In July 1943, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the need to invest in our nation’s troops after their service to our country by highlighting that “the members of the armed forces have been compelled to make greater economic sacrifice and every other kind of sacrifice than the rest of us, and they are entitled to definite action to help take care of their special problems.”  One year after this speech, President Roosevelt signed the Servicemember’s Readjustment Act of 1944, which included readjustment benefits to help our veterans with education, housing, and employment opportunities.

Sixty-four years later, we in this Subcommittee find ourselves reevaluating that law and others to address the needs of today’s servicemembers, veterans and their dependents.  While we have held at least nine Subcommittee hearings on education and employment issues, today’s hearing gives us the opportunity to assess how the current housing market affects our veterans and determine if the VA’s home loan programs have a role to play in the closures affecting our communities.

This past Tuesday, RealtyTrac, an online retailer of foreclosed properties, released its January 2008 foreclosure report that highlights that the foreclosure rate has increased 57 percent when compared to the same month in 2007.  It might be safe to say that no one in this Subcommittee has seen more recent foreclosure rates in his Congressional district than Congressman Jerry McNerney where his metro area of Stockton, California, was ranked the second highest rate of foreclosures in 2007.

As we will hear from our distinguished panelists, data specific to veterans does not exist, or is limited in scope, leaving us with an incomplete puzzle that makes it harder for us to get a good idea of how current mortgages are affecting our veterans.  Fortunately, many of us have heard from our returning servicemembers and veterans back home about the problems they have encountered.  Problems such as that expressed by Mr. Marty Dubois, a veteran, concerned about losing his home because he does not qualify for a VA home loan due to the equity requirements.  We have also heard several complaints from veterans residing in high-cost residential areas in which the current VA home loan is insufficient, and this will effectively price them out of the market.

As you can see on the television screen above, veterans are still being caught-up in the mortgage crisis and we should only expect this problem to worsen.  The image of Mr. Hector Mesas, a veteran crying after telling Senator Hillary Clinton about the difficulty he has with paying his mortgage, was posted on yesterday’s Washington Post Express paper.  Mr. Mesas, and the thousands of veterans throughout our country deserve better, and we must do better to ensure they are afforded the protections they need as they adjust to life after their military service.  

I look forward to working with Ranking Member Boozman and Members of this Subcommittee to continue to improve readjustment benefits available to all servicemembers and veterans.  I now recognize Mr. Boozman for any opening remarks he may have.