How do you get paid to run a care home in Texas?

Veterans benefits — the most overlooked payer

• —VA Aid & Attendance: a monthly pension for wartime veterans (and surviving spouses) who need help with daily living — about $2,424/month for a single veteran and $2,874 for a married veteran (effective Dec 2025). The veteran receives it and pays your home; no contract needed. Market your home as "Aid & Attendance friendly."
• —VA Community Residential Care: get your home VA-approved and you earn a referral pipeline of placed veterans. The veteran still pays you privately — often using Aid & Attendance — so the two stack.
• —HUD-VASH vouchers can cover the room-and-board slice for a homeless veteran while Aid & Attendance covers the care.
• —Medical Foster Home: a fit if you run a small (3-bed) caregiver-occupied home. In the Houston area, the gateway to all of these is the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.

Re-entry and returning citizens — a real, underserved niche

The 55-and-older prison population has grown dramatically, and many of these aging adults are turned away by ordinary assisted living facilities because of a record. That is a gap a care home can fill — and get paid for.

Texas runs a medical release program (often called medical parole) that cannot release a frail or aging person without a suitable bed lined up first. Once placed, that person’s care typically bills to Medicaid like any other resident. Separately, federal and state re-entry programs pay per-diem contracts to housing providers. It is a different population, but the payer rails are real.

Other public and private funding

• —SSI-based Residential Care: the resident pays room and board from their SSI (keeping an $85 personal-needs allowance — SSI is $994/month in 2026), and HHSC pays your home a service rate on top through its Residential Care contract.
• —HCBS-AMH (Adult Mental Health): assisted living is a named setting, and HHSC contracts the provider directly — a strong, often-open enrollment path.
• —PACE (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly): a capitated program for adults 55+ who need nursing-home-level care but live in the community — you can contract to provide housing or services.
• —HUD Section 811 project rental assistance (through Texas’s TDHCA) subsidizes units for residents with disabilities.
• —Long-term care insurance: many policies pay about $130–$160 per day toward assisted living. Ask the family for assignment of benefits so the insurer pays your home directly.