Massachusetts Chapter 115 Veterans’ Benefits

Chapter 115 is the largest thing in this file and there is nothing like it in any other state in this catalog. It is worth understanding what kind of benefit it is before looking at the eligibility rules, because the shape is the point. Section 5 provides that veterans' benefits shall be paid to a veteran or dependent by the city or town wherein the veteran resides. Not by the commonwealth, and not by a state agency processing an application. The money comes out of the municipal treasury, is paid by a municipal officer called the veterans' agent, and section 6 then requires the commonwealth to reimburse the city or town 75 per cent of what it paid, on or before November 10 of the following year. Reimbursement rises to 100 per cent for a recipient living in housing on federal land or in an institution or transitional housing as defined in 108 CMR 2.02, for up to 48 months. What it buys is ordinary subsistence. The benefit covers rent, food, fuel, clothing, transportation and medical and surgical care, in whatever combination the applicant needs. The dollar amounts are not in the statute, and most are not in the regulation either. 108 CMR 5.02 tells the veterans' agent to build a budget from a chart of standards (shelter, fuel by number of rooms, an allowance per child, a retired or elder amount, and separate budgets for an institution, transitional housing and medical care only) and to fill it with the amounts in the Secretary's current Budget Amounts directive. EOVS does not publish that directive: it is not on its list of Secretary directives, and its own benefit estimator says only that assets are allowed up to the limits in it. So the shelter, fuel and personal-needs amounts come from the veterans' agent, and the figures below are the two that the Commonwealth does publish: the asset ceilings in the Secretary's directive of June 4, 2021, and the 200 per cent of the federal poverty level at which 108 CMR 5.02(13) moves an applicant from a full budget to medical benefits only, with a spend-down above it. Every city and town applies the same amounts; what varies is the office. Each has a veterans' agent, also called the veterans' service officer, and many small towns share one through a veterans' services district under sections 10 to 15. EOVS keeps a directory of every office by city and town, and a page for a city or town in this catalog names its own agent. The test is need and it is written strictly. Only such amount shall be paid as may be necessary to afford sufficient relief or support, and no benefits shall be paid to any person who is able to support themselves or who is in receipt of income from any source sufficient for their support. But the next sentence matters just as much: income insufficient for support does not bar the applicant, and the Secretary may authorise a supplement. This is a top-up benefit, not an all-or-nothing one. There is no disability rating anywhere in chapter 115. A veteran with no rating is fully inside it. A veteran rated one hundred per cent with a comfortable income is outside it. That is the opposite of how nearly every other entry in this catalog works, and it is why a veteran who has been told they do not qualify for state benefits because they have no rating should read this entry first. Residence is now almost nominal. Section 5 requires that the veteran have actually resided within the commonwealth for one day preceding the date of application. One day. The 2024 HERO Act cut the old waiting period down to that. A veteran who resided in Massachusetts at the time of entering or continuing in service, and their dependents, are eligible with no waiting period at all. Where a veteran has died, the Secretary may authorise benefits to a dependent residing in the commonwealth at the time of the veteran's death if the veteran died a Massachusetts resident. The definition of reside in section 1 is written for people without homes. It means being present within a city or town with no present intention of definite and early removal, notwithstanding the lack of a present abode. An applicant without a present abode provides an affidavit of identity, last residence and intention to establish an abode in the city or town where they apply. A person who enters the commonwealth solely to obtain these benefits does not reside here. Who else can claim. Dependent in section 1 means the spouse, widowed person, child or parent of a veteran, including a person who stood in the relationship of a parent for the five years preceding the veteran's wartime service. A child over 18 is not a dependent unless emancipated under the named statutes or unable to support themselves after 23. All benefits available to dependents extend to the parent of a member of the armed forces whose death resulted from injury or disease in wartime service, if the parent qualifies in their own right. Three protections are worth knowing. Benefits are not subject to trustee process and no assignment of them is valid. No veteran or dependent can be compelled to receive benefits without consent, or compelled to receive them at an infirmary or public institution unless their condition requires it. And the HERO Act added a sentence to the seventh paragraph providing that an increase in income from a cost-of-living adjustment to social security, supplemental security income or social security disability insurance shall not render a recipient ineligible in the year the adjustment was issued. The annual COLA no longer knocks people off the benefit. Several conditions in section 5 read as though they were written a century ago, because they were. Benefits may be refused to an applicant convicted of a crime if the veterans' agent and the Secretary so rule, to a veteran who neglects to support their dependents, and where the necessity is caused by voluntary idleness or continuous vicious habits. Dependents of a deceased veteran are expressly not made ineligible by the veteran's own neglect. The agent or the Secretary may require a recipient to pay over their federal pension or compensation to be expended for their relief, and may require assignment of workers' compensation, insurance proceeds or tort damages where the need was caused by an accident or illness someone else is liable for. Payment cannot be backdated except in one case. No payment is made for any period before the date of application, but the Secretary, on the recommendation of the veterans' agent, may authorise up to 60 days of retroactive benefits where the necessity was caused by serious accident or illness to the applicant or a dependent. Apply early, and apply the day the emergency starts. Nothing in the chapter stops a town paying more than the Secretary approved, or paying emergency benefits before approval, as long as the agent immediately sends the Secretary a written statement of reasons.