Minnesota State Soldiers Assistance Program: Subsistence

The State Soldiers Assistance Fund dates from 1923 and is the oldest thing in this file. Section 197.05 puts it under the commissioner of veterans affairs and directs it at any Minnesota resident or resident alien residing in Minnesota who served in the military or naval forces of the United States and who is indigent or suffering from any disability, whether acquired in the service or not. The disability does not have to be service-connected, which is unusual and is the point of the programme. The statute limits financial assistance to veterans and dependents to six months, unless recipients have been certified as ineligible for other benefit programmes. "Resident" is defined in the statute itself: a person living in Minnesota for at least 30 days with the intention of residing in the state and not for any temporary purpose. Residence may be verified with a state driver's licence or identification card, a voter registration card, a rent receipt, a landlord's or homeowner's statement, or another form the commissioner approves. Thirty days and an intention is a low bar by the standards of this catalog. The operating detail is in Minnesota Rules chapter 9055, and reading the statute alone will mislead you about how the money works. Subsistence is available on two routes. The first is a medical condition that prevents a veteran, or a surviving spouse, from working at their current or most recent occupation for at least 30 days. The second is a surviving spouse applying within the 12-month period following a veteran's death; that route needs no medical condition at all, and the 12 months is a hard window. The commissioner administers subsistence in 30-day benefit periods, with an eligibility determination before each one. A maximum of six 30-day periods is authorised unless the commissioner approves more under the medical-condition or death rules. The amount is not a fixed grant. Under rule 9055.0380, the maximum benefit for a period equals the applicant's maximum monthly household income limit where household income at the start of the period is zero, and the commissioner reduces that maximum by the household income actually received. Subsistence therefore tops a household up to the programme's income limit rather than paying a set sum. A household already at the limit receives nothing. Where the benefit amount is greater than zero, the commissioner must also pay utility costs at the primary residence and health insurance premiums or COBRA payments, assigned to specific benefit periods. Arrears matter: assistance with past due amounts, late charges or fees incurred before the start of the first benefit period is prohibited. Coming to the programme after the shutoff notice is much worse than coming before it. The dollar figures are nowhere in the statute or the rule. Rule 9055.0315 incorporates by reference a "schedule of maximum monthly allowances" that the commissioner updates and publishes every January, carrying both the maximum monthly household income limits, the maximum household asset limits, and the benefit amounts for each programme activity. Any figure quoted for this programme is a figure from one January's schedule and can move in the next. Ask a county veterans service officer for the current schedule rather than relying on a published number. Two disqualifications. An applicant or recipient who is receiving or begins to receive cash benefits from general assistance, emergency general assistance, the diversionary work programme or the Minnesota family investment programme is not eligible for subsistence. And a surviving spouse of a veteran who remarries is not eligible to receive benefits from the State Soldiers Assistance Program at all, though the remarried spouse may still apply as the authorised representative of the deceased veteran's surviving dependents. That is the opposite of the rule in the education benefit in section 197.75, where remarriage is expressly irrelevant. Since Laws 2026, chapter 50, a veteran whom VA has determined forfeited entitlement to federal benefits under 38 U.S.C. chapter 61 does not qualify for this or any other state-funded veterans programme under chapters 196 to 198.