The new head of Iowa’s Veterans Affairs Commission is settling into the job. Six months after moving to Des Moines to take up the post at Camp Dodge, Pat Palmersheim says it’s a lot more work than his local post in Howard County was, but he has clear goals. He says one of his biggest projects right now is to reach vets in nursing homes, and their spouses or widows. Palmersheim says while veterans may know of some of the benefits they have coming, he’s always surprised to find out how much more is available that they don’t know about. Palmersheim’s sent letters to 420 nursing facilities in the state asking them to do a local survey of how many veterans they have, then he’ll notify county VA directors of the people out there who should be signed up for benefits. If there’s a wartime veteran paying bills to stay at a nursing facility, he may be eligible for government payments up to a thousand dollars a month to help pay that cost.
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