To compensate the 1.8 million U.S. military veterans living in California for their service, the state has set aside $1 billion dollars every year to help veterans purchase a home.
However, the program has proven to be rather ineffective. Of the 1.8 million veterans residing in California, only 83 of them were approved for loans last year. That means that the VA loans program helped precisely 0.0000461 percent of the California veteran population last year.
Nearly a billion dollars of mortgage assistance for veterans went unused. The reason for this is that veterans often must grapple with numerous challenges upon their return to civilian life. Getting a mortgage is simply not what a large proportion of veterans want or need at this point.
Assembly Speaker John Perez has proposed that California divert around 600 million dollars of the funds to veteran’s services. He said, “It is appalling that we have veterans who’ve come home after serving our country finding themselves on the street.”
But not everyone is happy with the proposal. Theresa Gunn, who works at the California Department of Veteran Affairs, has criticized the measure because of its effect on the economy.
In order to divert the funds from housing to veterans affairs, California taxpayers would have to pay around $40 million dollars every year in order to pay off the interest that accumulates on the mortgage bonds.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has expressed similar concerns. They’ve argued that because the housing market is picking up, they expect a surge of new home mortgage applications in 2013. And for that reason, it may be premature to begin to divert the mortgage resources.
But even if the loan applications from veterans were to increase by a factor of 100 from 2012 to 2013 that would still mean that only a fraction of 1 percent of all California veterans are being helped. Surely that is not a sign that the money is currently being allocated to best serve the needs of military veterans.
Army Sgt. Steve Tafoya is one of the 1.8 million homeless veterans living in California. He says that he does not want to buy a house but instead would benefit most from “a place to live and maybe some counseling.”
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and numerous mental health issues are just some of the challenges facing members of the military once they try to integrate back into civilian life. This is partly why members of the armed services face a distinctly high homeless rate. It has been estimated by the department of veteran’s affairs that nearly 13 percent of all veterans that return to civilian life end up becoming homeless.
According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, homelessness among veterans is caused by an “extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income and access to health care – a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, which are compounded by a lack of family and social support networks.” They conclude, “A top priority for homeless veterans is secure, safe, clean housing that offers a supportive environment free of drugs and alcohol.”
In the event that the measure put forward by Assembly Speaker Perez is passed, it would be put on the ballot in 2014 where its fate would rest in the hands of California voters.
