How aging veterans are treated like family at medical foster homes [Video]

Shantel Cross and her two kids set three places for dinner for the veterans who live at their home in Baltimore — Charles McCoubrey, Peter Samaras and Ekkehard Thies. The three men couldn’t be happier to have a seat at the table.

“It’s nice here. And being in a nursing home, they just throw you away, they ignore you. But here we’re like part of the family,” Samaras said.

Medical foster homes are an innovative approach from the Department of Veterans Affairs for veterans who may need extra care later in life. The program began in 2002 in Arkansas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Today, over 700 veterans receive home care from approximately 500 caregivers.

All three veterans who live with the Cross family served in the military in the late 1960s and early 1970s. McCoubrey was in the Navy, while Samaras and Theis served in the Army — a divide that’s become the …