A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve the provision of benefits and assistance under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to veterans affected by natural or other disasters, and for other purposes.
Committee on Veterans' Affairs. Hearings held. Hearings printed: S.Hrg. 112-116.
Congressional Research Service
Official summary
Version 00 · Introduced in Senate · May 26, 2011
Authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), notwithstanding existing limitations on the assistance available to disabled veterans eligible for specially adapted housing grants, to award grants to veterans whose homes were previously adapted with such assistance if the adapted home used and occupied by the veteran was destroyed or substantially damaged in a natural or other disaster.
Requires any such awarded post-disaster adapted housing grant to be available to acquire a suitable housing unit with special fixtures or moveable facilities made necessary by the veteran's disability along with the land for such housing.
Permits the Secretary to: (1) extend up to an additional two months the subsistence allowances of veterans displaced by such disasters while satisfactorily following a program of employment services prescribed in a vocational rehabilitation program for certain veterans with service-connected disabilities; (2) provide or assist in providing a second automobile or other specified conveyance to eligible disabled veterans and members of the Armed Forces if an automobile or other conveyance previously purchased with assistance was destroyed by such a disaster through no fault of the individual and without compensation by a property insurer; and (3) in determining whether certain real estate housing loans are secured by a first lien, disregard or allow for subordination to a superior lien created by a duly recorded covenant running with the realty in favor of a public entity that has provided or will provide assistance in response to a major disaster as determined by the President under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act.
Source last updated: Apr 7, 2025. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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