A combat veteran with PTSD lost his job, checked himself into a VA hospital, fell behind on his mortgage, and was told not to worry because the VA had a program to help. Then the Trump administration killed the program, and his monthly payment jumped by $1,181. He is not alone: NPR's investigation found more than 15,000 veterans have been hit with payment increases of at least $150, and more than 700 of them are paying $1,000 or more extra every month.
The Numbers Are Almost Too Ugly to Believe
Start with the comparison, because it does the work for us. Among veterans who got a loan modification after a financial hardship, 63% saw their payments go up. Among borrowers with loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which cover most of the American mortgage market, the number was 2%.
Two percent versus sixty-three percent. That is not a quirk in the data. That is a program being run backwards.
A loan modification exists to help people who fell behind catch up. For the vast majority of Americans, it lowers the payment or holds it steady. For veterans with VA-backed loans, it now raises the payment more often than not, because the VA abruptly ended the program that used to make modifications affordable.
Meet the Man Who Paid for This Policy
Scott Boyd joined the Army as a teenager after his father died of cancer, sending checks home to help his mom. He started in the infantry, saw combat, and later worked military intelligence in dangerous places. When he got out in 2002, he built a career in tech. In 2021 he bought a house near Columbus, Ohio, with a VA loan and a low interest rate. "I felt very blessed," he said.
Then came a mass layoff, and his time in combat came back in the form of PTSD. Boyd checked himself into the Dayton VA hospital for treatment and fell behind on the mortgage. That is what the safety net is for. That is the whole point.
His lender told him not to sweat it, because the VA had a forbearance program that would let him pause payments and catch up affordably later. "I later found out that wasn't true," he said. He is now stuck paying $1,181 more every month. Because of his intelligence work, he asked NPR not to show his face in photographs. A man who spent years keeping secrets for the country is now publicly explaining that the country stuck him with a four-figure monthly penalty for getting sick.
What VASP Actually Did
The program at the center of this is the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase program, or VASP. The Biden administration created it after its own VA home loan disaster. Before it was shut down, it helped tens of thousands of veterans who had fallen behind by rolling their missed payments into a new mortgage at a 2.5% interest rate.
In a world where mortgage rates are nowhere near that, a 2.5% rate is not a perk. It is a lifeline. It is the difference between catching up and sinking.
Boyd's mortgage company kept telling him this was his last lever to pull. This was in the spring of 2025, just months into the second Trump administration. Key Republicans on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee were vocally opposed to VASP, and the program was wound down. Without it, vets like Boyd had one option left: a much more expensive modified loan at today's higher rates.
Congress Was Warned, and Nobody Wants to Talk About It
Republicans on the committee warned about VASP before they got rid of it, and the administration followed through. Now there is data on what that decision cost the people it was supposed to serve.
California Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, called it "the height of insanity" after NPR shared its findings. "These are veterans that are already financially distressed," he said. "They were already in trouble." About Boyd in particular, he said the program "should not be making things worse and more stressful for that veteran, a combat veteran, who's been through hell."
Now notice who did not say anything. Illinois Republican Rep. Mike Bost, the committee chairman, did not respond to NPR's repeated requests for comment. Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who led the call to wind down VASP, did not respond either. Funny how the people who were so loud about killing the program have gone quiet about what happened next.
The VA's Statement Is a Masterpiece of Not Answering
The VA did offer a statement. It said the agency helps thousands of veterans "retain homeownership and/or avoid foreclosure through programs like payment forbearance, loan modifications and individualized repayment plans."
Read that again. It lists loan modifications as a form of help. The same loan modifications that, for 63% of veterans who got one, came with a higher payment. It is like a fire department announcing it helps residents through programs like water, and also gasoline.
The statement does not address the 15,000 veterans with payment hikes. It does not address the 700 paying $1,000 or more extra. It does not address Boyd. It just reassures us that help exists, somewhere, in the abstract, while thousands of people discover the help they were promised is a bill.
The Dingo Take
In 1930, Congress passed Smoot-Hawley to protect American workers, and the people it was supposed to protect got to enjoy the Great Depression. The pattern is old and reliable: someone decides a program is wasteful, kills it for the sake of discipline, and the bill shows up later in the lives of regular people who never got a vote. VASP was a 2.5% lifeline for vets in trouble. Republicans on the committee did not like it, so it died, and now a combat veteran with PTSD is out $1,181 a month.
Here is the part that should make everyone furious regardless of party. These are not people who gamed the system. They are veterans who hit a crisis, did what they were told, and followed the advice of their lenders. They fell behind, they asked for help, and the help had been quietly removed. The cruelty is not even loud. It is bureaucratic, which is somehow worse.
The men who pushed this have not answered a single question about it. Bost and Van Orden had every chance to explain why a 63% payment-hike rate for veterans, against 2% for everyone else, is an acceptable outcome. They said nothing. Maybe they know there is no good answer. Maybe they are hoping the story goes away. Either way, thousands of veterans are still paying, every single month, for a decision made in a committee room by people who will never have to explain it to Scott Boyd.
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