Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough focused on disability claims payments for Gulf War veterans, veteran homelessness, and COVID-19 vaccines during a recent press conference in Washington, D.C.
“For the very first time, we are presumptively paying toxic exposure claims to Gulf War veterans, specifically to those who suffer from asthma, rhinitis and sinusitis as a result of their service,” he said. “We’ve already processed more than 3,800 claims, delivering millions of dollars in benefits that vets so greatly deserve. We are not going to wait for Congress to act on this. We’re going to act ourselves.”
The conditions in these new claims, along with those filed for conditions related to Blue Water Navy and Agent Orange exposures that were approved in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, have led to a surge in the claims backlog, McDonough said.
“To proactively address this surge in the backlog, we are hiring and training 2,000 new claims processors,” he said. “We are using American Rescue Plan funding to pay overtime for processors and we’re deploying FY22 budget resources to expedite toxic exposure processing by digitizing records.”
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McDonough added that the goal is to reduce the claims backlog – which stands at more than 200,000 – to 100,00 by 2024.
McDonough recently visited Vets Row in Los Angeles, Calif., an encampment of homeless veterans just outside the West LA Veterans Affairs Center.
“About 40 homeless vets were living there at that time of my visit,” he said. “In LA, we are building a by-name census of all homeless vets. “We’re learning their stories and we’ll get them the help they need.”
McDonough said a number of partners work to get those Veterans into housing. During his visit, he said he met a veteran who needed housing and help. The partners had the veteran in a hotel that night and at the West Los Angeles housing complex the next day.
There are more homeless veterans in Los Angeles than anywhere in America, McDonough said. VA estimates the number of homeless veterans to be between 3,000 and 4,000 there. Across the country, there are more than 40,000 homeless veterans.
“As we solve the problem there, we give momentum to our efforts around the country,” he said.
McDonough announced what he called “two concrete steps” the VA is taking to end veteran homelessness in Los Angeles.
“First, we’re going to get the vets currently living on Vets Row into housing by November,” he said. “Second, we’re going to get an additional 500 homeless vets living in Los Angeles into housing by the end of this year, making sure they are home for the holidays.”
McDonough also provided an update on the VA’s effort to vaccinate all its employees against COVID-19. The deadline for VA health care employees to meet vaccination status requirements was Oct. 8. In July, VA became the first major federal agency to mandate health care workers get the vaccine. Thus far, vaccination status data has been collected for 70% of VA employees.
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“We’re digging into that data now,” he continued. “We’ve also begun the disciplinary process for the requirement.”
McDonough said supervisors have begun the disciplinary process, which begins with counseling an employee who refuses the vaccine. He said the first step of that process is counseling.
“Any time any vet walks into any VA facility or any time any VA employee appears in a veteran’s home, that veteran needs to know that we have done everything in our power to keep them safe,” he said.
McDonough said veterans have received more than 228,000 third shots and booster shots from VA.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.