Veterans Transfer Credits and Reentry Housing

Two articles hit on issues affecting veterans at the University of Illinois this past week. First on veterans and reentry housing, the News-Gazette had an interview with the Veterans Legal Clinic director on campus available here. Here's an excerpt:

Ever since the University of Illinois College of Law launched its Veterans Legal Clinic, Director YULANDA CURTIS has been working to provide free civil legal assistance to those who served and their family members.

Now, the daughter of two Army veterans has been recognized with a $15,000 grant from the Military Service Knowledge Collaborative to research an issue that has come up again and again in her work helping formerly incarcerated veterans: housing instability.

With ongoing conversations in Champaign over language in the city code that allows landlords to discriminate against people with prior felony convictions, News-Gazette Media's Adalberto Toledo sat down with Curtis for a conversation about the obstacles formerly incarcerated veterans face and what she hopes to do about it....

The fact people even come to us to ask for that tells you that their record is creating a problem with them in their life, getting a job or finding housing.

With an expungement or seal, the landlord can ask the question, but you're legally allowed to check "no." That's another instance of people actually leasing to individuals with previous criminal backgrounds and they may not have knowledge of it.

I've had clients before that were living with family for years or even decades after conviction because they couldn't get adequate housing. I mean senior citizens; stuff they'd done so long ago and it's still being held over their head. When is the punishment enough?

Full interview available here. More on the Champaign housing issue here. Latest updates on the City Council's upcoming study session (date still to be determined) from an April Cheat Sheet post here. The housing issue was also mentioned in the April meeting of the Human Rights Commission covered here.

Last week there was some movement reported on veterans transfer credits for their experience in the military which can be difficult or impossible to translate into civilian education and business regulatory bureaucracies in spite of the value of their training and experience in the civilian world:

New UI panel to focus on making it easier for veterans to transfer credits
A new University of Illinois committee will examine ways to make it easier for veterans to transfer academic credits to the UI and get credit for real-world experience in the military.

State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, and Rep. Dan Caulkins, R-Decatur, said they have been working on the issue for several years, to improve access for veterans.

The UI agreed to form a committee headed by Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell, dean of the College of Applied Health Sciences, and Naval ROTC Commanding Officer Captain Anthony Corapi. The panel is to deliver recommendations by the end of the fall semester...

Rose said Hanley-Maxwell and her staff have pulled together research on the issue, and Corapi has experience in the Pentagon, "dealing with large bureaucracies. I feel good that we've got the right group now to spearhead this and actually get something done," he said.

Pitts said the campus will continue to gather information over the summer about what other universities are doing, primarily in the Big Ten but also around Illinois. It will also review the UI's policies and procedures to see where there might be "gaps in our coverage. Are there some things that are particularly challenging for veterans?"

More information and descriptions of previously proposed legislation available at the full article here. WCCU had additional coverage here.