Military

VA Hands Out Emergency Checks

By Alison St John / Reporter

Published October 2, 2009 at 11:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

Lily Fetzer, Director of the Veterans Administration in San Diego, speaking to veterans lined up to get their GI Bill checks.

VA Hands Out Emergency Checks

Hundreds of veterans lined up outside the regional office of the Veterans Administration in San Diego today. They were there to pick up an advance on their GI Bill checks.

The VA is behind on processing about 30,000 applications for benefits under the new GI Bill. As a stop gap measure, the agency offered to issue emergency checks of up to $3,000 to vets who have already started college and need the money to cover rent and food.

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Lily Fetzer, Director of the VA in San Diego, said she’s not sure how many veterans are waiting for checks in Southern California, but she found a line of veterans already waiting outside the office early this morning.

“So we decided to open our doors at 6:30 and start writing checks,” Fetzer says, “and we’ve been writing checks ever since. We have 16 check writing stations set up and the feedback I’m getting is a lot of happy folks here. They really needed that money.”

The new GI Bill is more generous than any GI bill since the original legislation was drafted after World War II.

Nearly 300,000 veterans around the country have applied and another 200,000 have inquired about their eligibility.

Military

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.