Boozman: Housing Grants Vitally Important
Press Release
Boozman: Housing Grants Vitally Important
U.S. Representative John Boozman (R-AR) today called for an increase of grant levels for specially-adapted housing for disabled veterans.
Boozman made his call at an oversight hearing of the Veterans' Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. The subcommittee, of which Boozman serves as Ranking Member, met on the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) specially adapted housing (SAH) grants program. The hearing showed the need for increased grant levels to meet the requirements of seriously disabled veterans and their families.
The SAH program provides grants up to $50,000 to severely service-disabled veterans and servicemembers to help them modify their homes to accommodate their disabilities.
"The program is relatively small in comparison to the GI bill, but is vitally important to those who qualify," said Boozman. "A major issue continues to be the buying power of the grants. There is also significant inflation in construction costs, especially in high cost areas, causing it to become difficult to completely modify a home. Along with that, is the issue of differences in regional costs."
VA currently has two types of SAH grants:
* A $10,000 grant for those who are blind or have lost the use of both hands.
* A $50, 000 grant for those who have lost the use of both lower extremities, upper extremities above the elbow, a combination of blindness plus loss of extremity use, or a combination of loss of extremity use plus residuals from organic disease.
Witnesses suggested that indexing the grants to an appropriate construction cost model may be a solution. Any increases in the specially adapted housing benefits will require "pay as you go" (PAYGO) offsets that identify cuts elsewhere in mandatory funding to offset these expenditures.
This year, Subcommittee Chair Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (D-S.D.) introduced H.R. 675, the Disabled Veterans Adaptive Housing Act, which Boozman is co-sponsoring. The bill would increase the amount of assistance available to disabled veterans for specially adaptive housing grants. The bill would increase the maximum amount from the current $50,000 to $60,000.
Source