I am going to have to move my father into my house as he can no long take care of himself or his home. Is there any financial help for this?

You don't "have" to do anything. You can find out what community resources (Area agency on Aging, Medicaid, etc) exist that will allow him to live in his own home, or in a senior facility. Think carefully about making this move. Read some of the posts that are about elders moving in. Make this move with open eyes, and understand that the cost, both financial and emotional is going to be huge.

Yes it is called Medicaid, and it will pay for Nursing Home. Having him come live with you is not the answer if he cannot be alone.

If you father is eligible for Medicaid, it pays for nursing home care, and under a "waiver" arrangement in most states it pays for some in-home care, or toward assisted living, or for some other arrangement for living in the community. Many states have recognized that it is more economical to pay some costs of living with an adult relative than to pay full nursing home costs. But this assumes Dad is eligible for Medicaid.

If he isn't eligible, that means he has some income and/or assets, and that should be used to pay you room and board, and if possible, something for his care. (You may want to save up that care payment and use it for periodic respite.) You should have appropriate agreements in place that spell out what he is paying and what you are providing.

If Dad does come to live with you, consider it a transitional stay. He may well deteriorate to the point where care in a private home isn't sufficient. Or having him there may be more stressful than any of you anticipated. So this may turn out to be a temporary stop on his way to a care center, but that can be very valuable. And, who knows, it may work out until the end -- just know you and he have to be flexible about that.

Our mother lived with my retired sister for 14 months. It was kind of her "assisted living" period. Medicaid paid for a certain number of hours of care, for cleaning costs for her area of the hose, all medical expenses, and incontinence supplies. Mother paid the same amount out of her SS for room and board that she was paying for just rent in subsidized housing. All seven of us kids thought this was an ideal arrangement.

When Mom declined beyond the "assisted living" level of care, she went into a nursing home. That 14-month transition period seemed very good for her.

Believe me, even if your state has a generous elder-care waiver program, you will not get wealthy from it! But it does help offset costs and compensate a little for you time. Definitely worth looking into, in my opinion.

I'll add a comment to my previous post. I am in a live support group for caregivers, with quite a few of them providing care in the home. It has been in some cases, health-threatening to the caregivers.

Babygirl - Medicaid is required to do an attempt of monetary recovery of all costs paid by the medicad program from any assets of the medicaid recipient. This is called MERP or MERS.

As they have to be basically impoverished to qualify for Medicaid, there is no more money but they can have their home & a car as an exempt asset for medicaid. But once they die (or sell the house or car when alive), the house becomes a non-exempt asset of their estate and subject to any MERP claims or liens placed on their estate. The house has a value - which the state & MERP knows as tax assessor records are recorded to the states database - which is an asset of the estate. The will can name whomever as heir but in order to "inherit" the house, the heir will need to resolve the MERP claim or lein on the house.

The states are more & more turning the estate recovery aspect of Medicaid to outside contractors. There are 2 main groups -HMS &PCG - who do this & they are very very proactive in their approach. They are very much like debt collection agencies as they get a % of the recovery BUT they also have the force of state laws to worth within to get claims or liens placed on the property. If heirs do nothing to contest the debt, then a ckaim or lien could be placed by default on the property and can have interest (about 9%) placed on the debt as well.

The claim or lein once placed will be a "cloud" on the title of the property that will need to be dealt with to ever sell or legally transfer ownership the property. Being named in the will is great but does no good if cannot truly own the property.

There are all sorts of exemptions & exclusions to MERP within the medicaid program, like for spouses, low-income heir, caregivers. If the heir qualifies & can document the qualification for those, thats a way around this. If you or other family have your own claims or liens against the estate, those can off set MERPs claim or lein; this approach imho probably requires doing probate.

Also If you can prove that MERPs recovery would not meet cost-effectiveness, that can quash MERPs claim or lien. In theory the "recoverable" estate has to be over a certain level (this seems to vary but seems to be around 10K & what is considered "recoverable" varies also) to be cost-effective for MERP to go after. Doing this approach also imho requires an atty to deal with & work on the heirs part to establish that the value of the asset (the house) is not what MERP thinks it is & there are other claims against the estate as well.

All is very much interdependent on your states laws for property, debt & death.

Personally I just don't see a house with no mortgage with assessor value of over 100K ever getting around MERPs claim or lien. The heirs are going to have to settle with MERP in some way to get the claim or lein released to ever legally own the property.

Echoing the comments of others here. Even administering the care for my mother had been a huge load. The added burden of providing home care would be unimaginable. Look into Medicaid, by all means.

I must add that taking someone into your home can definitely be a risk for sure, especially if they happen to use a power chair and they're not careful with that power chair. I've seen what happens when a legally legally blind person gets a hold of a power chair and totally ruins their own place. If you have a face a situation like it, and you see what they do to their own place, you definitely won't want them living in yours. Beyond all of this, yes it can be a huge strain to take care of someone, even if you're just part of a group helping out and the person lives in their own home. The only advantage yes when you can just get up and leave to get away from the person if they start becoming abusive. There are advantages to not having taken someone into your home, because when you do, there seems to be little or no escape if something bad happens.

If there is any other good alternative, it would be much better to find some other living arrangement for him that doesn't involve him living with you. My dad lived with us for almost 10 months, and it was very stressful. I do think that he benefited from staying with us while he was acutely ill (the first few months of his stay), but it was very difficult for us as caregivers. Now he is in independent living (we still do a lot for him), and we're all much happier.

Please take a realistic look at dads finances. Right now is an especially good time of the year as he has gotten his "awards" letters from his SS & retirement to see what his income will be in 2016; and also review what the costs on the home was for 2015 and will likely be for 2016 as property taxes are usually due end on January.

Keeping a parents home when they move into IL, AL, NH or your home can be done. But so often the costs (insurance, taxes) of the property and the dealing with the house (maintenance) is just not affordable for the possible years & years of the rest of dads life. If its not affordable, it can be sold with the proceeds from the sale used to pay for care OR rented to provide income to pay for the costs on the home and extra funding for care.

Realize that if dad should apply for medicaid, that Medicaid is required (MERP) to do an attempt to recover all costs paid by the program for dad from whatever assets he has upon his death. That house will be an asset of his estate. If dad continues to own the house, it will be very critically important to keep records of all costs paid on the house by you or other family as you will need to document those costs to ever get reinbursed or place your own claim against his estate or whatever else is needed to offset or squash MERPs claim or lien.

As an aside, you do not "have to move father into my house"; you choose to move him. If you feel forced to do this, that will be an issue that will get more difficult as dad continues to have increasing needs as his dementia and other diseases progress. Not everbody can be a day in/day out caregiver.

It's all a lot to deal with and you are going to be overwhelmed but please take the time to realistically review the overall feasibility on doing this.

Babygirl, Medicaid gets the house, Medicaid trumps a Will. And do NOT transfer the house, that would stop Medicaid entirely. Transfers have penalties, even the car.