Pappas Rebukes VA Secretary for Putting Veterans at Risk of Foreclosure and Homelessness

Congressman Chris Pappas (NH-01), a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee (HVAC) and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, sharply rebuked the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins for his decision to abruptly end the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase (VASP) Program - the only VA program that guaranteed foreclosure avoidance for veterans experiencing severe financial hardship, helping them stay in their homes. Watch Congressman Pappas’s remarks here. 

Congressman Pappas reiterated that he disagrees fundamentally with VA’s decision to arbitrarily end VASP, especially without an alternative program in place. He pressed Secretary Collins on the confusion caused by the VA’s failure to provide clear guidance about the timeline for ending the VASP program to VSOs, lenders, and especially veteran borrowers, who were robbed of the opportunity for relief through the program as a result.

Pappas continued to press the Secretary for guidance on what veterans at risk of losing their homes should do, now that VASP has ended: “I ask about this because we heard directly from a constituent who was caught up in this… He's a 100% service disabled veteran of the First Gulf War. He reached out to our office days before the end of VASP, understanding that he might still have a chance to get into this program and to make sure that he could start making payments and stay in his home along with his service animals… What do veterans like Daniel do to be able to stay in their homes while we wait for Congress to take the important step forward to develop a partial claims program?”

After Secretary Collins failed to provide a clear answer as to how veterans impacted by the end of VASP could save their homes, Pappas said, “So respectfully, that’s not a good enough answer for my constituent… and now he's not sure he has any other opportunity to protect his home and to stay in his home. We're facing a housing crisis in New Hampshire, as we are in states across the country. So would you be open to a foreclosure moratorium in the interim, while we await action in Congress to develop a bipartisan plan for a partial claims program?”

After Secretary Collins declined to commit to taking any action to protect veterans who are now at risk of losing their homes, Pappas reiterated the need for VA to look out for these veterans, saying, “the fact is this was a last resort program that should have been a stopgap while Congress developed something that was more permanent, and we're working on that. But we've got to be looking out for constituents like this, who number 80,000 across the country, people that are at risk of foreclosure, veterans who deserve our support… Veterans I talked to don't agree with the abrupt ending to VASP, they don't agree that we should put more veterans at risk of foreclosure.”

He closed by urging the Secretary to fulfill his commitment to America’s veterans, saying, “We need better leadership from you to get the job done.”

During an HVAC markup earlier this month, Pappas called for his colleagues to back a foreclosure moratorium for veterans to give Congress time to stand up a new partial claims program that will help keep veterans in their homes.

Immediately following Secretary Collins’s announcement that he would end VASP, Pappas spoke out forcefully against the end of VASP during a House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity markup, and called on Collins to immediately reverse his decision to end the program.