Disabled Veterans Housing Support Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I join with the gentleman in his comments about how we need to protect our veterans from the ill-considered actions of President Trump and, I was about to say Secretary Musk, whatever he is. I, of course, join with Mr. Vargas in welcoming our new chair of the Financial Services Committee.

I want to focus on the bill at hand, actually two bills at hand. We are dealing with this bill now and about four other bills will go by, and then we will deal with the companion legislation.

Ms. De La Cruz is the chief Republican on my bill, which is going to come up in what I hope will be only 30 or 40 minutes. I am the chief Democrat on her bill.

Mr. Speaker, Congress has created various Federal programs to help those who are housing insecure, particularly veterans. Of course, to qualify for those programs, Mr. Speaker, you have to have an income under a certain threshold, so we have to define what is income. In particular, we have to ask: Do disability benefits paid by the VA count as income which might put a veteran over the threshold and deny the veteran participation in the housing benefits?

I think it should not for a number of reasons. First, we don't want disabled American veterans who are homeless or near homeless to be excluded from homeless programs. Second, the Internal Revenue Code already recognizes that disability benefits paid to veterans should not be considered income.

At the urging of many of us--I was particularly strong on this--the Department of Housing and Urban Development has reached the same conclusion, at least from now, but here in Washington, it is not always good to just rely on an agency determination. A simple stroke of a Sharpie can change it one way or the other, now or in 4 years. What you want, Mr. Speaker, is legislation because that is near permanent.

Mr. Speaker, we have statutory provisions that make it clear that disability benefits paid by the VA should not be included in determining eligibility for veterans' housing. There is a reason for that, Mr. Speaker, and that is that you ordinarily think that if two people have the same income, then they are living at the same level. That is not true if you are a disabled veteran because you have the additional difficulties and the additional expenses of being disabled.

A veteran may have to pay for a health aide. The veteran can't get across town to take advantage of a sale. He or she is going to have a variety of additional costs because they are disabled, and that is what their disability benefit pays for, those additional costs. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have a standard of living that includes their disability payment.

Now, we deal with Congresswoman De La Cruz's bill, which I strongly support. I hope it will pass unanimously in the next few minutes. This deals with the HUD Community Development Block Grant program. As I said, my legislation, which will come up hopefully not too long from now, deals with a different HUD program.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support both bills. They both have no score, so this doesn't cost the Federal Government any money.

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, both bills are overwhelmingly supported by veterans organizations, including the VFW, Vietnam Veterans of America, The American Legion, Disabled American Veterans, U.S.VETS, and Black Veterans Empowerment Council.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill and its companion legislation.

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