Achieva Family Trust provides trustworthy care for disabled
By Joyce Gannon, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
While Ms. Allenberg worked closely with the builder to customize the home, invoices for design features that meet specifications of the Americans with Disabilities Act were sent to the
Ava's parents also use the account to pay for some of her daily medical supplies and for special items like her modified stroller. Her mother hopes to tap into the money to buy a wheelchair-accessible van.
"I wanted the money from the settlement to go towards my daughter's life plan," said
Ms. Allenberg declined to disclose the settlement amount or terms of the case surrounding Ava's birth injury, but said her attorneys recommended she and Ava's father consider investing the cash at the
Federal law stipulates that people with disabilities can qualify for government assistance such as Supplemental Security Income and
Established in 1998, the
Since its launch,
Its affiliate agency,
Prior to establishment of such trusts, she said, families of people with disabilities wrangled with options for how to provide for their loved ones in the long term.
"In old estate planning policies, you would disinherit the person from the will because they would lose their government benefits," said Ms. Strano. "If you had three children, you might leave your money to the other two and hope they would do the right thing and take care of the third with disabilities."
Another issue that families encounter, she said, is that some banks and financial institutions may not be anxious to manage relatively small accounts for people with disabilities. "If someone gets
The minimum required to open a trust account at
For those in the pooled trust, when a balance remains in the account after the death of the person for which it was established, those assets become part of a charitable fund that
In
The third type is the common law trust funded entirely by family or friends but not by the individual's own assets. No amounts need to be repaid to the state, and anything left when the individual dies can be distributed to beneficiaries named when the account was created.
All the trusts carry fees based on the size of the account, starting with 10 percent on balances up to
Most of Achieva's accounts are in the pooled trust, said Ms. Strano. Many larger amounts are invested in payback trusts so that funds left over when the individual dies can go back to the family.
"My general impression is that a lot of
"If I had
For them, he said, the common law or third-party trust might make more sense.
An advantage in investing with the
For
After she learned about the
He works two days a week as a paper shredder for the
"His money is not much for what he's had to deal with, but now it is available for his special needs," said Ms. Jerick, who is her son's primary caregiver.
For items not covered by her son's medical benefits, such as a van equipped with a wheelchair lift and weekly therapeutic massages, she requests money from his trust account.
"They have very strict guidelines, which is fine with me," she said, "If I didn't have the trust, that money would be spent. I'm very grateful I can stay home and take care of him, and he gets the physical, occupational and speech therapy that he needs."
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