Beyond VA Aid & Attendance and community assisted living, Washington runs its own skilled-nursing veterans homes in Port Orchard and Orting — here's how they work, what they cost, and how VA Puget Sound's American Lake and Seattle campuses connect to them.
By Diane Whitfield, CSA · July 29, 2026
Families researching senior care for a veteran usually land first on VA Aid & Attendance, the monthly benefit that helps pay for assisted living, memory care, or an adult family home. Fewer know that Washington also operates its own skilled-nursing veterans homes, run by the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs (WDVA) rather than the federal VA: the Washington Veterans Home in Port Orchard, still widely known by its historic name Retsil, in Kitsap County, and the Washington Soldiers Home in Orting, in Pierce County.
Both are licensed, Medicare- and Medicaid-certified skilled-nursing facilities built specifically for veterans and their spouses — a different tier of care than the assisted-living or adult family home settings most of our other guides cover, and worth understanding before you rule it out.
Admission requires service at any time in any branch of the U.S. armed forces, including the National Guard, with an honorable discharge, plus Washington State residency. Spouses and widows or widowers of an eligible veteran can also qualify, which surprises many families who assume the benefit stops with the veteran. The functional piece matters too: these are nursing-level facilities, so admission is based on a documented need for 24-hour nursing care, not simply a preference for a veterans-specific community.
Payment is layered rather than a single price tag. Veterans rated 70–100% service-connected disabled, or whose need for nursing care is tied to a service-connected condition, can have care paid by the federal VA. Beyond that, both homes accept Medicare, Washington Apple Health (Medicaid), private insurance, and private pay, and Apple Health specifically covers 24-hour nursing services for eligible veterans. For a family staring at $9,000-plus a month for private-pay skilled nursing elsewhere in the Puget Sound market, that combination of federal per-diem support and Medicaid acceptance can make Retsil or Orting dramatically more affordable — but it takes a phone call to WDVA to sort out which payment layer actually applies to your veteran's specific discharge and disability rating.
It's easy to conflate the state veterans homes with the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, but they're separate systems that work together. VA Puget Sound's American Lake campus, in Lakewood near Tacoma, and its Seattle campus provide outpatient care, rehabilitation, and some inpatient medical services, and their social workers are often the ones who first flag that a veteran may need a higher level of long-term care. From there, families or VA case managers refer into WDVA's admission process for Retsil or Orting. Going through VA Puget Sound first — rather than applying to a state home cold — usually gets the paperwork and eligibility verification moving faster.
Applications go through WDVA directly (1-877-VETS-R-US), and typically require a copy of the veteran's DD-214 to confirm discharge status, plus a current medical or functional assessment showing the level of care needed. Both homes are popular and geography-limited — Retsil serves Kitsap and the North/West Sound well, Orting is the closer option for South King and Pierce County families — so a waitlist is common, and it's worth applying as soon as a nursing-level need is anticipated rather than waiting for a crisis. If a veteran needs care sooner than a state-home bed opens up, VA Aid & Attendance paired with a community assisted-living placement or adult family home is often the practical bridge in the meantime.
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