08/16/2026
🇺🇸 **PLEASE SHARE — OUR AGING & DISABLED VETERANS NEED CONGRESS TO HEAR THIS**
This isn't Republican versus Democrat. This isn't about one Congressman, one Senator, or one administration.
**This is about a hole in the safety net for America's aging and disabled Veterans—and Ohio is about to feel it.**
Next month, Ohio Veterans will lose access to a pilot funding source that has helped provide home rehabilitation and modifications for low-income, aging and disabled Veterans.
The **Veterans Housing Rehabilitation and Modification Pilot Program (VHRMP)** provided actual federal grant dollars to nonprofit organizations that rehabilitate and modify Veterans' homes.
These dollars helped address the difference between owning a home and being able to **safely live in it.**
An aging Veteran may own the same home they've lived in for 40 years but can no longer step into the bathtub.
A Veteran using a wheelchair may have a bathroom door they can't get through.
Another may desperately need a ramp, accessible shower, widened doorway or other modification to remain independent.
And sometimes the home itself needs rehabilitation before an accessibility modification can even solve the problem.
# # # 🇺🇸 "Doesn't the VA already pay for this?"
Sometimes—but this is exactly where many Veterans fall through the cracks.
The VA's **Specially Adapted Housing (SAH)** and **Special Home Adaptation (SHA)** grants can provide substantial assistance. However, these programs require Veterans to have **specific qualifying service-connected disabilities.**
Simply being an elderly Veteran who develops significant mobility limitations later in life does **not** automatically qualify that Veteran for SAH or SHA.
Then there is the VA's **Home Improvements and Structural Alterations (HISA)** benefit.
HISA is important because it can assist with medically necessary home modifications even when the condition itself isn't service-connected.
But look at the funding:
➡️ **Up to $6,800 lifetime** is generally available when the modification addresses a service-connected disability. The higher amount can also apply in certain circumstances when a Veteran has a non-service-connected condition but already has a single service-connected disability rated at least 50%.
➡️ **Up to $2,000 lifetime** may be available to other eligible Veterans for medically necessary modifications involving non-service-connected disabilities.
That second group represents an important population that can easily be overlooked.
Think about the Veteran who served honorably 50 or 60 years ago, returned home, worked, raised a family and never had a reason to pursue a VA service-connected disability rating.
Now that Veteran is 75 or 80 years old.
Arthritis, declining mobility, illness or another disability may make it impossible to safely use the bathroom, climb the front steps or navigate the home.
That Veteran may need a **$15,000 accessible bathroom**.
Their available HISA assistance could be only **$2,000 for their lifetime.**
That leaves approximately **$13,000 that still has to come from somewhere.**
Even the higher $6,800 HISA benefit can leave thousands of dollars unfunded on a substantial accessibility project.
And HISA doesn't cover everything necessary to keep an aging Veteran safely housed. Routine replacement of things such as **roofs, furnaces and air-conditioning systems** is excluded.
# # # This is why VHRMP mattered.
VHRMP helped fill the space between:
**"This Veteran desperately needs help"**
and
**"This Veteran meets the very specific requirements of another federal program."**
Ohio received VHRMP funding that could be combined with nonprofit resources, charitable donations, volunteers and community partnerships to accomplish projects that otherwise might never happen.
That resource is disappearing while the Veterans who need the work are still here.
# # # Recent legislation has accomplished good things.
The **Disabled Veterans Housing Support Act** addresses another legitimate problem. It prevents VA service-connected disability compensation from being counted in certain HUD low- and moderate-income calculations.
**That's a positive change and deserves recognition.**
But changing an income calculation doesn't put money into a Veteran's bathroom renovation.
It doesn't build a wheelchair ramp.
It doesn't replace a deteriorated roof.
It doesn't widen a doorway.
And it doesn't replace VHRMP.
A Veteran can now qualify under an improved income calculation and **still be unable to afford the remaining cost of the work.**
# # # Congress has already shown us what bipartisan commitment to Veterans can accomplish.
Since 2022, important legislation has addressed toxic exposure through the **PACT Act**, expanded caregiver, health, homelessness and other Veteran services through the **Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act**, improved protections for Veterans struggling with VA-backed mortgages, and corrected housing-income rules affecting disabled Veterans.
Those accomplishments should be a **beacon for the next piece of Veteran legislation—not the finish line.**
We shouldn't continually wait for the newest Veteran issue appearing in the newspaper or on television before deciding which Veterans deserve our attention.
And we shouldn't have to take benefits from one generation of Veterans to address the needs of another.
Vietnam Veterans are aging.
Gulf War Veterans are aging.
Post-9/11 Veterans are aging.
Today's youngest Veterans will eventually face these same challenges.
# # # 🇺🇸 OUR PLEA TO CONGRESS
To every U.S. Representative and Senator—**Republican and Democrat**:
Please work together to preserve, restore or replace federal **Veterans Housing Rehabilitation and Modification funding.**
Create a permanent program.
Recognize that a Veteran can become disabled through aging, illness or injury decades after military service without that disability ever becoming VA service-connected.
Allow federal dollars to be leveraged by community nonprofits with private donations, local businesses, foundations and volunteers.
Coordinate HUD and VA resources so Veterans don't disappear into the gaps between programs.
We have important federal programs helping Veterans purchase homes, and those programs deserve support.
But **before expanding benefits that can help an eligible Veteran purchase an additional property, we also need to ask why an 80-year-old Veteran may have only $2,000 in lifetime VA assistance to make the home they already own accessible.**
**We shouldn't have to wait until that Veteran falls, enters a nursing facility or becomes homeless before their housing becomes a federal priority.**
Keeping an aging or disabled Veteran safely and independently in the home they already call home isn't just compassionate.
**It's responsible housing policy.**
Please share this with your U.S. Representative and both of your U.S. Senators.
Ask them:
🇺🇸 **"What will Congress do to replace Veterans Housing Rehabilitation and Modification funding for aging and disabled Veterans who don't qualify for sufficient assistance through existing VA programs?"**
Their service didn't expire.
**Neither should our commitment to them.**
This link will help find your Representative's contact information:
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative?utm_source=chatgpt.com
