LOS ANGELES, AUGUST 8, 2024 – It took a lawsuit from unhoused veterans with disabilities and a ruling by a federal judge declaring HUD’s policy unlawful and discriminatory to get the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to announce a major policy change that will alter the way it counts veterans’ disability payments when assessing eligibility for affordable housing. HUD’s longstanding policy had imposed restrictive income limitations that disqualified some veterans from accessing affordable housing. By counting disability payments as income, the policy had prevented the most disabled veterans with the greatest need from qualifying for housing. The judge’s ruling last month came as part of an ongoing lawsuit alleging the Department of Veterans Affairs and HUD have failed to provide adequate permanent supportive housing on its West Los Angeles campus.
“The change is welcomed but years overdue,” said Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney with Public Counsel and counsel in the veterans’ lawsuit. “It shouldn’t take a lawsuit—and a federal judge’s ruling that found the policy to be unlawful and discriminatory—to end a cruel and backward practice that has kept our most disabled veterans on the streets instead of in housing. When we look for the causes of veteran homelessness, the HUD policy finally being replaced should be near the top of the list.”
HUD announced the rule change on August 8 at 10:00 AM EDT. This announcement—likely not coincidentally—coincides with the first Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official scheduled to testify in the veterans’ trial that began this week in Los Angeles.
Sally Hammit, Chief of the Community Engagement & Reintegration Service with the Greater Los Angeles VA Healthcare System (VAGLAHS), is set to testify on August 8. She will provide testimony regarding the services VAGLAHS offers to homeless veterans and the efforts to secure housing for them. Her testimony would have highlighted HUD’s discriminatory and illegal income policy.
For more information on the veterans’ lawsuit Powers v. McDonough, click here.
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