This VA pension benefit can add meaningfully toward the cost of assisted living, memory care, or in-home care — and Connecticut veterans in the Capitol Region are served by VA Connecticut's Newington campus. Here's how it works.
By Hartford Senior Advisor Care Team · February 23, 2026
Aid & Attendance (A&A) is an enhanced VA pension available to wartime veterans and surviving spouses who need help with daily activities such as bathing, dressing, or medication management. It's a separate benefit from VA health care — a veteran doesn't need to be enrolled in VA health services to apply for A&A, and it can be applied toward the cost of an MRC's assisted living or memory care services, in-home care from a licensed agency, or nursing home care, whichever fits the veteran's actual situation.
Greater Hartford veterans are served by the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, which operates an outpatient clinic on its Newington campus, with the system's main medical center in West Haven. Because A&A eligibility and the benefit itself follow the veteran rather than a specific facility, it can be applied at any qualifying MRC, memory care community, or licensed home care agency across Hartford, West Hartford, Manchester, or anywhere else in the Capitol Region — the veteran isn't locked into a VA-run facility to use the benefit.
Eligibility generally requires a qualifying period of wartime service (such as WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or the Gulf War era), an other-than-dishonorable discharge, a documented medical need for daily assistance, and income and net worth within VA limits that are updated periodically. Because there's a 36-month look-back period on asset transfers, getting the initial filing right the first time matters a great deal — errors or omissions can add months to processing and, in some cases, trigger a penalty period.
The mistake we see most often with Hartford-area families: assuming their parent's assets are automatically too high to qualify, and never actually applying. VA's net-worth rules include exclusions many families don't expect — the primary home, for one, under most circumstances — and a veteran paying privately for a West Hartford or Farmington Valley MRC at $7,000 or more a month should have this benefit checked regardless of an initial assumption about eligibility, since the calculation is more nuanced than a simple asset total.
Start with an accredited Veterans Service Officer — Connecticut's Department of Veterans Affairs maintains town and county service officers across the state, including throughout the Capitol Region, and accredited help filing an A&A claim is always free of charge. Social work staff at VA Connecticut's Newington outpatient clinic can also point families toward accredited assistance and help gather the required medical documentation.
The VA Caregiver Support Line, 1-855-260-3274, is another free resource worth having on hand while managing both a benefits application and a care search at the same time. A senior advisor familiar with which Greater Hartford MRCs and home care agencies readily coordinate with A&A paperwork can help time a placement alongside the claim, rather than a family managing both processes under pressure with no guidance.
Free, no pressure, and no one rushing you. We answer to families, not to facilities.