WASHINGTON DC -- Veterans’ advocates are raising concerns that a new agreement between the departments of Veterans Affairs and Justice could take away veterans’ autonomy over their health care decisions and deter them from seeking care, particularly those facing homelessness.

The memorandum, announced by the departments last week, would authorize VA attorneys to “initiate and participate in state court guardianship or conservatorship proceedings” while serving as special assistant US attorneys appointed by the Justice Department.

Guardianship “doesn’t take away your physical autonomy, but it can take away your right to vote, your right to marry, your right to engage in some financial transactions,” Jennifer Mathis, deputy director at Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, told CNN. “That’s a big deal. We shouldn’t take that lightly.”

The VA said in a statement the agency serves “hundreds of Veterans” who cannot make their own health care decisions and don’t have family or legal representation,including those experiencing homelessness.

Under the memorandum, VA attorneys will be able to initiate guardianship proceedings “in cases where a legal decision-maker is required for post-acute transitions of care.” If the court approves, a third-party, “who is not a VA employee” will be appointed as a guardian, VA press secretary Peter Kasperowicz told CNN.

When a court grants guardianship, it allows a family member or someone appointed by the court to make some or all decisions for another individual. A Department of Justice webpage says that “guardianship results in the removal of an individual’s legal rights and restricts their rights to make their own decisions. For that reason, state laws recognize that it should be a last resort.”

Mathis told CNN she is concerned the memorandum “is that this may be a way to discharge veterans (experiencing homelessness) who are sitting in hospitals to settings that they might not choose.”

“If people are sitting in a VA hospital and not being discharged, it’s very likely because there aren’t enough services or housing, not because they don’t have guardianship,” Mathis said.

Asked about advocates’ concerns that the memorandum particularly impacts veterans facing homelessness and puts them at risk, Kasperowicz said, “VA’s announcement is not aimed at homeless Veterans. It is aimed at roughly 700 Veterans across the country who are currently in VA facilities and are unable to make their own health care decisions and have no family or legal representation to help them.”

“These Veterans remain in VA hospitals, which may not be the most appropriate setting for them, with no way of transitioning to more appropriate care,” he added. “Some are homeless or at risk of homelessness, but the key characteristic is not homelessness, it is the lack of capacity to make their own medical decisions.”

Thomas O’Toole, VA’s acting assistant undersecretary for health for clinical services, relayed a similar message to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on Wednesday. He told lawmakers, “It is not intended as a homeless initiative.”

Mathis told CNN it is an unusual move to have VA’s lawyers petition for guardianship. However, Kasperowicz pushed back on the claim and said it’s similar to “health care providers and hospitals” filing guardianship petitions, stressing that the lawyers would have to follow the same rules as other petitioners.

Kathryn Monet, the CEO of National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, said with the memorandum, the departments are “trying to make it easier to place veterans in the conservator- or guardian-type situation.”

She told CNN she worries that “there’s a lot of opportunity for misuse,” pointing to the Trump administration’s actions on homelessness, which she described as being “focused on forced treatment and penalizing people for being outside.”

Last summer, for example, President Donald Trump signed an executive order making it easier for local jurisdictions to remove homeless people from the streets. Kasperowicz told CNN the memorandum “has nothing to do with” the president’s executive order and pushed back against concerns of misuse.

Nearly 33,000 veterans facing homelessness

According to a Department of Housing and Urban Development report published in 2024, there are nearly 33,000 veterans facing homelessness and nearly 14,000 of them are unsheltered. According to National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, around 5% of adults experiencing homeless are veterans.

Monet told CNN that stigmas around homelessness may make it easier for doctors to mistake veterans’ choices and behaviors as a sign of mental illness rather than in response to the conditions of poverty.

Another risk, she added, is once placed in conservatorship, a veteran experiencing homelessness may not have “the means to a legal defense to get out of this situation.”

Monet also acknowledged the possibility that the memorandum could deter veterans from seeking care.

“That’s the last thing that I want to see happen for a veteran facing housing instability, because VA, for a long time, has been a really strong provider of health care, and the place that is, you know, a resource for folks in poverty,” Monet said.

Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, also raised concerns that the memorandum will put veterans’ autonomy at risk. He said in a statement, “Veterans fought for our freedom and theirs. The federal government should not be engineering ways of taking it away.”

VA Secretary Doug Collins and Attorney General Pam Bondi have touted that allowing VA lawyers to petition for guardianship would make proceedings more efficient and ensure that veterans receive “timely” care.

“The Department of Justice is proud to partner with the Department of Veterans Affairs to support our nation’s brave Veterans by ensuring that they have the best legal resources available when it comes to making medical decisions and receiving timely care,” Bondi said in the statement. “We owe our Veterans a debt we can never fully repay — but we can give them the support they deserve.”

But even one supporter of the move said it would be tricky to implement.

Stephen Eide, who studies homelessness as a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, told CNN he strongly believes “there should be more use of involuntary interventions to deal with the mental health crisis and the homeless crisis.”

“There is a certain kind of individual — who is homeless or at risk of it — who has a condition like schizophrenia and is not being treated, who simply cannot be relied on to seek treatment voluntarily,” Eide said. “For this type of person, the choices are either no treatment or some kind of involuntary treatment. And I’ll go with involuntary treatment.”

However, he added that addressing the issue “from the federal level is very awkward.”

“It will require a lot of coordination between police, social workers, state and local governments,” Eide said. “There will be complexity in the execution of this.”

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