During the past four months, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) backlog of unfinished disability claims grew by more than 100,000, adding to an already mountainous backlog that is now close to topping one million.

The VA's claims backlog, which includes all benefits claims and all appeals at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) and the Board of Veterans Appeals at VA, was 803,000 on January 5, 2009. The backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009, a staggering 14 percent increase in four months.

The issue has become so dire that veterans now wait an average of six months to receive disability benefits and as long as four years for their appeals to be heard in cases where their benefits were denied.

Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minnesota), a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said during a hearing in March that the VA is "almost criminally behind in processing claims."

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from Alexandra Andrews, ProPublica
April 29, 2009 2:02 pm EDT (view source)
By now, you’ve probably heard about the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan – the government’s most aggressive and wide-ranging attempt yet to stem the nationwide scourge of foreclosures. We’ll be tracking some homeowners as they make their way through the program, so we thought we’d lay out the plan in detail first.

We also wondered what was happening to the government’s other foreclosure-prevention efforts. Are borrowers still using them? FHA’s $300 billion Hope for Homeowners program isn’t seeing much action (so far, only a single homeowner has refinanced through the program), but some homeowners are finding relief through programs run by various government agencies, like the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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