HUD eases income requirements to help disabled homeless veterans get housing

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Advocates for veterans have been fighting Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, on the issue of disabled veterans health benefits counting as income.

This week, however, HUD changed that.

The federal agency said it would not count those benefits as income. That means about 4,000 homeless veterans in Los Angeles will be eligible for housing.

"We met last week in Washington D.C., a whole group of us, with members of Congress, and folks from the VA and the Biden administration, and when they see what it's like for the veterans in Los Angeles, in and around the west L.A. VA, there's no doubt that they had to take action," said Long Lead Editor John Patrick Pullen.

His studio produced the documentary "Home of the Brave," which looks into the plight of homeless veterans in L.A.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger released a statement on the policy change, calling it "an overdue and much welcomed policy change."

"Raising the income eligibility threshold and excluding service-connected disability benefits is undoubtedly a good move that'll have a big ripple effect in Los Angeles County," she said. "Locally, our efforts to house some of our most vulnerable veterans will be dramatically improved because more veterans will qualify."

Meanwhile, inside a federal courthouse in downtown L.A., there's a trial going on about what to do with housing at the VA facility in Westwood. HUD and the VA are accused of not providing enough with 14 veterans suing.

"With HUD's new ruling, they're now saying that they're not going to count disability compensation as income, which I think is a good thing, and the test of how this will all work will be when I see our most disabled veterans actually get into that housing in the West LA VA," said Robert Reynolds, a veterans advocate and a trial participant.

The judge's ruling will not only affect what happens in the city, but across the country as well.