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 designed for them.
The rule, which HUD officials had previously said they could not change, considers service-connected disability benefits as income. That compensation, based on the veteran's percentage of disability up to 100 percent, 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 receiving 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 crucial step 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 inside his tent along Veterans Row off San Vicente Boulevard in an unincorporated area near Brentwood on Oct. 30, 2021. Johnson was stationed at Fort Hood and deployed to Iraq in 2006 and 2007 and has been living homeless on Veterans Row for about a year.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It feels like we've scored a huge victory,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Northridge), who had introduced a bill to change the rule but also pressed former HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge to find a quicker solution.
“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 important policy change that will save lives and allow more veterans to access permanent housing.”
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Northridge) and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) talk as they walk down the steps of the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on January 12, 2023.
(Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
In a class-action lawsuit filed by veterans over a range of complaints against the VA, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter ruled in May that the policy discriminates against disabled veterans. “Those who gave more cannot receive less,” he wrote.
HUD's announcement came on the third day of a bench trial in the lawsuit in Los Angeles that was aimed in part at determining what relief Carter would order to end the discrimination.
“The change is welcome, but it should have been made years ago,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel and counsel on the veterans' lawsuit. “It shouldn't take a lawsuit and a ruling by a federal judge declaring illegal and discriminatory a cruel and insane policy that has kept our most disabled veterans on the streets instead of in housing to finally end it.”
The issue, long a source of frustration and anger among veterans, gained political traction when new housing was being built on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ West Los Angeles campus and veterans living in a small housing village there learned they could not qualify for it because their incomes exceeded the limit for veterans’ subsidies called HUD VASH vouchers.
In January, Sherman questioned Fudge at a congressional hearing, saying that while he was pushing legislation, he thought the solution did not require a change in the law.
“Your department is more functional than Congress,” Sherman told Fudge. “So I hope that instead of coming to us and telling us what to do, I can come to you and tell you what you can do.”
“If I could do it today, I would,” said Fudge, who retired in March.
Sherman attributed the eight-month delay to bureaucracy, but said he thought a conversation he had with Acting Secretary Adrianne Todman had helped.
“I think she moved on with that,” he said.
Bass also pushed Todman to make the change as a member of the U.S. 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 U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.
A sign in support of housing for homeless veterans sits outside a tent on Veterans Row along San Vicente Boulevard in West Los Angeles on October 30, 2021.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
HUD also made $20 million available for additional administrative funds to 245 public housing agencies in 43 states to expand their housing assistance to support veterans, expand landlord recruitment for the program, offer incentives and retention payments, assist veterans with security deposits, and provide landlord-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 the generally applicable 50%. This expanded eligibility will allow more veterans to be housed.
Under the new policy, disability compensation will continue to be counted as income in calculating the amount a veteran must pay for rent, but not in determining eligibility. Tenants in subsidized housing must pay 30% of their income toward rent.
Sherman said he refrained from including the rent calculation in his legislation because a change would have had budgetary implications and would have made it more difficult to pass.
“I wanted to start with eligibility and then come back and deal with the rent calculation,” she said.
Sherman said he thought the policy change was better than a U.S. District Court ruling because it is not subject to appeal.
