ReNews -- Remodelors Council News - 07/19/2007 (Plain Text Version)Mike Nagel, CGR, CAPS View Graphical Version | Subscribe to NAHB Publications | Email our Editor... In this issue: NAHB President's Testimony Supports VA Housing ProgramNAHB President Brian Catalde expressed the builders’ support for the Veterans Affairs (VA) Specially Adapted Housing program during his June 7 testimony before the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. Catalde, a home builder from El Segundo, Calif., offered several suggestions to expand and improve the program in order to better serve the thousands of severely-injured veterans who require home modifications to live independently. The VA Specially Adapted Housing Program is a grant program created to assist returning veterans whose injuries require household accessibility adjustments. The program is broken down into the Special Home Adaptation grant, which is capped at $10,000, and the Specially Adapted Housing grant, which has a maximum of $50,000. Grant allotments are made based on the nature and severity of a veteran’s injuries. Catalde first raised concerns about the program’s grant limits. “While the VA’s accessibility requirements are quite reasonable, the grant ceiling is too low to meet the costs of other extensive changes that must be made to enable veterans to live independently in their homes,” Catalde said. He suggested that the grant limits be doubled and adjusted for inflation using a service like the Consumer Price Index. The VA Adapted Housing program was also criticized for limiting its grant use for veterans who live with relatives. Currently, injured veterans temporarily staying with relatives can only use one $10,000 grant toward Temporary Residence Adaptation. However, sometimes the allowed renovations are not enough, and veterans need to continue living with relatives. In these cases, Catalde said, those veterans should have access to the full use of grants for renovations. Catalde’s main interest lay in reducing the VA program’s hefty paperwork requirements, which cost builders thousands of dollars and slow down the home-modification process. Vince Butler, CGR, CAPS, GMB and past chairman of the NAHB Remodelers, knows from experience how limiting the Specially Adapted Housing program’s paper work can be. In 2006, Butler signed on to remodel the home of severely-injured Iraq war veteran Jay Briseno, Jr., and his family, and while he said his project was successful, “it took longer to go through the VA’s process than it did to build the project,” Butler said. “There was a lot of bureaucratic maneuvering [and] we spent an inordinate amount of time on the paperwork alone.” Butler, a remodeler from Clifton, Va., said, “Our members would find it a lot more attractive and the program would be much better received if the process was streamlined." He went on, "It’s a great financing option for CAPS-type projects, but it is real troublesome to navigate through.” During his discussion of the VA program, Catalde mentioned the NAHB Remodelers and the CAPS program as being particularly helpful. “One of NAHB Remodelers’ designation programs, the Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) was created to equip remodelers with specialized skills to meet the requirements of aging home owners and those with accessibility needs,” he said. “We encourage each of the VA’s Specially Adapted Housing counselors to take the CAPS certification training to gain a greater appreciation of ways to use these grants to most effectively meet the veterans’ needs.” For more information or to contact us directly, please visit www.NAHB.org | ©2005, National Association of Home Builders |