New York State Veterans Homes

New York runs five State Veterans Homes. The Department of Health operates four, at Batavia, Oxford, Montrose, and St. Albans in Queens. The State University of New York operates the fifth, at Stony Brook on Long Island. All five are skilled nursing facilities, not assisted living. Eligibility has three parts. The applicant has to need skilled nursing care. The applicant has to have entered active duty from New York, or have been a New York resident for the year before applying. And the applicant has to have at least 30 days of active service with an honorable discharge. Cost is where this benefit is unusually strong. A veteran with a service-connected disability rated 70% or higher pays nothing, because VA covers the full cost of the care. For other eligible veterans the homes state there are no out-of-pocket costs for routine skilled nursing care. There is no means test and no income limitation, and the Division is explicit that a resident keeps the Social Security, pension, and other income that a commercial nursing home placement would normally consume. Spouses and surviving spouses of eligible veterans may also be admitted, subject to bed availability, at a rate far below a private facility. A spouse does not draw the VA per diem, so the arrangement is different from the veteran's. Apply to the individual home rather than to a central office. Each home runs its own admissions process and its own waiting list, and the five are spread widely enough that travel distance for family is worth weighing against wait time. New York has no state veterans cemetery system of its own. Burial for a New York veteran runs through the federal VA national cemeteries in the state, including the Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery at Schuylerville, Long Island National Cemetery, Calverton, Bath, Woodlawn, and Cypress Hills.