Allegheny County Veterans Services

Allegheny County Veterans Services is the office every Pennsylvania county must have: a director of veterans affairs appointed by the county under section 2123(f) of the Second Class County Code, who must hold VA accreditation under 51 Pa.C.S. 1731 and who helps veterans and their families with federal, State and county benefits. See the Pennsylvania entry on county directors. What it does. It helps with VA compensation, pension, aid and attendance, education, home loans, vocational rehabilitation, health care enrolment, Dependency and Indemnity Compensation and burial claims, and it takes the applications for the county burial allowance and headstone base, the State's disabled veterans real estate tax exemption, and Veterans' Temporary Assistance. Its County Benefits page also says that Allegheny County, like many local employers, includes a veterans' preference in hiring; the terms are the State Veterans' Preference Act's. How to reach it. Appointments are preferred because of the volume of visits: 412-621-4357 or [email protected]. Applications go by mail to Allegheny County Veteran Services, One Smithfield Street, Pittsburgh PA 15222. Bring the DD-214, private medical records for a disability claim, marriage certificates and divorce decrees for both spouses, children's birth certificates and any death certificate. A veteran who cannot find a DD-214 should first ask the county Division of Real Estate (412-350-4299), where it may have been recorded. One line on the county's site to read with care. The Directors of Veterans Affairs page says the county directors give direct application for the State's real estate tax exemption, emergency assistance, blind and paralyzed pensions and education gratuity "for veterans who are currently rated a 100% Permanent and Total". None of those programmes is limited that way: temporary assistance needs no rating at all, the blind and amputee pensions turn on the condition, and the tax exemption also opens on blindness, paraplegia, the loss of two limbs or a total rating. Ask regardless of the rating. The same page's link to the State list of county directors points at a host that no longer resolves; the Department's current list is on pa.gov.