connection Rated 70% - 100%" prints the same $171.29 daily veteran cost as the table for veterans rated below 70 percent. Federal law, 38 U.S.C. 1745, pays a state home the full prevailing rate for a veteran who needs nursing home care for a service-connected disability or who is rated 70 percent or more, and the home must accept it as payment in full, so the narrative is right and the table is not. Rely on the statute and ask the admissions office to confirm in writing. Two more figures on the application worth reading before applying. A veteran rated below 70 percent is told that "VA covers that percentage" and the applicant pays the rest; VA's basic state home per diem is a flat daily amount, not a percentage of the rating, and the table shows that. And a private pay applicant "must evidence having 249K readily available in conventional checking or savings". Long-term Medicaid is accepted, with the resident contributing income toward the cost as in any Delaware nursing home. The frequently asked questions page still gives the 2023 Medicaid rate of $315 a day and says the Home became $320 on May 1, 2023. The application confirms $320 is still the rate. Who runs it. The Home is part of the Department of State. The Commission of Veterans Affairs has general oversight under Title 29, section 8812, subsection (b), and the 2025 act creating the Department of Veterans Affairs directs the Secretary to propose strategies for alternative elder care or one or more additional veterans homes. There is only one today, in Milford, so a veteran in northern New Castle County faces a long drive to visit or be visited. Apply by email to the admissions office with the long-term or short-term application and VA Form 10-10EZ.