More support for home caregivers of aging and disabled veterans and bolstered services for homeless veterans are now law after President Joe Biden signed a wide-ranging veterans bill.

Biden signed the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act into law on Thursday evening, the White House said in a news release.

The bill was the most comprehensive piece of veterans legislation approved by Congress in its 2023-24 session and combined several smaller measures on caregiver programs, homelessness, community care, job training, education benefits and more into one package.

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“The men and women who have served have earned access to a VA that puts them — not government bureaucracy — at the center of its operations,” House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said in a statement after Biden signed the bill. “From expanding job training opportunities for transitioning service members and veterans, to improving mental health care for caregivers, to protecting veterans’ health care options for day-to-day services to more elderly care options, and much more in between — I know this legislation will make a difference for veterans and their families.”

The marquee provision in the bill, which is named after former senator and veterans caregiver advocate Elizebeth Dole, aims to make home nursing care more affordable for veterans by increasing the Department of Veterans Affairs’ share of covering the costs of the care from 65% to 100%.

That change is one of several in the bill related to caregivers programs that were long pushed by advocates who say that veterans should be able to live out their final days at home if they choose. Another key change in the bill is a new grant program for mental health care for veteran caregivers.

While the final bill received widespread bipartisan support, the legislation got bogged down in politics over the summer amid a partisan fight over the future of the VA’s community care program, which allows veterans to see non-VA doctors using VA funding.

Ultimately, negotiations stripped the bill of one controversial community care provision but left another in. The provision that is now law bans VA administrators from overriding a VA doctor’s referral for their patient to get outside care.

On veteran homelessness, the bill will increase the per diem rate the VA can pay to organizations providing short-term transitional housing from 115% of costs to 133%. It will also give the VA flexibility to provide unhoused veterans with bedding, shelter, food, hygiene items, blankets and rideshare services to medical appointments.

Other changes in the bill include extending a high-tech job training program for veterans through 2027; allowing GI Bill beneficiaries to continue getting a housing allowance even if they are only part-time students in their final semester; and requiring the VA to reimburse ambulance costs for some rural veterans.

The bill was sent to Biden’s desk after a 382-12 vote in the House on Dec. 16. It was the second time the House approved the bill after the Senate approved a version of the legislation that fixed some drafting errors.

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