Montana Veterans’ Homes

Section 10-2-401 names the institutions at Columbia Falls, in eastern Montana and in southwestern Montana as the Montana veterans' homes, and says their primary function is to provide a home and subsistence for veterans. In practice that is the Montana Veterans' Home at Columbia Falls, the Eastern Montana Veterans' Home at Glendive and the Southwest Montana Veterans' Home at Butte, all run by the Department of Public Health and Human Services. The discharge test is the strict one. Chapter 2 of Title 10 uses the definition in 10-2-101: an honorably discharged individual who served on active duty other than for training with the United States armed forces, including the Coast Guard, and including the First Special Service Force and the American merchant marine in oceangoing service between December 7, 1941 and August 15, 1945. A general discharge that would carry a hiring preference or a home loan does not open this door. Section 10-2-403 makes eligibility a matter of being a veteran or the spouse or surviving spouse of one, and then lists what the Department must also consider: age, physical and mental status, ability or inability to locate suitable alternative accommodation, term of residence in Montana, gender (as defined in 1-1-209, the wording 2025 ch. 778 added) as it relates to the availability of appropriate living space, the home's ability to meet the person's needs, and any other admission requirement the Department sets by rule. None of those is a disqualification on its own; together they are a discretion, and admission is not a right that follows from being a veteran. The homes run waiting lists. Section 10-2-401 admits spouses and surviving spouses only "if space allows", and the homes apply that: DPHHS says "Spouses of veterans will be admitted on a space-available basis", though a veteran and spouse who both qualify may be admitted together. The Southwest home's own page adds a Gold Star parent: "You're eligible for admission if you're an honorably discharged Veteran, the current or widowed spouse of an eligible Veteran, or a Gold Star Parent in need of our care." On cost, the state's own description is that residents pay on the basis of their ability and that the per-day cost is less than most private or nonprofit nursing homes. Federal VA per diem contributes toward the cost of care for each veteran, and expressly does not for a spouse, which is why a couple's bill is not twice a veteran's. The Department's admission criteria are Administrative Rule of Montana 37.45.201, Admission Criteria (in force since April 26, 1985, implementing 10-2-403), which sets an age of 55, or below that an applicant who is an invalid or unable to earn a livelihood, with the medical, physical and mental-status tests for nursing or domiciliary care. Confirm the current criteria and the current charge with the admission coordinator at the home rather than from any summary, including this one. Section 10-2-416 is a pledge by the state to continue operating and maintaining the homes, and 10-2-417 dedicates a share of cigarette tax revenue to them. Neither creates anything a resident can claim, but they are why the homes have survived budget cycles that closed comparable institutions elsewhere. One consequence of admission worth raising with the family. Section 10-2-501(6) provides that where the person who dies is a resident of a Montana veterans' home, the county interment allowance is paid by the veteran's county of residence, and section 10-2-501(11)(b) says that where the veteran's intent about residence cannot be determined, the county of residence is the one they lived in at the time of admittance to the home. Moving into a home does not shift the burial cost to the county the home sits in.