Veteran-aid project salutes lower-income vets

There are over 400,000 veterans in South Carolina, and nearly a quarter of them live in North Charleston. This weekend, a Detroit-based attorney program has traveled to North Charleston for its nationwide effort to help these veterans get the assistance they need.
Packed into a 31-foot RV mobile law office, students and faculty of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law are taking their second annual tour to help veterans with legal representation they call- Project Salute. Director, Tammy Kudialis explains the process.
 “We have across the country sort of assembled this whole network of pro-bono attorneys to help these folks. So we provide training to the attorneys, we go out into the different communities, we call out the veterans, we do a pre-screening and then we try to match the veterans to the attorneys so that they can get the help them get their appeal,” says Kudialis.
 Right now, the tour is making a stop in North Charleston, which has nearly 11,000 veterans.
 “North Charleston is the one of the largest cities in The United States with a population of low-income veterans,” says Kudialis.
For a family of one, “low income” is considered to be annual earnings of $21,000 or less. Kudialis says in most cases denied disability is the largest concern among veterans, but that’s where they step in. She says they do this to meet what they consider to be a huge need.
North Charleston is the only stop Project Salute makes in South Carolina.