Can an elderly person be made to pay for their nursing home stay, if they refuse to use their own money for it?

This is not related to anything in my family. It’s a friend of a friend. The elderly mother, who is in her 90’s, needs assistance and can’t be left overnight by herself. She refuses to go to a nursing home and wouldn’t be willing to pay for it with her own money. The adult children can’t afford to pay and they don’t have the legal right to do so, because there’s no Power of Attorney or anything like that.

The adult child had to have the mother move in with him because he can’t afford to put her in a nursing home and she won’t allow her money to be used.

If the elderly mother refuses to go to a nursing home and refuses to use her own money for her own care, what options might the adult children have?