Blog post

Big moves by the House Veterans Affairs Committee
Posted by Tim Embree on March 10

UPDATE: Big Moves by the House Veterans Affairs Committee

There was a lot of movement in the House Veteran Affairs Committee this morning. The National Guard Employment Protection Act (H.R. 1879) was voted out of committee and will now go to the floor so the whole House can vote on it. This bill will protect National Guardsmen and women under the USERRA law when they are activated under title 32 (activated under state and not federal orders). This is an important bill and it must move forward.
 
The House Veteran Affairs Committee also made big strides in their commitment to combat veterans’ homelessness. The End Veteran Homelessness Act of 2010 is a combination of a number of bills which are all aimed at combating veteran homelessness.  The goal of the End Veteran Homelessness Act of 2010 is to:

• Increase the VA’s annual amount spent on service programs for homeless veterans from $150 million to $200 million.
• Simplify the VA payment process for service providers who furnish services to homeless veterans.
• Require each VA medical center to provide housing specialists to conduct landlord outreach.  These housing specialists may include peer specialists, who were formerly homeless veterans, and they responsible for establishing and maintaining a list of available rental units.
• Direct the VA to reach out to homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children to inform them of the different housing programs they qualify for.

In short, this bill will increase funding to expand VA programs that combat veteran homelessness. The programs range from providing vouchers for temporary housing to assisting a formerly homeless vet pay the deposit for an apartment. Programs like these are extremely important to help homeless veterans of all generations get back on their feet.

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This morning the U.S. House Veterans Committee held a quick, down and dirty markup session for a set of bills that IAVA has been tracking, including the Helping Heroes Keep Their Homes Act and the National Guard Employment Protection Act. Read below for details.

• H.R. 3976, Helping Heroes Keep Their Homes Act. Endorsed by IAVA.This will amend the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 to extend through December 31, 2015 specific protections for servicemembers relating to mortgages and mortgage foreclosures. 
• H.R. 3948, Test Prep for Heroes Act. Endorsed by IAVA. This act authorizes the use of portions of the Post-9/11 GI Bill for payment for a test preparatory course in connection with licensing or certification for a vocation or profession such as EMT certifications or the bar exam.

• H.R. 4592, Energy Jobs for Veterans Act. Endorsed by IAVA. This bill calls for the establishment of a pilot program to encourage the employment of eligible veterans in energy-related positions. The Department of Labor, Veterans’ Employment and Training will be tasked to establish a pilot program to be known as the `Veterans Energy-Related Employment Program'. Under the pilot program, the Department of Labor will award competitive grants to two states for the establishment and administration of a state program to reward energy employers who employ eligible veterans. This program will be known as a `State Energy-Related Employment Program'.
  

• H.R. 1879, National Guard Employment Protection Act. Endorsed by IAVA. This act will give National Guard members, ordered to full-time National Guard duty under title 32 when the period of duty is designated by the Secretary of Defense, with the same protections under USERRA protections as the active and reserve military. 

• H.R. 4667, Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act. This is an annual bill which increases the rates of compensation for veterans with service-connected disabilities and the rates of dependency and indemnity compensation for the survivors of certain disabled veterans, and for other purposes.

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