Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Arizona Republic (Phoenix)
January 5, 2008 Non-profit ensures servicemen find houses in communities near VA medical centers
By Michelle Roberts, Associated Press
CIBOLO, Texas - The glut of unsold houses pocking the nation's newer neighborhoods may be just what the doctor ordered for thousands of wounded service members facing homelessness and serious financial hardships since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates say.
Operation Homefront, a non-profit that aids the families of deployed and wounded service members, has launched what it says is a first of its kind effort to match wounded soldiers with lenders and home builders to help them buy homes at prices they can afford in communities near Veterans Administration medical facilities.
"Especially with so much inventory, it seems like the perfect match," said Meredith Leyva, co-founder of Operation Homefront.
The physical wounds suffered by the more than 30,000 service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan are often followed by financial chaos as the families absorb extra travel and living expenses, forgo combat pay and transition to civilian life with a disability, Leyva said.
Her group, which helped 1,700 injured service members' families pay utility bills or other living expenses last year, is seeing more families fall into bankruptcy and the threat of homelessness, she said.
A service member who is injured and decides to leave the military usually qualifies for disability payments. But often, it can take 18 months to get military, Veterans Administration and Social Security benefits determined, Leyva said.
Meanwhile, families, many of which have little savings, fall behind on bills at a time when travel expenses for medical treatment are climbing and they are least able to work, she said. Their credit is badly damaged, and they must move out of base housing when the service member is discharged from the military.
Veterans have access to VA loan guarantees. But the limits mean they don't offer much help in many housing markets, and in any event, lenders still apply typical creditworthiness requirements to mortgages, Leyva said.
On average, it takes six months for the VA to determine disability payments, and the lag can get longer if a veteran appeals to get a larger amount, VA spokesman Jim Benson said.
The agency has been working to decrease the wait, but the workload and paperwork requirements often bog down processing, he said.
The VA, which is primarily concerned with medical care and disability, doesn't track bankruptcy among wounded veterans but has estimated that 195,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. As many as twice that number have been homeless within the last year, the agency says. Many of the homeless are Vietnam-era veterans.
"These systems are superbly designed to deal with medical issues," Leyva said. "They are not designed to deal with the messy lives of these service people."
To launch what it hopes will be a model for other wounded service members, Operation Homefront helped Spc. Austin Johnson and his wife buy a home in Cibolo, northeast of San Antonio. They moved in Thursday.
Johnson suffered a traumatic brain injury from a blast in Iraq last August. While he was being treated in San Antonio for stuttering, memory loss and other symptoms, his wife and three children were in a rollover accident while driving from El Paso. All three children, ages 2, 5 and 9, were killed.
Physical and emotional wounds were then followed by financial ruin. Johnson and his wife, Monalisa, had to file for bankruptcy, crushed by the extra expenses of travel and other unanticipated costs at a time when paying bills seemed unimportant.
January 5, 2008 Non-profit ensures servicemen find houses in communities near VA medical centers
By Michelle Roberts, Associated Press
CIBOLO, Texas - The glut of unsold houses pocking the nation's newer neighborhoods may be just what the doctor ordered for thousands of wounded service members facing homelessness and serious financial hardships since returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan, advocates say.
Operation Homefront, a non-profit that aids the families of deployed and wounded service members, has launched what it says is a first of its kind effort to match wounded soldiers with lenders and home builders to help them buy homes at prices they can afford in communities near Veterans Administration medical facilities.
"Especially with so much inventory, it seems like the perfect match," said Meredith Leyva, co-founder of Operation Homefront.
The physical wounds suffered by the more than 30,000 service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan are often followed by financial chaos as the families absorb extra travel and living expenses, forgo combat pay and transition to civilian life with a disability, Leyva said.
Her group, which helped 1,700 injured service members' families pay utility bills or other living expenses last year, is seeing more families fall into bankruptcy and the threat of homelessness, she said.
A service member who is injured and decides to leave the military usually qualifies for disability payments. But often, it can take 18 months to get military, Veterans Administration and Social Security benefits determined, Leyva said.
Meanwhile, families, many of which have little savings, fall behind on bills at a time when travel expenses for medical treatment are climbing and they are least able to work, she said. Their credit is badly damaged, and they must move out of base housing when the service member is discharged from the military.
Veterans have access to VA loan guarantees. But the limits mean they don't offer much help in many housing markets, and in any event, lenders still apply typical creditworthiness requirements to mortgages, Leyva said.
On average, it takes six months for the VA to determine disability payments, and the lag can get longer if a veteran appeals to get a larger amount, VA spokesman Jim Benson said.
The agency has been working to decrease the wait, but the workload and paperwork requirements often bog down processing, he said.
The VA, which is primarily concerned with medical care and disability, doesn't track bankruptcy among wounded veterans but has estimated that 195,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. As many as twice that number have been homeless within the last year, the agency says. Many of the homeless are Vietnam-era veterans.
"These systems are superbly designed to deal with medical issues," Leyva said. "They are not designed to deal with the messy lives of these service people."
To launch what it hopes will be a model for other wounded service members, Operation Homefront helped Spc. Austin Johnson and his wife buy a home in Cibolo, northeast of San Antonio. They moved in Thursday.
Johnson suffered a traumatic brain injury from a blast in Iraq last August. While he was being treated in San Antonio for stuttering, memory loss and other symptoms, his wife and three children were in a rollover accident while driving from El Paso. All three children, ages 2, 5 and 9, were killed.
Physical and emotional wounds were then followed by financial ruin. Johnson and his wife, Monalisa, had to file for bankruptcy, crushed by the extra expenses of travel and other unanticipated costs at a time when paying bills seemed unimportant.