Son says VA is waiting for his mother to die
By Lou Michel
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
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.”
lmichel@buffnews.c
