Issue Position: Veterans

Issue Position

As your Assemblyman, I have authored the following bills addressing long-standing issues affecting our veterans and their families. I am asking for your support and attention to these bills:

Upgrade the Division of Veterans Affairs to an official state department, led by a director who would be a cabinet-level official. This department would have the increased ability to coordinate veteran programs for the over 900,000 NYS veterans.

Designate Veterans Day -- Nov. 11 as an official state holiday and mandate that if Nov. 11 falls on a weekend, that a designated day will be mandated as a state holiday for observation.

Create a Veterans Legal Defense Fund to help provide legal services to our veterans.

Initiate a study with the goal of finding the best locations for three new Veterans Nursing Homes across NYS to properly care for our aging veteran population.

Add veterans to the list of protected classes for purposes of public housing .

Establish a Veterans Health Savings Account to help fill the gap between active duty service medical care and care through the VA.

Enact the "NYS Green Alert' program which will create a network to alert the public and law enforcement agencies when a veteran is missing or unaccounted for.

Mandate that NYS issue all eligible unissued medals to veterans.

Allow veterans with a service-connected disability the ability to use our state parks free of charge.

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