The VA Built Housing For Disabled Veterans. But A Federal Rule Is Locking Many Out

Veterans Affairs administrators and advocates are urging federal officials to change a rule that disqualifies some L.A.-area unhoused veterans from government-funded housing.

The rule has kept hundreds of unhoused veterans with serious disabilities — caused by their military service — from living in apartments on the sprawling 400-acre West L.A. Veterans Affairs campus. Federal housing officials have said their hands are legally tied.

The problem isn’t limited to just Los Angeles. VA officials told LAist that cities across California — and the country — are dealing with the same limitations. They include San Diego, Fresno, San Francisco, Oakland, Reno, Portland, Seattle, Chicago and New Orleans.

The national problem stems from a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule that counts veterans’ federal disability stipends as income. That money, combined with Social Security, can put their income level just high enough to disqualify them from housing.

VA officials and advocates interviewed by LAist, along with several local congressional representatives, say the rule doesn’t make sense and hurts those who have sacrificed greatly for their country.

“We're…penalizing those veterans who need help the most,” said John Kuhn, deputy director of the West L.A. VA Medical Center.

Kuhn said the system "defies logic": The most injured and disabled veterans can’t access federally-funded housing.

While some progress has been made on the issue this year, many veterans remain shut out of VA apartments due to their disability stipends.

Too much income — barely

It is very easy for a veteran to lose out on housing intended for them. Here’s how: The most significantly disabled veteran receives compensation of $43,463 a year for their disability. But to qualify for a HUD housing voucher in Los Angeles, a veteran’s income can’t exceed $44,150.

A disabled veteran can surpass that razor-thin margin of eligibility, $687, if they receive additional income from Social Security benefits, for example.

And some veterans receive extra disability stipends — for example, for the loss of use of body parts, such as blindness or an amputation — that push them over the $44,150 limit.

Previously, the income limit to be eligible for a housing voucher was $26,500, excluding even more veterans from VA housing. The limit was increased in May.

But even with the new, higher limit, VA homelessness executive Keith Harris estimates that at least 230 unhoused veterans in L.A. still have too much income to qualify for the housing.

In an email, a spokesperson for the West Los Angeles VA public affairs office characterized the number of veterans locked out of housing as “small.”

The spokesperson added: “The VA remains concerned and vigilant as the Veterans who are impacted face significant clinical needs that warrant greater attention.”

There are about 3,900 veterans experiencing homelessness in L.A. County, according to the latest point-in-time count conducted in January.

Rob Reynolds speaks with the producer and host of How To LA at the West LA VA campus near the tiny homes.

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Unhoused veteran says he makes too much to qualify

Deavin Sessom, 67, served in the Army shortly after the Vietnam War. He told LAist he experienced serious trauma, leading to PTSD and depression, which in turn lead to a divorce, and losing his family and housing in 2013.

Sessom has been trying to qualify for housing on the West L.A. VA campus.

“The reason they won’t house me is because I make too much money,” said Sessom, who collects both disability compensation and Social Security.

He was one of about 50 veterans who lived in an encampment outside the campus, known as Veterans Row, that was shut down in late 2021. Sessom said he saw two of his friends stabbed earlier this year, in incidents reported by the L.A. Times and KCRW.

When apartments on the campus became available in 2017, Sessom told LAist, he was promised he would be one of the first to get housing. But as others in the encampment slowly trickled into housing, he’s been left in a tiny home — a stopgap measure provided by the VA, similar to a shed — until he gets permanent housing.

Sessom worries about safety issues that come with staying there — last year, 11 of the tiny home shelters burned down, including his own.

Following his divorce, Sessom now leans on the veteran community as his family. He said housing on campus would allow him to be connected to them.

The reading room in newly refurbished building that houses unhoused veterans at the West L.A. VA campus, seen during a grand opening tour on May 2, 2023. Standing in the center of the photo is Jason Pu, the top administrator in California for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

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The case for changing the rules

For years, veterans and their supporters have been pleading with HUD to exclude disability accommodations from income calculations in order to include more disabled veterans.

Kuhn pointed out that these benefits are not considered income when veterans file their taxes. “So why are we calling it income for the purposes of housing?" he said.

Service-connected disability compensation is directly tied to the level of injury suffered by veterans during their military service. This includes injuries such as PTSD, traumatic brain injury, amputation or gastrointestinal issues. Finding employment and housing are just some of the challenges faced by veterans with disabilities.

