| GAO: VA'S TEMPORARY
RESIDENCE ADAPTATION GRANTS RARELY USED
From the program's inception on June
15, 2006, through April 4, 2010, VA processed only 18 TRA grants.
by
Larry Scott, VA Watchdog dot Org
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Veterans
Affairs: Opportunities Exist
to Improve Potential Recipients' Awareness of the Temporary
Residence Adaptation Grant
GAO-10-786, July 15, 2010
Summary
(HTML) Highlights
Page (PDF) Full
Report (PDF, 29 pages)
Report Highlights are below.
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VETERANS AFFAIRS
Opportunities Exist to Improve
Potential Recipients’ Awareness of the Temporary Residence
Adaptation Grant
Why GAO Did This Study
Adaptive housing assistance
grants help eligible service members or veterans adapt or modify a
residence to accommodate disabilities sustained through military
service. The Veterans’ Housing Opportunity and Benefits
Improvement Act of 2006 authorized the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) to expand its existing adaptive housing assistance
grants to include eligible individuals temporarily living in a
home owned by a family
 member,
known as Temporary Residence Adaptation (TRA) grants. The act also
mandated GAO to issue interim and final reports on VA’s
implementation of TRA. This final report examines (1) the
characteristics of TRA grants and grantees and (2) what accounts
for low utilization of the program and how to ensure that the
program serves its intended recipients. To address these
objectives, GAO analyzed VA data and documents and interviewed
service members and veterans who both had and had not used the TRA
grant.
What GAO Found
Use of the TRA grant program has
been low—from the program’s inception on June 15, 2006, through
April 4, 2010, VA processed only 18 TRA grants. Therefore, only a
very small proportion of the thousands of individuals potentially
eligible for adaptive housing assistance have used TRA. Half of
these grantees were under the age of 40 and half were over the age
of 40. The average age of those under 40 was 26 years. Among those
over 40, seven were over the age of 60. Of the 11 TRA grantees we
interviewed, all had lost the use of both legs, and most also had
other disabilities, such as brain trauma. Three of the grantees we
interviewed were injured abroad while serving in Operation Iraqi
Freedom, four grantees were injured domestically in a vehicle or
sporting accident, and four grantees suffered an illness, such as
multiple sclerosis. Of the 18 TRA grants that had been awarded, 11
were for the maximum allowable amount of $14,000, and 3 others
were near that maximum. In some cases, the cost of adaptations
exceeded the amount of the TRA grant and was supplemented by
donations, other grants, or the grantee’s own funds.
Interviews we conducted with 50
service members and veterans eligible for adaptive housing
benefits suggest that awareness of TRA may be low and that the
program may not be reaching all of the individuals who could
benefit from it. While most of the 50 interviewees were familiar
with adaptive housing benefits in general, 38 were not familiar
with the TRA program in particular and did not know that adaptive
housing grants can be used to modify a home owned by a family
member. In addition, while TRA was not applicable for the personal
circumstances of many of the interviewees, in seven cases
individuals described personal circumstances well suited for use
of TRA and said they likely would have used the TRA program had
they previously been aware of it. An additional seven said they
would have at least considered using the program had they been
aware of it. The extent to which TRA is addressed in VA’s
information sources about adaptive housing benefits is limited—for
example, VA does not have a separate fact sheet for TRA, and it is
unclear how consistently VA representatives publicize the
opportunity to use TRA when conducting outreach to and interviews
with service members and veterans. One of the stated core values
of the VA office that administers TRA is to communicate to
veterans in a timely, thorough, and accurate manner. A better
understanding is needed of potential information gaps that may be
occurring when severely disabled service members transition to
civilian life and when veterans are informed about adaptive
housing benefits. Additional efforts to make eligible individuals
better aware of the TRA grant program could help ensure that the
program more fully serves its intended beneficiaries.
What GAO Recommends
GAO recommends that VA evaluate
current methods of communicating information about TRA grants to
eligible individuals and take appropriate measures to improve
awareness of the program among such individuals. VA agreed with
GAO’s recommendations and described actions to address them.
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