I had to quit my job over a year ago to take care of my elderly mother who has dementia, but still lives in the family home. I’m 53 years old and I have a full 15 years with a municipal police department and 14 years with a sheriffs office. I have personally run out of funds and wonder if there’s any help available?
We on Forum often see people end up jobless and homeless when they leave work to care for their parents. In all honesty we end telling them to start out by going to a shelter to get work.
The luck thing here is that you are ex police forces and likely can return to that job. If not you are very well qualified for security work. I think you will need to place your elder because I doubt that, even if you find remuniration for caregiving from Medicaid, or other sources, that it will be enough to live on, even if you are living rent free, and certainly not enough for your own retirement.
Wishing you good luck.
One suggestion is to sell the family home, use the equity to help pay for your Mom to be in Memory Care where she would be around Staff that understands dementia. My Dad was happy to sell his house and move into Memory Care, being around people of his own age group, loved the meals, and having a RN on Staff around the clock. Once your Mom starts to run out of her own funds, she can apply for Medicaid via the State. Make sure the Memory Care will accept Medicaid.
At 53 you can return to work and probably work for another 20 years and hopefully build up the funds you lost.
You did not HAVE to quit your job to care for your mother. Get that silly fantasy out of your head and focus on reality.
Sit down with a Certified Elder Care attorney to discuss your best course of action here. Your life and future matter too, and you do not want to have no real funds available for own care later on in life.
Best of luck.
You are not entitled to any unemployment, you quit your job.
SS . As said cannot get till 62. Then its based only on the last 35 yrs u worked. So if you file at 62, SS will only go back till age 27. So lets say you do not work 10 yrs in that 35, your SS earnings will be based on 25 yrs. Then you take SS at 62 you only get 75% of that.
Your future is important. You will need all the money you can get to live. IMO, it would be better to place Mom, according to her finances, and you get back to work. There is no program that will pay you enough. I will be 85 when my youngest is 50 and oldest 58. I do not plan on them caring for me. They need to work.
By quitting your job, you gave up contributing to your social security account, so you don't have the credits you would have had if you'd kept working. This means that your benefits amount when you are eligible to draw upon those retirement funds will be less. As for your pension at your former jobs, you need to check into that.
The help that you hope is available is mom's house. She needs to sell it to pay for her care in a nice memory care unit. Then you can go back to work and try to make up the deficit in your funds. I hope you are POA for mom so you can sell the house whether she likes it or not, because with dementia she may not have capacity to make decisions like that.
"But I promised I'd take care of her till the end, and she refuses to go to a 'home'!"
What she wants is no longer important. You can make sure she is safe with professional caregivers and then resume working. That (and possibly what you inherit from mom consisting of her funds after selling the house) is the only thing that can fix the mistake you made to begin with.
I hope it goes well.
Find other placements for Mom or hire in home caregivers for Mom while you are working.