VA Summit Frames Plan to End Veteran Homelessness

Click here for NCHV President John Driscoll's opening state- ment at the summit.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) held a historic three-day conference in the nation’s capital to signal the beginning of a new mission for the agency – to end veteran homelessness in five years.

More than 1,300 VA clinicians and health care specialists, representatives of federal agencies invested in providing support for homeless and low-income veterans, and community- and faith-based service providers represented by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) assembled to provide input on strategies that will shape the VA’s five-year plan.

“My name is Shinseki, and I am here to end veteran homelessness,” said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki in his opening address. “Many of you have been working the issue of veteran homelessness for a long time – as members of the Interagency Council on Homelessness or the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans or the Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans.

“I’m the newcomer here today, so let me reiterate that this is not a summit on homeless veterans – it’s a summit to end homelessness among veterans. That’s our purpose. President Obama and I are personally committed to ending homelessness among veterans within the next five years. I learned long ago that there are never any absolutes in life, and a goal of zero homeless veterans sure sounds like an absolute. But unless we set ambitious targets for ourselves, we would not be giving this our very best efforts. No one who has served this nation as veterans have should ever be living on the streets.”

“I have been asked many times since the Secretary first mentioned this noble campaign, can it be done?” said NCHV President and CEO John Driscoll during the opening session. “And I am humbled by how clearly I see the promise.”

Driscoll pointed out that in the time he has been with NCHV – nine years:

• The VA has quadrupled its investment in the Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program to nearly 500 programs across the country. This program provides transitional housing and supportive services to homeless veterans for up to 24 months. The great majority of these clients advance to independent living during that eligibility period.
   
• The Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program has more than tripled in capacity to serve homeless veterans, and has become one of the most successful employment assistance programs in the Department of Labor portfolio.
   
• Under technical assistance grants and cooperative agreements with both these agencies, NCHV has provided program guidance, access to resources and vital communications to more than 1,600 community- and faith-based service providers from Seattle to Puerto Rico … from Maine to the island of Guam.
   
• Health Care for Homeless Veterans coordinators, women veteran coordinators and OEF/OIF specialists have been placed at virtually every VA medical center and every VA regional benefits office.
   
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and VA now have 20,000 HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) vouchers to issue to veterans with serious mental and physical disabilities, with another 10,000 expected to become available next year.

“By our count, there are more than 3,500 points of access to assistance available to veterans today that did not exist 35 years ago when I came home from Vietnam,” Driscoll said. “There are currently 14 bills pending before the House of Representatives and the Senate that would have a direct impact on the delivery of services to homeless veterans and those at risk of becoming homeless – more than at any time in U.S. history.”

Driscoll pointed out later in a work session on Congressional activities, in partnership with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, that those bills provide the statutory and funding authorities necessary to move the Secretary’s plan forward.

Experts from within the VA health care system, contract service providers and community-based grant partners presented nearly 50 workshops and discussion groups focusing on clinical practices, research, transitional and supportive housing program innovations and best practices, discharge planning and transition from institutional care and incarceration, and prevention strategies for low-income veteran families.

The Five Year Plan

The most noticeable recurring theme throughout the three-day program was the need to strengthen the VA’s partnership with other federal agencies and the community- and faith-based service providers that have helped reduce veteran homelessness by nearly 50 percent in the last five years.

Peter Dougherty, Director of the VA Homeless Programs Office, and Paul Smits, Associate Chief Consultant for Homeless and Residential Rehabilitation and Treatment Services for the Veterans Health Administration, discussed the “basic framework” of the plan on the final day of the summit.

The plan will have six “strategic pillars.” Included among those are four that have been in development for more than two decades: outreach, treatment, employment and benefits, and community partnerships; and two that represent new areas of engagement – prevention, and housing and supportive services for low-income veterans.

While the HUD-VASH program provides housing for homeless veterans with serious mental illness and other disabilities, as well as housing for extreme low-income veterans with dependent children, VA officials recognize the need to provide supportive services to low-income veterans in permanent housing to reduce their risk of becoming homeless.

Allowable uses of these funds would likely include case management for low-income veteran families and financial counseling services. Approximately $25 million is expected to be available for these prevention services in fiscal year 2010, and there is a measure in the House that would increase that authorization to $100 million by 2014.

In partnership with HUD, the VA will participate in 12 pilot programs to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiencies of linking housing vouchers with supportive services to ensure low-income veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families, maintain housing stability. The VA will also invest in “relapse prevention” initiatives and reintegration supports for veterans transitioning out of corrections facilities.

The plan calls for significant increases in funding for successful community-based transitional housing programs under the Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program, and would expand the services that are currently offered. Several bills before both the House and Senate would increase program authorizations, and also modify the method of reimbursing service providers for the care they provide to make the process more efficient and responsive to the needs of those organizations.

One of the more exciting planks in the plan calls for an immediate expansion of the VA’s services contract portfolio to provide housing and supportive services to homeless and at-risk veterans across the nation to ensure those who need help receive it within 24 hours.

The “no wrong door” policy to access services envisioned by VA leadership is not unlike the “open door” strategy for which NCHV has advocated with respect to emergency and mental health services across the medical services landscape for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. If fully implemented within the next five years, this initiative would greatly reduce the incidence of street homelessness and, NCHV believes, could reduce the amount of assistance those clients who walk through the “open door” might need.

The soon-to-be-operational National Call and Referral Center, discussed by center Director Vincent Kane and Smits, has the potential to dramatically change the delivery of services to homeless and at-risk veterans by itself. This center will be manned 24 hours a day, every day, by trained staff who will be able to connect veterans in need with those in their communities who can help them. It will be a resource for veterans in crisis, service providers and VA health care providers throughout the nation.

Service providers should check back frequently for updates on the VA and its partnerships with community- and faith based organizations, and on legislation that will likely have a significant impact on homeless veteran and prevention programs.

“The VA Summit was a clear message to the nation that the vision of President Obama and Secretary Shinseki – to end veteran homelessness – is an order, not a request,” Driscoll said. “It is truly a defining moment in our nation’s history, and a goal that all Americans should feel duty-bound to help achieve.”

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