Delia Ramirez — Veterans' Affairs Full Committee Hearing, Feb 28, 2023

Thank

Speaker 1: you, Chairman. Before I went into the state legislature for a very long time, I was the executive director of a social service agency. We worked primarily with people experiencing homelessness. Many of them were men experiencing homelessness, and about

20% of

Speaker 1: them were veterans. And so being in this committee is, first, an honor and a privilege, and

certainly

Speaker 1: There's a lot of work to be done as we talk about housing security and the connections between mental health and housing insecurity. Mr. Fru

as we've

Speaker 2: thought about access to permanent all VA fee panel appraisals and all lenders, staff appraisal reviewers, take training on appraisal bias, fair housing and fair lending. Can you tell me how VA Can you tell me if the VA has already removed any appraisers under its newly enhanced oversight process for detecting bias and discrimination? Well

first, I

Speaker 3: would say thank you so much for focusing on housing and housing America's most vulnerable population. You

Speaker 4: know, from our perspective

Speaker 3: every benefit, every veteran deserves access to their benefits, not some veterans. And we

want to make sure we root out

Speaker 3: discrimination wherever it is. From the loan guarantee program and the new focus on finding bias in appraisals, I don't think that it's yet identified bias. I think it's a new program that's still being implemented. So be happy to talk with your staff and you about this as we go forward with it, but I don't yet have any results from

that work

Speaker 1: So you're still in the process of putting together the program and the training itself, is that correct

i

Speaker 3: believe so but i know it's in its infancy

Speaker 1: okay so for the record i would like to be able to work with you and closely learn how the training program is being designed and then how we're going to be enforcing it i think the last thing i would

say is i

Speaker 1: started as a caseworker actually as a male lady uh when i worked at the social service agency i started at the age of 17

And I

Speaker 1: remember I was a senior in high school and I'd run right after school to the shelter to help distribute mail to people that didn't have a permanent mailing

address. And

Speaker 1: as young, as naive as I was, I sat in a room and I heard people who have dedicated their life, who died in service, who nearly died in service, Talked to me about the trauma they had experienced, trauma that I couldn't connect with. And I kept asking myself, how could you have fought for our country and now be in a church basement with no access to supports? And so I'd say to you that I've been honored to work on some of the affordable housing initiatives on veteran housing in the state of Illinois. But I really want to put on record how incredibly important it is, as you have said, that we continue to prioritize housing. As we see the housing crisis across this country. Veterans both women and men are struggling between paying for their rent and paying in some cases for their utility bills or rising costs of other things. I'm grateful that the health care system within the VA continues to improve but we still have a long way to go and so I just want to make sure that as we talk about mental health, as we talk about trauma, that we understand that there's an intersection between housing, employment, supports for family and that we continue to work to make housing a top priority for veterans. So I look forward to working with all of you to make that happen. Thank you and I yield

back chairman