Veterans and family members say lawmakers don't understand impact VMSDEP changes are having on mental health

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — Veterans and family members say lawmakers don’t understand how the recent changes to the Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program and its impact on them.

This comes as Virginia’s House of Delegates will return to Richmond in a week, and lawmakers are expected to vote to repeal the recent changes after no action was taken by the Senate Tuesday.

“There was a solution on Tuesday, there was a bipartisan solution that have overwhelming support and Sen. [Louise] Lucas simply chose to fail to docket it, and that seems inexcusable,” said VMSDEP Friends co-founder Kayla Owen.

Veterans and family members feel like they are caught in the crossfire at this point and are frustrated that no action was taken by the Senate earlier this week.

“Clearly Sen. Lucas lives in an area that is very military heavy, Portsmouth has a shipyard, you know, Norfolk is right next door,” Owen said. “It is an area that has a profound number of military constituents, and it seems to me like it’s an active choice to not listen to those people.”

Owen doesn’t believe lawmakers understand the true impact these changes are having on the mental health of an already vulnerable population.

“We’ve had a number of people on suicide watch,” Owen said. “We have a number of people who are having to seek out mental health resources.”

It’s been about five weeks since the budget was signed, enacting changes to the program, which currently waives tuition for up to eight semesters for kids and spouses of qualified disabled military veterans or those killed in action.

Higher education advocates say the program is getting too expensive and wanted it to be studied.

That’s when Gov. Glenn Youngkin formed a task force to look into it, and the group met earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Lucas decided no bills would be discussed, and instead formed a separate work group to study the program.

Lucas told reporters the bills didn’t get heard because there was still more work to be done on them, even though a bipartisan majority of senators supported fully repealing the recent changes.

“We want to make sure that they do get a hearing,” Lucas said. “We want them to know that we have been listening to them all the time. I want to make sure that they understand that we are going to work as hard as we can to make sure the program is sustainable and they are grandfathered.”

Owen is also concerned that Lucas doesn’t understand the true population that these changes would impact. She says tier one could include survivors of military sexual trauma or minorities who were injured or harmed who never made it to combat.

“When Sen. Lucas proposed SB 6005, it excluded tier one,” Owen said. “Now tier one is mostly made up of women and more minorities, so it doesn’t make sense to me that she would put forward her own bill to also then not have that be heard, but that she would put forward her own bill that would be intentionally harmful to women and minorities.”

Owen wishes lawmakers would repeal it, then consider data from the study before making any further changes.

Plus, any bill passed by the House of Delegates next Friday would then have to go back to the Senate, where it could face the same challenges it did Tuesday. On top of that, they’re on a short timeline because the budget goes into effect July 1.

“Everyday that goes by that it’s not fixed is causing continual harm to a community that is already on the edge and is starting to spiral,” Owen said.

Youngkin took to Facebook and X to say that “it’s unacceptable that Virginians traveled to Richmond, only for Virginia Senate Democrats to ignore a bipartisan bill aimed at repealing and reversing the VMSDEP waiver changes. Our military heroes, first responders, and their families deserve much better.”