Many gay boomers are now encountering a new financial challenge: the costs of caring for their greying parents and for their long-term surviving lovers with HIV, diabetes, cancer, or heart disease.

With family no matter how many times we're disinherited and banished, the gay child often ends up the caregiver. Perhaps it's testimony to the one-way mirror of so-called family values which seem based more on who's hated vs who's loved. Whatever the causality the heterosexual wicker basket often ends up on the gay doorstep.

Welcome to the Alice in Wonderland world of assisted living - health care's purgatory before the hell of nursing home care.

The first nightmare is similar to that of other big-ticket purchases that bundle many separate (and often conflicting) services together. An apartment building masquerades as a care facility by pitching its apartments to older people, attaching handicap railings to the walls, and dressing its building personnel in hospital whites. Perhaps there's an "on-call" home care service or Registered Nurse several hours a week. Certainly there are coffee hours, shopping outings, and the vocabulary of senior care. But it's really just an apartment building.

Buyer beware. At the first sign of illness, the renter-become-patient is declared persona-non-grata and "beyond our capabilities" - and given the boot. This can happen many times - with each move itself a debilitating event - upping the cost with each apparent increase in rarely-given services.

Soon the savvy caregiver consumer finds that promises mean nothing - and written contracts everything. Contact (and support) long-term and nursing care ombudsmen - organizations that collect and act on complaints; they're invaluable sources of warning signs - and expertise. Insist on watertight walls of confidentiality between what are in reality landlords vs home care providers. Run likely scenarios of care with would-be providers to determine at what point they max out. Look for a readiness and skill in dissecting and solving care problems on a one-by-one basis. Watch out for generalizing and stereotyping.

Realize that so-called 24 hour care rarely happens - and that even in a nursing home a resident rarely get more than three hours a day of care (most of which can be provided much more cheaply and with greater individual attention in an apartment setting).

The holy grail in long-term care is the facility that totally embraces assisted living home care in an apartment setting. Look for arrangements with government agencies that permit people to stay in those settings even as their resources wane. Investigate whether alternative home care providers can be and are used in the facilities - or whether this option is realistically impractical or faces procedural barriers. Check out the residents - if they all look well, watch out - weeding out may be at play.

Ensure choice over actual home care aides provided. Devise incentive programs to encourage long-term care relationships with aides that work out. Check insurance coverage against theft by aides. Keep one area under lock & key at all times for precious items that can "walk." Maintain an inventory of belongings or do a photo record of them each time there's a change of personnel.

Beware landlords which own both assisted living and nursing home facilities. They have hefty financial incentives to persuade home care contractors to recommend that residents are "beyond home care" (once they exhaust their private funds) - and are nursing home "material" (to be paid for now by Medicaid). Let's face it, barring enlightened public programs to fund home care settings, private funds are the only way dignified independent livingis possible in later years.

Lastly, have several physician advisors trained in geriatric care. Watch out for any tendency to ascribe conditions to old age - which is not a specific cause of medical conditions. Remove nurses and aides who discount the resident's needs, wishes, or opinions by referring to old age.

Caregivers can be grateful to their charges for showing what life can belike but for a few years or a few twists of fate. These invaluable lessons include: disability insurance covers the primary hole of any safety net; long-term care insurance must be carefully investigated (Consumer Reports has done excellent analyses); long-term care insurance after 50-60 is a must not an option. Consult The Complete Eldercare Planner, by Joy Loverde - with its realistic decision making checklists.

Researching one's own ultimate caring place and care is the ultimate financial decision of our lives - one not to be left to family or friends to make at the last minute in a crisis.

Per Larson Financial Advice & Advocacy for gays, lesbians, and people living with AIDS and Hiv +. Per has offices in NYC and Highland Mills, 914-534-9642 or 212-734-0941. Web site http://www.gaymoney.com