Does anyone have any advice?

Hi,

I am brand new to this site and would appreciate some advice. I am a Canadian citizen living in Ontario and have recently been contacted by an old friend of my family who is an American Citizen. This person has homes in Alaska as well as Washington State. She is presently 64 years old and has asked me if I would be able to go and live with her in her Washington state home, and become her companion while she is there which is about 6 months out of the year and look after the place while she is away. She is willing to pay me to live there and I will have a place to stay rent free. I am 55 years old and make my living teaching piano. I wouldn't mind going and living there but I don't want to lose my health care benefits and I would also like to possibly still be able to do some work when she is not there. She is only 30 miles from the border so I may have the option of crossing each day and teaching in Canada but I have recently heard that if I am a Canadian Citizen I need to be in Canada some time during the year without loosing my health benefits if I am living in the U.S. I would like to know how much time I need to come back to Canada each year so that I won't lose my health benefits and also what is the best plan of action for me to take in applying for a Green Card or visa to work and live there.

Thanks

Without a work authorization or other immigration status, you would need to keep a full-fledged permant home in canada year-round. That would be the condition for allowing you to visit US for periods of six months at a time.

Even returning to canada daily to work would not be an acceptable arrangemnt for US immigration, as you would be living in US.

As to healthcare coverage, you need to keep a home in a province and be physically present in Canada for 183 nights in every 365 day rolling period (153 nights for OHIP). Here again, even daily visits to canada would not keep your health coverage active, as nights are what counts.

So, from a US immgration point of view you need to keep a home in Canada, and live there. you can visit US.
From a healthcare point of view, even if you keep a home in Canada, you need to actually sleep there most of time.