Veterans Alliance is privately owned and operated to serve veterans. We are not affiliated with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans Alliance — Veterans Alliance
← All South Dakota benefits
housingstate

The Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home — Nursing Care Only, and a Spouse Route with Its Own Rules

The Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home at Hot Springs takes veterans eligible for federal per diem, with preference to anyone domiciled here within the past five years and to members of federally recognised tribes. A spouse can be admitted after a year of marriage; a surviving spouse needs to be 60 and unmarried.

Verified August 27, 2026

What this benefit is

The Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home at Hot Springs takes veterans eligible for federal per diem, with preference to anyone domiciled here within the past five years and to members of federally recognised tribes. A spouse can be admitted after a year of marriage; a surviving spouse needs to be 60 and unmarried.

What it's worth: Nursing home care at the Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home, Hot Springs; spouses and surviving spouses admitted on their own terms

  • The gate is eligibility for federal per diem for domiciliary or nursing home care in a state home — so the federal test does most of the work here.
  • The facility's full name is the Michael J. Fitzmaurice State Veterans Home, at Hot Springs. Referrals and forms use that name.
  • What a resident pays is not published on the home's own pages; see the gap note.

Who is entitled to it

  • Your discharge supports veteran status for admission purposes.
  • You are in this state.

Not sure whether that describes you?

Answer a few questions about this benefit specifically — we only ask what this one actually depends on, and we stop as soon as we know.

How to claim it

  1. 1Ring the home for the packet. The application page gives the number and directs every detailed question there rather than publishing answers.
  2. 2Check the definition first: a veteran here means a veteran as the statute defines one who is eligible for the payment of federal per diem for domiciliary or nursing home care in a state home.
  3. 3If you were domiciled here within the past five years, say so — that is an admission preference, as is membership of a federally recognised tribe located wholly or partly within the state.
  4. 4For a spouse: you must have been married to an eligible veteran for at least a year and be living together, or the veteran must be in a healthcare facility separately.
  5. 5For a surviving spouse: at least 60, unmarried, married to the veteran for at least a year before the death, and the veteran must have been eligible for admission themselves.
  6. 6Ask the home directly what a resident pays, because it is not published — and ask whether the answer differs by level of care.
Form
Pre-admission packet from the home
File with
The state veterans home at Hot Springs
Documents you will need
dd214 · va benefit summary letter
No renewal
Once granted it does not need renewing.
CorrectionThe home provides nursing home care only. It says in terms that it is not staffed for, and receives no federal aid for veterans in, an assisted living community. A veteran looking for a step between independence and nursing care will not find it here, and older descriptions of a residential or independent living wing do not describe what the home now says it offers.
Worth knowingThe tribal preference is unusual and specific: members of federally recognised tribes located wholly or partly within the state, sitting alongside the five-year domicile preference rather than behind it.
Worth knowingThe surviving spouse route has three separate conditions — 60 or older, unmarried, and a year of marriage before the death — and losing any one of them closes it. A remarriage is the one that most often does.
Known gapThe home publishes no rate. Its FAQ page and several others in that section returned an error page this session, and the pages that did read direct every cost question to a telephone number. No daily rate or income percentage is published here because none was read.

Sources

This finder provides an informational match, not a government eligibility determination. The responsible agency decides your application.