Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has introduced bipartisan legislation to house disabled homeless veterans.
Specifically, the Housing Unhoused Disabled Veterans Act (HUDVA) permanently excludes veterans' disability payments from income for housing assistance eligibility purposes required by the Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program.
"It is devastating when I see fellow veterans on the streets. Arizona is in the midst of a housing crisis, and it is too often our disabled veterans who are impacted most," said Sen. Gallego in his press release, adding, "This bipartisan bill makes a simple, commonsense fix to get more disabled veterans into safe, affordable housing, and I'm proud to give it my support."
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Senator Katie Britt (R-AL), one of the bill's Republican co-sponsors, said, "Our nation's veterans who made tremendous sacrifices to serve our country and protect their fellow Americans deserve our utmost support to help access housing opportunities."
"This commonsense bill would simply exclude disability benefits from HUD's annual income calculation, so disabled veterans are not unfairly disqualified from accessing these vital services. I will always work to ensure our veterans and servicemembers are treated like the heroes that they are," Sen. Britt added.
Since assuming office in January, Sen. Gallego has prioritized housing homeless veterans, as demonstrated in his questioning of President Donald Trump's Secretary of Veterans Affairs nominee, Doug Collins.
The Arizona Senator pressed Collins on the HUD-VASH program, asking, "If confirmed, what would you do to support HUD-VASH programs and increase collaboration between the VA and HUD?"
Collins replied, "That is something that I think is very important because we look at the areas for disability, we look at the VASH, we ask if this is actually enough to provide people the resources to have a home," adding that he will "look at this issue of homelessness not just as a VA issue" and will "look across the spectrum with HUD and with any other department that we can to make sure that this is something that is not the dark spot on a veteran's service."
At the beginning of February, Gallego celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for the Veterans Community Project in Glendale, a federally-assisted housing community for homeless veterans.
