♿ Miami-Dade Disability & Autism Newsletter 🧩

Good morning, my fellow Miamians 🦩

This week’s news runs from heroic to hopeful, a couple of studies, some local headlines, and a few benefit numbers worth writing down. If you read one thing first, make it the Homestead officer who went into the pond after a boy with autism, the one where the boy makes it home. On the new episode, Sandra Bermudez and I get into why so many struggling readers were taught that way rather than born that way, and if a home and a child’s benefits are somewhere in your future, well, this dad reads the fine print.

Today's Edition Includes

1. Passing Home To A Child On Benefits: The Deed That Keeps It From Disqualifying Them
2. Meet Stephen Wiltshire: Autistic Architectural Artist
3. Disability News Headlines
4. New Podcast Episode: What If the Problem Is Not Your Child, But How Reading Is Being Taught

Victor Antunez | 305.401.6224

Real Estate Professional 🔑 Autism Dadvocate

PS. If buying or selling a home is on your mind, and you want to talk it through, text or call me at (305) 401-6224

PSS. Nothing means more than a real estate referral. If someone comes to mind, please send them my way.

🏠 Passing Home To A Child On Benefits: The Deed That Keeps It From Disqualifying Them 🔑

When a family has an adult child on SSI and Medicaid, the instinct is to leave them the house. In a will, that move breaks everything, the moment the home lands in their name it can push them past the $2,000 asset limit, and the home meant to shelter them cuts off their support instead.

So the home doesn't go to the child, it goes to a special needs trust that holds it for them. The child lives there, the trust owns it, the $2,000 limit stays untouched. For a home, that happens through a Lady Bird deed, which Florida recognizes. You keep the home and its homestead tax benefits during your life, and at your death it passes straight to the trust, no probate and no Medicaid claim against it.

A third-party trust, funded with your money and never the child's, passes what's left to whoever you name, nothing owed to the state. Setting that up before anything is titled keeps a home from becoming a first-party trust with a Medicaid payback.

Which deed and which trust turn on facts an estate attorney who does special needs work has to weigh, so have that conversation while you plan.

If you're passing a home to a child on benefits, reply or text me at (305) 401-6224 and I'll connect you with an attorney from my trusted network.

Victor Antunez | 305.401.6224

Real Estate Professional 🔑 Autism Dadvocate

PS. Got a housing question, benefits, timing, whether a move even makes sense? Text or call me. You'll get a straight answer you can plan around.

PSS. If you know a family trying to figure out housing around a child's needs, send them my way. They'll get someone who speaks their language from day 1.

🖇️ FREE BOOK DOWNLOADS​​

1. ​​​Future-Proofing Your Special Needs Child: Essential Legal, Financial, and Life Strategies for Florida Families​
2. ​Miami-Dade Special Needs Resource Directory​
3. ​The Ultimate Home Buying Guide For Families with Special Needs​

📝 Disability News Headlines

1. ​Body cam video shows Homestead police officer credited with saving child with autism from drowning
2. ​Deputies seek autistic woman, 18, reported missing in Fort Lauderdale
3. ​Horseback Riding Eases Hyperactivity In Kids With Autism, Study Says
4. ​How Increased Scrutiny in Autism Can Advance Progress | Op-ed
5. ​Key Biscayne families call for inclusion that lasts a lifetime
6. ​Social Security Announces 3.6 Percent Benefit Increase for 2027

​Spectrum Alert for missing autistic children: Florida’s alert for a missing child under 18 with autism. Call 911 right away, then MEPIC (Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse) at 1-888-356-4774. Only law enforcement can activate it.

​Purple Alert for missing autistic adults: Florida’s alert for a missing adult 18 or older with autism or another cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disability. Call 911 right away, then MEPIC (Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse) at 1-888-356-4774. The reporting agency requests activation.

🎧 NEW PODCAST EPISODE 🎧

What If the Problem Is Not Your Child, But How Reading Is Being Taught

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