The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
A simple act of Congress, a local veteran’s triumph
SERVE Act requires government to make documentation of housing benefits available to veterans
Nicholas Quinzi is a problem-solver.
When he enrolled at Sacred Heart University only to find there was no organization to support student veterans like himself, he started one by personally approaching students on campus to ask if they were also veterans.
The result was the school’s first ever veterans service organization and a veterans resource center located on campus.
When he struggled to rent an apartment because he couldn’t prove to landlords he was receiving a basic housing allowance — more than $3,000 a month — from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for rent and basic utilities as a full-time student veteran, Quinzi, 33, picked up a full-time job at Lowe’s. He also worked parttime as a bouncer at The Blind Rhino in South Norwalk — all to show he had income to pay his bills.
Still, his landlord in Norwalk required a higher security deposit because there was no documentation to prove he was receiving the basic housing allowance for veterans.
So the last thing he expected was a solution from someone else when U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., visited the SHU campus in 2016 to tour the university’s new veterans resource center.
But Himes, on hearing Quinzi’s story, penned a simple piece of legislation — now known as
the Securing Electronic Records for Veterans’ Ease, or SERVE Act — requiring the VA to make documentation of housing benefits available to veterans through the department’s online portal.
Passed with unanimous bipartisan support as part of a larger package of bills related to veteran benefits, the bill was sent to President Donald J. Trump for his signature on Dec. 20. He’s expected to sign the legislation in the coming days, putting the SERVE Act into effect by the beginning of the year.
“It kind of grew out of the main conversation between the congressman and myself,” Quinzi said. “It came from him wanting to know how it was, and it was, just a really cool experience. We had no idea he was going to propose this. It was literally just conversations, we thought. If it was me dealing with that situation, I can’t be the only one. There’s got to be more out there, and that was part of our conversation
as well.”
Now student veterans such as Quinzi — a Marine who served in Okinawa, Japan — will be able to easily access a letter from the VA proving they receive monthly assistance to pay for housing and related expenses as long as they are a student. In addition to being a full-time graduate student (he finished his undergraduate degree in psychology in two years), Quinzi still works two jobs and is a divorced parent of a five-year-old daughter, so this small change is a big deal.
“It’s a great example of government being able to be responsive to problems that people put forward,” Himes said. “It’s a nice thing because a lot of problems in government that need solved, they require a lot of funds. This isn’t a no brainer, but it’s not going to be an expensive thing to do and it’s going to make things a lot easier for these veterans to prove they receive the housing allowance.”