Linn County Veteran Services and Emergency Assistance

Linn County Veteran Services is a county department providing timely, accurate and compassionate assistance to veterans, their dependents and survivors in applying for federal, state and local benefits. Its county veteran service officers are nationally accredited and work with the Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs. All services are free of charge; appointments are preferred. The department was named Linn County Veteran Affairs until the Board of Supervisors authorized the change to Linn County Veteran Services (Board action of October 2024, county Document Center). Emergency assistance. The department provides emergency assistance to veterans and their dependents for rent, mortgage, utilities, indigent burial and grave markers. The Commission's General Policy and Emergency Assistance Guidelines (revised September 8, 2021) set the programme: - Limits: assistance runs for up to three months in a twelve-month period. The director may make exceptions for shelter assistance where the applicant has applied for Social Security or VA benefits or is under a doctor's care. - Rent: single veteran with shared bath facilities $600.00; single with own bath facilities $900.00; a family of two or more $1,300.00. Payments go to the owner of the rental property as verified by the Linn County Assessor's Office or the Cedar Rapids City Assessor's Office, never to a relative of the applicant, and the veteran's name must be on the lease. A mobile-home applicant may split rent and lot rent within the same allowance. - Mortgage: a payment may not exceed the applicable rental allowance; the statement must be in the veteran's name for a primary residence. - Security deposit: paid once in a five-year period, only on referral from a partnering agency serving the homeless, and repayable to the department if the landlord returns the deposit. - Utilities: up to three months in twelve, covering natural gas, wood, fuel oil, electricity, water, garbage, storm and sanitary sewer, telephone and internet; the applicant must first apply for every other utility programme the household may be eligible for. - Food and non-food: vouchers or gift cards, only after applying for all other food assistance programmes the household may qualify for. Eligibility. The veteran must have been a Linn County legal resident for at least 30 days; must have an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions, and where there is more than one discharge every one of them must meet that test; must meet the Iowa Code section 35.1 definition of veteran and have served at least 90 consecutive days of active duty beyond training or hold a VA-recognized service-connected disability; must have an emergent need that cannot be met by other means and is not due to the applicant's own financial misconduct; must document the unexpected expense that caused the hardship; and must meet the income guidelines established by the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund. A denial can be appealed under the policy's appeal section. Under chapter 35B the office's services are free, and a county of 60,000 or more must staff the office at least 40 hours a week.