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Responding to months of pressure from veterans’ advocates and elected officials, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Thursday that it will change a widely criticized rule that excludes the most disabled veterans from subsidized housing think for them.
The rule, which HUD officials had before he said they couldn’t change it, counts service-related disability benefits as income. That compensation, based on the veteran’s disability percentage up to 100%, can raise a veteran’s income above the maximum allowed for housing restricted to low-income residents.
“The days of a Veteran having to choose between getting the VA benefits they deserve and the housing support they need are finally over,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. “This is a critical step forward that will help Veterans across the country — and bring us one step closer to our ultimate goal of ending Veteran homelessness for good.”
Iraq war veteran Lavon Johnson, 35, plays his piano in his store along Veterans Row along San Vicente Boulevard in an unincorporated area near Brentwood on Oct. 30, 2021. Johnson was stationed at Fort Hood deployed to Iraq in 2006 and 2007 and has been homeless on Veterans Row for about a year.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
“It looks like we had one hell of a win,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Northridge), who had introduced a bill to change the rule but also pushed former HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge to find a more comprehensive solution. quick
“Veterans who have served our country should never have to choose between housing and their disability benefits,” said Mayor Karen Bass, who pushed for the change. “I wholeheartedly thank the Biden-Harris administration and the many leaders who helped enact this significant policy change that will save lives and bring more veterans into permanent housing.
Representative Brad Sherman (D-Northridge) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) speaks as they walk down the steps of the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2023.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
In a class-action case brought by veterans over a slew of complaints against the VA, US District Judge David O. Carter ruled in May that the policy discriminates against disabled veterans. “Those who have given the most cannot receive the least,” he wrote.
HUD’s announcement came on the third day of a non-jury trial on the lawsuit in Los Angeles that was in part to determine what remedy Carter would order to end the discrimination.
“The change is welcome, but years overdue,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with the Public Counsel and veterans’ attorney. “It shouldn’t take a lawsuit and a federal judge’s ruling that a cruel and insane policy that has kept our most disabled veterans on the street instead of in housing is illegal and discriminatory to finally end.”
Long a source of frustration and anger among veterans, the issue has gained political traction as new housing is being built at the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ West Los Angeles campus and veterans are living there. in a small hometown they learned that they could not qualify for it because their income exceeded the limit for veterans’ subsidies called HUD VASH vouchers.
In January, Sherman grilled Fudge in a congressional hearing, saying that although he was pushing the legislation, he thought the solution didn’t require changing the law.
“Your department is more functional than Congress,” Sherman told Fudge. “So I hope that instead of coming back to us and saying, here’s what we should do, I can come back to you and say here’s what you can do.”
“If I could do it today, I would,” Fudge, who retired in March, replied.
Sherman attributed the eight-month delay to red tape, but said he thought a conversation he had with acting secretary Adrianne Todman had helped.
“I think he moved more,” he said.
Bass also pressed Todman for change as a member of the United States Conference of Mayors. In April, more than 50 mayors from across the country raised the issue in meetings with key members of the Biden administration, the US Senate and the US House of Representatives.
A sign in support of housing homeless vets stands outside a store on Veterans Row along San Vicente Boulevard in West Los Angeles on October 30, 2021.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
HUD also awarded $20 million available for additional administrative funding to 245 public housing agencies in 43 states to expand their housing search assistance to support veterans, expand landlord recruitment for the program, offer incentives and retention payments, help veterans with security deposits, and provide landlords. – tenant mediation activities.
The new policy also requires public housing agencies that administer HUD-VASH vouchers to set income eligibility for veterans at 80% of the area median income, up from 50% that generally applies. This expanded eligibility will allow more veterans to be accommodated.
Under the new policy, disability compensation will still be counted as income for calculating the amount the veteran must pay for rent, but not for eligibility. Tenants in subsidized housing are required to pay 30% of their income in rent.
Sherman said he retained the rent calculation in his legislation because a change would have had budget implications making it more difficult to pass.
“I wanted to go first with the eligibility and then come back and deal with the rent calculation,” he said.
Sherman said he thought the policy change was better than a ruling out of US District Court, because it is not subject to appeal.