As the granddaughter of two World War II veterans and a member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, I’m committed to ensuring that our nation’s heroes receive the benefits they’ve earned and deserve. With the input of my Veterans Advisory Council, I’m working to improve access to services for veterans in our rural communities and to ensure that we’re doing right by our women veterans — the largest growing demographic in the VA system.
- When our service members return home, it’s critical that we help them find good-paying careers. I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation to expand veterans’ access to jobs in science, technology and health care by making it easier to access STEM scholarships. I’m glad that this bill has passed unanimously out of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and I’m hopeful that it will soon help us to fill high-demand jobs while ensuring that our heroes have pathways to new careers.
- There should be no such thing as a homeless veteran. I’ve cosponsored the Return Home to Housing Act to reform the VA’s support for unhoused veterans and improve access to transitional housing and the Health Foundations for Homeless Veterans Act which would help fund transportation, communications services and food supplies for our vets.
- We can never allow our nation’s heroes to be cheated out of their hard earned benefits. I’m proud to be a cosponsor of the GUARD VA Benefits Act to crack down on those seeking to take advantage of veterans by charging unauthorized fees for helping with benefits claims.
- It’s critical that we expand home and community-based services for disabled and elderly veterans. I was proud to support the Elizabeth Dole Home Care Act, which passed the House in our effort to improve access to care and increase the VA’s support for caregivers.
- Women veterans are the fastest growing demographic in our veteran community, but they continue to lack quality access to critical health care services. That’s why I convened a women veterans roundtable with women from Central and Southern Illinois to hear directly about the challenges women vets continue to face. I was glad to take their input back to Washington where I held a Congressional women veterans roundtable to discuss how we can better serve our women vets.
