What the issue looks like:
• The VA estimates 107,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, down from 195,000 in 2004. The Annual Homeless Assessment Report has a higher count of 135,583, or 12 percent of homeless adults.
• One in five veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan is jobless.
• There are an estimated 44,000 to 60,000 veterans who are chronically homeless. Chronic homelessness is defined by spending more than a year on the streets or accumulating four homeless experiences within three years.
• Women comprise 5 percent of homeless veterans and are the fastest growing subset of the population.
• HUD-VA Supportive Housing program began in 1992 with 600 vouchers; it now has 10,000 every year.
• Veterans are 1 percent of the nation’s total population, but 10 percent of the homeless demographic.
WASHINGTON – Budget cuts to a crucial housing program for homeless veterans could demolish the Department of Veteran Affairs’ five-year plan to end veteran homelessness, Secretary Eric Shinseki said Thursday at a Senate appropriations hearing.
Congress allotted $75 million a year to the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs for the HUD-VA Supportive House program since in 2008. But HUD has eliminated the program from its proposed 2011 budget, shifting the burden of funding entirely to the VA.
At a time when the number of unemployed and mentally ill veterans is on the rise, the lack of resources creates what Shinseki called a “perfect storm” for homelessness among vets.
“It makes no sense,” Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., said of the decision to cut funding from a program that seems to be working.
Shinseki assured senators that prevention is a major component of his plan to end homelessness among veterans by 2014; leaving the chronically homeless, the population targeted by the HUD-VA program, for the final phase of VA efforts.
The first marker of success will be in 2012 when the VA aims to reduce the number of homeless veterans from 107,000 to 59,000.
Since the housing program began in 1992, it has helped house 13,000 veterans by distributing vouchers for subsidized housing and assigning caseworkers to help nail down said homes. However, only 25 percent of the 10,000 vouchers disbursed in 2009 are actually being used to house veterans, a fact that Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the hearing, said is a concern.
Shinseki achnkowledged there are inefficiency problems with the program that has grown exponentially from its modest beginnings when it gave out 600 vouchers in its first year. It takes an average of 109 days to get a veteran in a home, he said. Additionally, the vouchers help with rent, but don’t cover start-up fees like security deposits.
“We’re learning as we go,” Shinseki said.
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan praised the program as a crucial effort to help homeless veterans, but noted that it’s not the only resource and that the cut in program funds does not mean HUD is abandoning homeless vets.
“All of our efforts go to veterans,” he said.
His department’s budget request of $2.14 billion for 2011 is a $200 million increase from last year. It’s possible that some additional funding could go to the homeless vets program if the budget is approved, Donovan said.
But Murray said it’s urgent to address the funding now as troops come home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“If we are going to avoid mistakes that we made with veterans of prior wars, we need to identify those most at risk early and work on prevention strategies,” she said.