(NewsNation) — Veterans on disability income are no longer disqualified from federal rental assistance under a new mandate from the Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing program.
Previously, a veteran receiving a monthly disability check from the Department of Veterans Affairs would be barred from receiving federal housing subsidies due to income restrictions.
But changes to the HUD-VASH program’s processes mean disability payments will no longer count against veterans initially applying for “permanent supportive housing.”
The program, run by both the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also implemented a higher annual income eligibility threshold for applicants.
Rather than cap the program at the current 50% of area median income, veterans can now apply if they make up to 80% of the area’s median income.
“The use of this higher initial income eligibility threshold is currently optional, but HUD is now making this increase mandatory,” the agency told Stars and Stripes.
HUD will also send $20 million to 245 public housing agencies that assist with security deposits and landlord participation in the voucher programs for disabled veterans.
The changes come as a trial continues over the VA’s slow development of low-incoming housing for disabled veterans in Los Angeles, per Los Angeles Times reporting.
Recently, a federal court ruling in California found the agency discriminated against homeless veterans by using disability income as a disqualifying factor in subsidized housing applications.
Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney at a nonprofit representing the veterans, told Stars and Stripes that the ruling led to the new rules.
“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 to announce a major policy change that will alter the way it counts veterans disability payments when assessing eligibility for affordable housing,” Rosenbaum said.