A San Diego Navy fought with the Department of Veterans Affairs for five months after he received a letter mistakenly declaring him deceased. NBC 7 investigative reporter Alexis Rivas explains.
Sky Lowe was in a fight for his life. Though not in the way you’re probably thinking. The 25-year-old U.S. Navy veteran received a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs last October declaring him dead.
“I remember just being super confused,” Lowe told NBC 7 Investigates. “Like I was laughing at first. And I would tell people, 'I’m technically declared dead.' They’d be like, ‘Dead man walking. Seen a ghost.’”
The letter went on to say one of his payments was returned, indicating he passed. He believes the mistake may have something to do with the fact that he had moved to a new apartment. Although, he told us he notified the VA about the address change before he received the letter.
Lowe said he instantly called the VA to clear everything up, and an employee acknowledged Lowe was clearly alive — a mistake they said they would soon fix. Instead, Lowe said he found himself stuck in a loop where he called and emailed for months. In that time, he got no closer to a resolution or even a timeline for one.
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“The very least y'all can do is just communicate, ‘Hey, give us two weeks.’ And I will sit down and leave it alone. But it’s been months and months,” Lowe said. ‘Honestly, I’ve gotten to a point where I just started having panic attacks.”
Lowe depends on disability benefit money he was getting every month. Last year, he qualified for a 40% disability rating for his Navy service. It has made it possible for him to rent an apartment in Grantville as a full-time college student pursuing a degree in business. His days are also busy working a part-time job and internship.
“I’m actively trying my best to pay my bills and do everything I can,” Lowe told us.
Investigations
Now those months of missed benefit checks have morphed into missed bills. Last week, he got another delivery — an eviction summons for unpaid rent.
“I just want to know what’s happening honestly,” Lowe said.
Adding to Lowe’s confusion is that at the same time, the VA wrongly believed him to be dead, at least some part of the VA believed he was alive. Lowe is attending Mesa College through the G.I. Bill. His latest tuition payment came four months after he was declared dead.
Demanding answers from the VA
NBC 7 Investigates reached out to the VA on Lowe’s behalf. We asked how this error happened to Lowe in the first place and why it still hadn’t been resolved.
Within two days of our emails, Lowe got a call telling him the problem had been fixed with a direct deposit initiated for the disability benefits payments he was owed.
The VA’s response to us acknowledged the mistake but didn’t answer our questions. A spokesman wrote:
“In October, 2024, a Veteran's benefits were accidentally suspended due to a mistaken belief that he was deceased. Last week, VA corrected this error by resuming this Veteran’s benefits retroactively. VA quickly moves to reinstate benefits in all cases when a Veteran’s enrollment and benefits status is misclassified.”
Lowe says receiving the back payments helps, but it doesn’t solve all of his financial issues and he’s not sure about what will happen with the eviction.
“My car note is months behind. My electricity bill is due. And it’s just like, I don’t have the resources to pay all of these,” Lowe said. “And if I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to pay all of these on time, I would have gone out of my way to do this sooner, to find the money and stuff. But I was guaranteed that it would be OK and I would be fine soon.”
A backlog of benefit claims at the VA
The delays Lowe faced are part of a major issue plaguing veterans around the country. Right now, there are over 930,000 active claims for disability compensation and pension.
The big slowdown began in 2020 during the pandemic and steadily got worse until it peaked early last year.
The average time to process a claim is 125 days nationally and in California. Anything older than that is considered to be part of the backlog. 26.5% of all claims are in that category. That amounts to 244,637 claims nationally.
For Lowe, it took 169 days to clear up his claim. And that only happened after we reached out to the VA on his behalf.
