Veterans

Veterans sacrifice so much to protect our freedoms and keep us safe. Some even make the ultimate sacrifice. When Veterans return home from service, they deserve well-rounded care, resources, and support from the communities they call home. It is one of my priorities in Congress to ensure that our nation’s heroes and their loved ones have the support they need. 

My office is here to help. If you or a Veteran you know is experiencing an issue with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a military branch, or any federal agency, please contact my staff here.

Veterans Health Clinic

After nine years with no VA health clinic in the San Gabriel Valley, I was thrilled to help bring the San Gabriel Valley Community Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) to our community. The SGV CBOC, located at 7 West Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia, offers Veterans access to primary care, mental health care, telehealth, and basic laboratory services.

More information, including directions and appointment scheduling, for the San Gabriel Valley VA Clinic can be found here.

East Los Angeles Vet Center

Supporting our Veterans means ensuring they have high-quality, close-by resources in their communities, which is why I am so excited that the East Los Angeles Vet Center was recently relocated to Monterey Park. This center offers a wide variety of resources to Veterans and their loved ones, including:

• Counseling services catering to diverse backgrounds of our Veterans and their loved ones
• Domestic Violence Court Mandated Class
• Pathway to Citizenship Workshop
• Referral services for addiction and substance use care, homelessness, suicide prevention, and community resource connections
• Computer resource area
• Telehealth services

Learn more about the Center here.

Honoring our PACT Act

For so long, Veterans were denied care and coverage for the exposure-related conditions they developed overseas while serving our country. That’s why I was so proud to support and vote for the landmark PACT Act that finally allows our Veterans to receive benefits from the VA for 23 toxic exposure-related conditions, including those who have been previously denied benefits and care for burn pit exposure. The PACT Act is the largest increase in Veterans health benefits in 30 years.  Since its passage in August 2022, nearly two million Veterans have received $12 billion in earned benefits, so I encourage every eligible Veteran to apply for the benefits they’ve earned.

Learn more here if you or someone you know could be helped by a PACT Act claim.  

Helping Veterans Transition Back to Work

I am also working to help provide Veterans with the resources they need to succeed in finding careers and starting small businesses when they transition out of active duty. Dedicated Veterans entrepreneurship centers like Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOC) are crucial to providing a centralized place for the resources they need to start or grow their business ventures.

For so long, the closest VBOC to the San Gabriel Valley was all the way in San Diego. That’s now changed with the recent opening of the Los Angeles Regional Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC) at Long Beach City College, which provides essential resources to veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs and small business owners.

Services offered at the Los Angeles Regional VBOC include:

• Business planning: Provides veterans with training and counseling on accounting, financial planning, and management.
• Assistance accessing capital: Provides veterans information on the multitude of sources of capital available to them, as well as helps them in accessing financing, loans, and grants.
• Marketing and outreach: Provides marketing and outreach services to promote veteran-owned businesses in their communities and beyond.
• Transitioning: Provides Boots to Business instruction to help active duty servicemembers transition out of the military and into entrepreneurship.

Ending Veteran Homelessness

I am also especially concerned about the high rates of homelessness among our nation's Veterans. Today, there are over 33,000 unhoused Veterans nationwide. I support legislation and programs that reduce homelessness among our Veterans by providing access to housing, employment assistance, reintegration services, and more. I have repeatedly urged appropriators to give the highest possible funding for programs such as the HUD-VA Supportive Housing program, which offers vouchers for unhoused Veterans to find stable and supportive housing.

I also support the Health Foundations for Homeless Veterans Act, which authorizes the VA to use certain available funds for critical, lifesaving resources like shelter, food, clothing and blankets, hygienic products, transportation and communication devices to Veterans who need it the most.

Fighting Back Against Cuts to the VA

I am continuing to fight against the Trump administration’s harmful cuts to the VA and unlawful terminations of Veterans in the federal workforce. It’s unconscionable to threaten the care, benefits, and resources that our nation’s Veterans and their families are rightfully owed, or to fire Veterans who’ve given so much to our country. A recent independent report found that due to the President’s decision to shed thousands of dedicated VA employees, all 139 of the Veterans Health Administration’s medical center campuses are facing severe shortages. 

Many of these employees were Veterans themselves, who continued to serve as public servants. That’s why I’m fighting against cuts or freezes to VA funds and have cosponsored H.R. 1637, Protect Veteran Jobs Act to reinstate any Veteran who was removed from their employment without cause.

Honoring Our Fallen Soldiers 

It is incredibly important that we recognize those service members who made the ultimate sacrifice. Among them are the 74 sailors who lost their lives aboard the USS Frank E. Evans during the Vietnam War — including 22 Californians. Their ship sank in the South China Sea after returning from a training accident, and they deserve to be remembered alongside their fellow servicemembers. That’s why I joined Representative Mike Flood in introducing the USS Frank E. Evans Act, a bipartisan bill that would add their names to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, ensuring their sacrifice is never forgotten.