Family Trust Benefits

A person with a disability may need a variety of life long community supports to optimize their quality of life.  Those supports often include medical care, early intervention services, in home care, community living arrangements, supported work environments and respite care. Click here to learn the reasons to create a trust.

Under the Social Security Act, a person is entitled to receive government assistance for those supports and services as long as the person has:

1. a disability as defined by the Social Security Act and

2. assets of less than

$2,400 if the person is receiving nursing home care

$2,000 if the person is not in nursing home care and is receiving Supplemental Social Security Income (SSI)

$8,000 if the person is not receiving SSI or food stamps but is receiving (or is applying for) “waiver services”

“Assets” include all income and resources, with the exception of a few categories.  If a person has assets over the permitted levels, they will be ineligible for all government services.  Even assets as modest as savings and checking accounts can result in a loss of benefits.

The Social Security Act permits certain kinds of trusts to hold assets for the benefit of a person with a disability.  Assets in those trusts do not “count” for purposes of calculating whether the person has too many assets to qualify for government benefits and services.

ACHIEVA Family Trust manages three types of permitted trusts:  Pooled Trusts, Payback Trusts and Common Law Trusts.