Proposition 1: A Critical Investment in California Veterans

Earlier this year, VetFund Foundation highlighted a growing concern for California veterans: the CalVet Home Loan Program, which has helped veterans and their families achieve homeownership for more than a century, was running out of the lending authority needed to continue meeting demand.

This November, California voters have an opportunity to help secure its future.

Proposition 1 includes $1.25 billion specifically for the CalVet Home Loan Program, providing new bond authority to continue making home loans available to California veterans and their families.

And the need is real.

Since its creation, the CalVet Home Loan Program has helped nearly 500,000 veterans and their families purchase homes. Unlike a traditional commercial lender, CalVet provides a veteran-focused approach to homeownership, including personalized loan underwriting and servicing, as well as access to fire and casualty insurance—an increasingly valuable benefit in California’s challenging insurance market.

Just as importantly, the program is designed to be self-supporting.

The $1.25 billion in bonds for CalVet home loans is repaid through the principal and interest payments made by the veterans who receive the loans. Veterans are not simply receiving financial assistance—they are paying their mortgages, repaying the bonds and helping sustain a program that can serve the next generation of California veterans.

It’s a model that has worked for generations—and demand for it is growing.

CalVet currently serves approximately 4,800 active loans totaling nearly $1.2 billion. In Fiscal Year 2024–25 alone, the program funded more than $245 million in home loans—a 22.5% increase from the previous year.

Those numbers tell an important story. At a time when the cost of buying a home continues to climb and obtaining affordable homeowners insurance has become increasingly difficult, California veterans are turning to a program specifically designed to help them overcome those barriers.

Prop 1 would give CalVet the lending authority it needs to continue doing that work.

For VetFund, the message is simple: when veterans return home, they deserve a real opportunity to build a life, put down roots and achieve the stability that homeownership can provide.

For more than 100 years, the CalVet Home Loan Program has helped make that possible. Prop 1 provides an opportunity to keep that promise going for the next generation of California veterans.