House Approves $6.6 Billion to Aid Veterans

The House approved three bills Tuesday providing $6.6 billion over the next five years to help veterans escape homelessness and obtain greater education, housing, burial and disability benefits.

Two of the bills--$1 billion to aid homeless veterans and $2.5 billion to increase compensation payments for disabled veterans--now go to the White House for the president’s signature. The third bill, a $3.1-billion boost for education and other benefits, still needs Senate approval. All three passed by voice vote.

The homeless bill provides medical and mental health services, substance abuse treatment and job training. It was sponsored in the House by Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and in the Senate by Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.).

It also authorizes an additional 2,000 low-income housing vouchers, with priority going to those veterans under care for mental illness or substance-use disorders.

Smith said that estimates of veterans sleeping on the streets on any given night run as high as 300,000. He said the goal of the bill is to end chronic homelessness among veterans within 10 years.

The disabilities bill provides a 2.6% cost-of-living increase for disabled veterans and their survivors from Dec. 1. The 170,000 veterans who are classified as 100% disabled would receive an average annual increase in benefits of $738.

The third measure would increase the current monthly payment of $672 that a veteran with three years of active duty can receive for education programs. The stipend would rise to $800 on Jan. 1; $900 from Oct. 1; and $985 from Oct. 1, 2003.

Smith said that since 1985, only about half of the eligible veterans have taken advantage of the education benefit.

The bill also:

* Removes the 30-year period during which respiratory cancers can be linked to exposure to herbicides such as Agent Orange, which was used extensively in the Vietnam War.

* Adds Type 2 diabetes to the list of diseases presumed to be service-connected in Vietnam veterans exposed to herbicides.

* Expands the list of undiagnosed illnesses for which Gulf War veterans would be eligible for disability compensation to include fibromyalgia, a painful disease of the connective tissue; chronic fatigue syndrome and chronic multisymptom illness.

* Increases the home loan guaranty for qualified veterans from the current $50,750 to $60,000.