Veterans with PTSD are especially prone to isolation and distrust of others, which can further strain their housing situation.

The inside of a living area and kitchen at new housing for unhoused veterans at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, during a tour on Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

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Congressmembers, including Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside), the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, share the concerns of VA officials like Kuhn.

In March, Takano wrote in a letter to VA leaders: "Veterans who are homeless are often on the streets not as a result of extremely limited income, but severe trauma directly related to their military service."

Takano emphasized that the current practice of creating permanent supportive housing across the VA system for extremely low-income veterans inadvertently limits access to quality, subsidized housing for high-needs veterans who may have more income as a result of disabilities from their military service.

To address this issue, Takano has called on HUD and the Treasury Department to exclude veteran disability compensation when determining HUD voucher eligibility.

But HUD has said its hands are tied because of the way the law is written.

In 2016, Congress passed the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act, which directed HUD to exclude two other types of veteran compensation as income. HUD has interpreted the law to mean that disability compensation — which is not one of the two exclusions — should be included as income.

Additionally, HUD officials have said that such a change would result in veterans with disabilities paying much less toward their rent than non-veterans with disabilities, despite receiving much higher disability compensation.

That concern stems from the fact that people who live in HUD-funded housing pay a percentage of their income as rent.

“Veteran disability benefits can in some cases be significantly higher than other disability benefits,” wrote Kimberly A. McClain, HUD’s assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental relations, in a May letter to Congressman Mike Levin.

“Excluding all veteran disability benefits would result in those families paying little or nothing for rent while [non-veteran] disabled families with a much smaller benefit would still be required to pay a substantially higher amount as their share of the rent,” McClain added.

Kuhn said the root of the problem is that the HUD rules were designed for the general population, and rely on an income threshold to ensure that affordable housing is prioritized for people who need it most.

But Kuhn said veteran housing doesn’t need the same kind of rationing because the VA has sufficient resources to serve every homeless veteran. "To create these artificial barriers only makes it more difficult to serve homeless veterans,” he said.

“We need to have somewhat different rules because veterans have served their country and are getting this disability income for their service because of what they experienced,” Kuhn said.

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat whose district includes the West L.A. VA campus, said legislation is being developed to direct HUD to exclude disability compensation when determining eligibility for veteran housing vouchers. Working alongside Reps. Takano and Ted Lieu (D-Santa Monica), Sherman said he is hopeful for progress. To date, no bill has been introduced.

The inside of a bedroom at new housing for unhoused veterans at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, during a tour on Tuesday, May 2, 2023.

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Jumbled VA priorities

Veteran Rob Reynolds, who advocates for veterans experiencing homelessness, questions why this income limit problem wasn’t dealt with years ago when the VA was originally planning the housing. He noted VA leaders have historically given priority over department land to “baseball stadiums, oil drilling, parking lot deals, dog parks” that have been allowed to lease the space – which a federal judge found was illegal.

In the 1960s and 70s, the VA stopped housing veterans in need on its land and began renting parts of the property to other entities.

NPR reported in 2012, before a homeless housing master plan was created, that the VA was taking in between $28 million and possibly more than $40 million a year in rent.

A lack of movement on veteran homelessness

VA officials are running about four years behind on promises to create 1,200 homes for veterans at the campus — so far just 233 units have been built.

Those promises were made in 2015 to settle an ACLU lawsuit alleging the VA was illegally renting the land for private purposes like TV set storage, a hotel laundry facility and a parking service.

VA officials have said they would speed up construction if Congress authorized money for it and that they currently don’t have the authority to move forward.

Reynolds expressed doubt about the government's ability to address homelessness given the four-year delay.

Why the lack of movement? He thinks it’s primarily a lack of will by elected officials. “There’s no shortage of infrastructure,” Reynolds said, “and look at how difficult it is to get them housing.”

He pointed out that the VA possesses vast amounts of land and empty buildings, and said if Congress allocated funds specifically for housing construction, it could eliminate the need for income restrictions altogether.

It’s a real contrast, he said, to how quickly he saw the U.S. government build infrastructure when he served in the Iraq War.

“If you can do this in a theater of combat, and set up housing and take care of people right away, why can you not do this in the United States?" Reynolds said. "It's ridiculous.”