HOMELESS VETERANS AND PROJECT REACH

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
For Homeless Veterans, a REACHable Goal
June 5, 2012 by Jonah Czerwinski and Peter Levin
In March, the VA Innovation Initiative (VAi2) launched Project REACHwith Jon Bon Jovi and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to put information about local homelessness resources into the hands of people who can help others in need.  We’re excited to announce the finalists today. They come from across the country, from Forest Hills, New York, to Kihei, Hawaii.  Their prototype mobile apps will compete for the $25,000 grand prize. Throughout the first round of competition, the REACH community moved us with their passion, creativity, and hard work on behalf of Veterans.
The finalists competed hard against a high bar and a tight timeline. They pulled all-nighters and all-weekenders; one finalized their submission while on vacation in the mountains of West Virginia.  Another finalist is donating the prize award to the Wounded EOD Warrior Foundation and the EOD Memorial Foundation.  We have another whose son, an already skilled coder, will join the next phase of this contest as a service project.

During phase two of Project REACH, finalists compete for the grand prize by piloting their mobile applications atJBJ Soul Kitchen, a community restaurant in Monmouth County, New Jersey, where diners can cover the cost of their meals either through donation or volunteering.  The apps currently focus on Monmouth County, but REACH’s ultimate goal is a mobile app that allows anybody to locate points of service such as health clinics, food kitchens, or shelters with automatically updated availability, regardless of which city they’re in.

VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, Mr. Bon Jovi, and HUD Deputy Secretary Maurice Jones announced the finalists today at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Data Initiative Forum in Washington D.C.

VA WORKS ON PLEDGE TO END VETERAN HOMELESSNESS

FROM AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE

VA Makes Progress on Pledge to End Veteran Homelessness

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2012 - The Veterans Affairs Department is making progress on its pledge to end homelessness among veterans, with a focus on getting all homeless veterans off the streets by 2015, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki told American Forces Press Service.

Shinseki joined President Barack Obama in announcing the plan in November 2009, proclaiming that no veteran should ever have to be living on the streets.

VA is working toward that goal, Shinseki told Congress last month, reporting that the number of homeless veterans on a given night dropped from 76,300 in 2010 to about 67,500 in 2011. The next goal, he said, is to drive those numbers down to 35,000 by the end of fiscal 2013, and ultimately, to zero.

As Shinseki set out to transform VA after arriving in 2009, he made the homeless issue a top priority in getting to the bottom of what he viewed as an institutional problem.

"Homelessness among veterans was a demonstration to me that we didn't have all our programs knitted together," he said. "As good as we thought we were doing in health care and other benefits, ... we had people who were slipping through the gaps in our programs -- most visibly, the homeless."

Getting homeless veterans off the streets, particularly within such a tight timeline, would be the driving force in creating positive change throughout VA, he explained.

"If you say you are going to end homelessness, then you have to be good at everything else," he said. "If you declare to end it, you have to figure out all the pieces that contribute to it so you can begin solving the pieces in order for the whole to be solved."

That, he said, requires making sure VA is addressing the root causes behind homelessness.

It means more than simply getting veterans into school; it means making sure they graduate, he explained. It's not just sending them for vocational training; it's ensuring they finish the training and are postured to land a job.

"That's how you beat homelessness," Shinseki said. "It's not the front door. It's the back door. What did they gain out of the program?"

To support this effort, VA's budget request for fiscal 2013 includes nearly $1.4 billion for programs designed to prevent or end homelessness among veterans. This represents a 33 percent increase, or $333 million, over the 2012 funding level.

The additional funding will provide grants and technical assistance to community nonprofit organizations to maintain veterans and their families in current housing or get them quickly into new housing. It also will provide grants and per diem payments for community-based organizations offering transitional housing to 32,000 veterans.

Shinseki also plans to hire 200 coordinators to help homeless veterans with disability claims, housing problems, job and vocational opportunities and problems with the courts.

Since announcing his homeless initiative, Shinseki said, he's come to understand that dealing with homelessness is really a two-part challenge.

It's one thing to get homeless veterans physically off the streets in what he calls the "rescue" part of the challenge. Shinseki said he feels confident that this part of the mission to be completed by 2015, as promised.

But the less visible and more challenging part of the problem, he said, is addressing a population that's at risk of becoming homeless. These, Shinseki explained, are veterans who are "one paycheck, one mortgage payment, one more missed utility bill away from being evicted."

"We never see that. But if we are going to truly end homelessness, we have to have a better picture of [that]... and go into prevention mode," Shinseki said. "Otherwise, you will never be able to solve this."

So while he expects the rescue mission to wrap up in 2015, Shinseki said, he'll be able to dedicate more resources toward an ongoing prevention effort.

"If you don't stop this faucet, you never end homelessness," he said.