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60 or over) disabled individual, or veteran or has a child under 18 who lives with the group. Example Ms. Day (age 54) lives with her brother Mr. Earl (age 53) who receives SSI. Ms. Day purchases and prepares food separately from Mr. Earl. Ms. Day and Mr. Earl are separate FS groups. Either may apply for separate group status. Generally, a person must not participate as a member of more than one FS group in any given month. If the person is a mandatory group member, action must be taken as soon as possible to remove him/her from his/her former group and add him/her to the new group. Residents of shelters for battered women and children, however, may be a member of more than one group (see Section 10.10: Shelter Facilities for Battered Women and Children in this Part). The group may reside in a house, apartment, rooming house, certain institutional settings such as a group living arrangement, or a shelter for battered women, or it may be homeless. Households must list on their application individuals residing with the group who may not be eligible to be included in the FS group. These include the following persons: • ineligible aliens (see Chapter 7: Citizenship/Alienage in this Part), • roomers (see Section 1.13: Living Situations in this Chapter), • boarders (see Section 1.13: Living Situations in this Chapter), • strikers (see Chapter 11: Strikers in this Part), • ineligible students (see Section 4.4: School Attendance and Student Status in this Part), and • disqualified persons The following are considered groups: • a person living alone who purchases food and prepares meals, • a person or group of people living with others but who purchases and prepares meals separately from the others, Example Ms. Grant and her two children move in with Ms. Mason, Ms. Grant’s friend. Ms. Mason purchases and prepares food separately from Ms. Grant and her two children. They are two groups for FS purposes. • a group of people who live together and who purchase food and prepare meals together, and • a person at least 60 years old, his/her spouse, and their children under 22 may choose to be a separate group from those they live with even if they purchase and prepare food together if: o the person age 60 or over cannot purchase and prepare meals due to a permanent disability as determined by SSA or a non disease related permanent disability, and o the countable income of all the other people with whom the impaired senior lives does not exceed 165 percent of the FPL.

OPTIONAL GROUP MEMBERS 1.4 MA The SSR should designate or create the group(s) in the manner most beneficial to the applicants (that