My elderly mom needs financial help for short/ long term care. How can we get Medi-cal to help with 5k in her account. How can we spend it?

My 79 mother lives alone and is showing signs of dementia. She is only on medicare and has never considered making plans, financially or otherwise for short/long term care. She still drives but has had recent episodes of confusion and has been getting lost, with the police bringing her home most recently. She will not consider handing over her keys so we have contacted the DMV for reexamination. She only has enough savings for in home assistance care for about 5 months. My sister and I are trying to get her on Medi-cal to receive financial help for in home assistance care but she won't qualify because she has too much money in her savings account. She needs to be at 2k or less in the state of California, so we need to spend 5k of it. This is all she has and has been saving this for so long. 1. She won't even consider spending her money on anything she doesn't need or want this is a work in progress. We are trying to help her understand her needs for the future financially. 2. She will not consider someone coming into her home to help her, even one day a week, this is also a work in progress. 3. If we finally convice her of the need to do this what do we spend it on? She doesn't own a home, lives off of her SS and below poverty level. Her children cannot financially help. I'm not sure if she can give it as a gift to someone or donate it, or if she need to spend in on something other. Does anyone have any information as to how to do this?