WASHINGTON – A new program aimed at reducing veteran unemployment by putting volunteers in 20 key areas around the country officially kicked off this week.
“Local communities must be the cornerstone of any national program to reduce veteran and military spouse unemployment,“ said Kevin Schmeigel, the executive director of Hiring Our Heroes, an initiative of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Foundation.
The Veteran Leadership Corps, an extension of AmeriCorps, will place volunteers in communities to serve as the ground team to connect military veterans and their spouses with resources to help them reintegrate into society.
Thirty volunteers, half of whom are military veterans, were sworn into the Veteran Leadership Corps Tuesday during the Community Blueprint launch reception at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The program aims to provide a framework through which local communities will coordinate services between government, nonprofit and other organizations to improve the lives of veterans and their families.
“The Community Blueprint is based on the notion that veterans can often reach out and help other veterans in ways that others can not,” said Stephanie Weiss, the chief marketing officer for Points of Light.
Points of Light, the world’s largest non-profit organization focused on volunteer services, leads a coalition of more that 55 non-profit and government organizations in implementing the plan.
Hiring Our Heroes helped draft the blueprint’s sections dealing with employment.
“If they don’t walk away with a job, we want to make sure they’re better prepared for the next opportunity,” said Ross Cohen, the senior director of programs.
Cohen, himself an Army veteran, boasts commitments from both small and large businesses to hire 175,000 veterans through the Hire 500,000 Heroes campaign in partnership with Capitol One. Hiring Our Heroes seeks to reach half-a-million employed veterans by the end of 2014.
Unemployment rates for all veterans dropped to 6.6 percent in August, a three-year low, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Despite improvements, unemployment rates for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan climbed to 10.9 percent, above the national unemployment rate of 8.1 percent.
In addition to employment, the Community Blueprint seeks to connect veterans with housing, education and health care.
“When I transitioned out, I didn’t understand how much it was going to be in terms of medical costs,” Navy veteran Elizabeth Perez said. Services that Perez was used to receiving in the military were no longer provided when she left the Navy in 2006.
Perez, a newly sworn member of the Veteran Leadership Corps, will serve as a veteran advisor with Vets First in San Diego, Calif. After nearly nine years in the military, Perez had difficulty transitioning to civilian life.
“In the military everything is structured. You have one place to get that information,” Perez said. “And when you come out you don’t have that same kind of structure.”
Volunteering tends to keep job seekers motivated.
“When a veteran continues to serve they report higher rates of successful reintegration,” said Cohen, citing a 2010 Civic Enterprises report.
Hiring Our Heroes conducts workshops to help veterans and their spouses translate volunteer experiences into resume skills.
Points of Light also lists resources on its interactive website to reach veterans not included in the initial service areas. “We hope to expand to 200 communities by 2014,” Weiss said in an email.
Defense contractor ITT Exelis committed $5 million over five years in support of the Community Blueprint. Chief Executive Officer David Melcher commended his company’s employee service initiative, Exelis Action Corps. With its first projects launching in November around Veteran’s Day, Melcher hopes to enlist one quarter of Exelis’ 21,000 employees to volunteer.
An additional 45 AmeriCorps workers ? half veterans ¾ will join the corps in February.