In February of this year, the US Department of Veterans Affairs made sure to establish a new goal, and that is to prevent and end homelessness among military vets. They saw this stall after it initially made progress, but now, they vowed to continue their initiative.
The new goal will be to house 38,000 veterans just this year, and so far, they’re close to reaching it. They want to bring the number of homeless vets to near zero, which is based on the government’s Point-in-Time Count total they collected last January.
As of September, the department had successfully reached 30,914 permanent housing placements, which meant that they met 81.35 percent of their goal of ensuring that at-risk veterans are safeguarded and housed properly.
VA’s homeless programs have now averaged 3,434 placements each month. They want to achieve the Biden administration’s goal by the end of this year and right now, they’re doing their best to continuing their work by placing the other 2,362 Veterans and providing them with permanent housing each month until the very end of December.
The most recent data showed the estimated number vets that were unhoused at the beginning. They announced the figures just last week. The count they had demonstrated that on a single night in January, there was a total 33,136 veterans who were homeless in the country.
The count then showed an 11 percent decline since early 2020, which was the last time a full count was made. If you go further back to 2010, the count represented a 55 percent decline in veteran homelessness.
“All Veterans deserve to have what they need to lead healthy, safe, and successful lives—that starts with a place to call home,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said. “The data released today shows we are closer than ever in ensuring that every Veteran in America has a home,” she also added.
“Under President Biden’s leadership, we at VA, Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, will not stop until every Veteran has a good, safe, stable home in this country they fought to defend,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough explained.
“Not only did we lower the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness, but we made this progress during a global pandemic and economic crisis,” USICH Executive Director Jeff Olivet also shared. “This proves that, even under the most difficult circumstances, we can take care of each other and address homelessness.”
The department’s efforts this time was based on the ‘Housing First’ approach. This meant that they had to prioritize getting people into housing, then giving them the much-needed wraparound support to stay housed. This benefit came with health care, job training, legal and education assistance, and so much more.
They have been funded by the resources given by the Congress during the worldwide pandemic. With the passage of the American Rescue Plan, VA’s homeless programs were able to get a total of $481 million in additional funding so that they could support the military vets even further.
If you know of a veteran who is homeless or is at risk of losing his or her home, you may call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-4AID-VET (877-424-3838). The VA Homeless Programs site also gives more details about their housing initiatives and other programs for veterans exiting homelessness.
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