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Veteran's widow wins her battle with the VA
By Jay Tokasz
Updated: January 23, 2010, 12:17 am /
Published: January 23, 2010, 12:15 am
A veteran's widow waiting more than a year for Veterans Affairs benefits owed to her will begin receiving the monthly payments soon.
The offices of Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence, confirmed that the VA in Philadelphia has processed the claim of Florence Henry, 91, of Williamsville.
Henry's husband, Lawrence, served in both World Wars and died in 1963, expecting that the VA would honor benefits for his wife if she ever needed them.
Since 2008, Florence Henry has been eligible for a monthly "aid and attendance" benefit that would help her remain in an assisted-living apartment and out of a nursing home. But until this week, her claim had gone nowhere.
"This case serves as a reminder of the effect the unacceptable claims backlog at the VA has on veterans and their families," Lee said in a statement. "The average wait for a claim is more than 120 days, and veterans and families in my district sometimes have waited more than a year for their claims to be processed. While I am pleased our office could intervene and help this family, the VA needs to have a detailed plan in place to fix this backlog problem and expedite its implementation."
Michael Henry, who assisted his mother in applying for the benefits, said the money that was rightfully due should allow her to stay in her home.
"This is a terrible relief," Henry said.
The offices of Lee, Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., all were involved in discussions with the VA over Henry's case, which was chronicled Sunday in The Buffalo News.
"After some pushing, the VA stepped up to the plate and did the right thing," Schumer said in a statement. "We must support those who have sacrificed on behalf of our country, and in the future I hope the VA decides to act in a more timely manner. Our service members and their families have given entirely too much to have to wait so long for benefits that are owed to them."
Henry was awarded benefits retroactive to March 1, 2008. She is entitled to $998 per month from March 1, 2008, until Dec. 1, 2008, and $1,056 per month after Dec. 1, 2008.
Despite working into her mid-80s, Henry was close to running out of her retirement savings. She pays $3,500 per month for the assisted-living apartment, where she gets help with daily medications, meals, laundry and other chores.
Henry's was one of several claim delays for Western New Yorkers entitled to veteran's benefits, according to Lee's office, which also recently helped resolve the case of a 99-year-old woman who was in danger of being kicked out of an assisted-living facility.
The woman's claim dated back to August 2008, and she received $16,600 in retroactive benefits and a monthly benefit of $1,290 going forward, said Lee's spokeswoman, Andrea Bozek.
"We've had a lot of similar cases recently," said Bozek. "It's just taking way too long."
jtokasz@buffnews.com
Veteran’s widow forced to fight for benefits
Son says VA is waitingfor his mother to die
By Lou Michel
Updated: January 17, 2010, 7:09 AM /
Lawrence Henry enlisted twice to serve in World War I and then in World War II.
He died in 1963, but with the expectation that the Department of Veterans Affairs would honor benefits for his wife, Florence, if she ever needed them.
It turns out that his widow, now 91, does need help, but her family believes the VA is intentionally delaying crucial financial assistance to her in the hopes she will die first.
Though not in the best of health, Florence E. Henry is not thinking about dying any time soon. She says she is more worried about paying the rent for her costly assisted-living apartment in Williamsville.
“My savings are just about gone. I have been here for 3z years. Where I will go from here, I don’t know,” Henry said. “My husband was a very patriotic man, and although he was a little over 40, he enlisted in World War II and was very proud of it.”
Her 64-year-old son, Michael, has been leading the effort to get his mother a needs-based “aid and attendance” monthly benefit of about $1,000. And while not every widow qualifies, the benefit can be applied to the survivors of veterans if there is a demonstrated need for assistance in carrying out the daily tasks of living.
VA officials on Friday confirmed that Florence Henry has a claim pending, but could not comment any further than that, citing privacy rules.
When The Buffalo News contacted Rep. Chris Lee, whose district comprises Henry’s apartment, officials said this type of complaint involving elderly individuals experiencing lengthy delays is not uncommon with the VA.
“We just closed a similar case for a 99-year-old woman,” said Andrea Bozek, Lee’s spokeswoman. “The [assisted] living facility had given her notice that if she couldn’t pay the rent, she would have to move to a skilled nursing facility because [it] will accept Medicaid . . . an assisted-living facility does not.”
Henry’s case, according to Lee, is a reminder that the VA has an unacceptable backlog and needs to come up with a plan to fix it.
Henry needs help with her daily medications, is unable to cook for herself and depends on others to do her laundry and other household chores, her son said, “because of her cardiac condition.”
But so far, Michael Henry says, efforts to get the benefit have been an exercise in futility. He says he has tried more than 20 times since his mother first applied for the help on July 14, 2006, to move the process along.
Now the mother and son say they have reached a critical point in their lengthy wait. In about 10 months from now, the last of her life savings will have been devoured by rent.
“I think this is purposeful. I mean, the VA is waiting for my mother to die. They don’t want to pay her a dime,” said Michael Henry of North Buffalo. “I’ve been told the VA has a policy of telling its employees we are not in the estate-planning business. They are scared to death that someone might pass the money on.”
As for any secret money she may have socked away for her heirs, the son said it does not exist.
“There is no fast one going on here,” he said.
All but $18,000 of her $120,000 nest egg, mostly from the sale of her last house in Eggertsville, has gone to pay the rent along with her monthly $1,200 Social Security check and monthly $650 pension from her years as a University at Buffalo bookkeeper — a job that became a necessity after her husband was killed 47 years ago when he was hit by a car.
She continued to work at that job on a part-time basis into her mid-80s, and former coworkers still stop by to visit her at her apartment.
But residing in an assisted-living apartment is not cheap— $3,500 a month. If she were to eventually receive the $1,000 VA stipend, Florence Henry would still fall short of the monthly rent, but her son says the family would find a way to make up the difference.
The long wait and letters from the VA, he adds, have been trying on his mother’s mental and physical condition.
“For the last seven or eight months, every time I see her, she asks, ‘Have you heard from the VA?’ ” the son said.
In July 2006, the VA rejected her application for aid, stating that her savings exceeded the $80,000 limit for receiving what, in her case, amounts to a widow’s pension.
In February 2008, she reapplied when her savings dropped to $77,000 and again was denied. Tracy Kinn, a New York State veterans counselor, then provided additional information on Henry’s behalf to prove she lacked assets to meet her needs.
And despite enlisting assistance from area politicians, Michael Henry said several months passed before he learned from Kinn that the Buffalo Veterans Benefits Administration Office had shifted the case to Philadelphia.
Last month, the Philadelphia office, after some back and forth with the family, said it was determining if any additional information would be necessary for its evaluation.
Frustrated, Michael Henry contacted The News to publicly complain about the bureaucratic odyssey.
On Friday, a VA worker in Philadelphia called Michael Henry to say the department wants to resolve his mother’s case, the son said.
The son was glad to hear that, but also dismayed by another piece of information he received from the worker.
“He told me the VA in Buffalo had not sent the Philadelphia office my mother’s entire file last May,” Michael Henry said. “Something is definitely wrong.”
His mother, he added, does not want to end up in a nursing home.
“She wants to live in her own apartment and live with dignity.”
