August 2, 2016
BUSH LITE:
US veteran homelessness slashed in half: What's behind the decline? : In the past six years, the number of unsheltered veterans has been slashed by more than half, according to a report released Monday by the Obama administration. (Aidan Quigley, Staff AUGUST 1, 2016, CS Monitor)
Speaking at the Disabled American Veterans annual meeting Monday in Atlanta, President Obama called the nation's commitment a "sacred covenant." "I don't use those words lightly. It's sacred because there is no more solemn request than to ask someone to risk their life, to be ready to give their life on our behalf," he said. [...]A linchpin in the current strategy is the HUD-VASH voucher program for rental assistance for veterans, which has seen bipartisan support in Congress.At the local level, communities have emphasized housing-first and rapid re-housing policies to address the number of homeless veterans. Housing-first policies place veterans immediately into permanent housing instead of transitional housing or shelter, and eliminate previous barriers and requirements for being eligible for housing.This a gradual shift in strategies for fighting homelessness, Matt Leslie, the director of housing development for veterans in Virginia's Department of Veterans Services tells the Monitor."Oftentimes, housing was kind of earned. So you'd step your way through places: You'd do well in an emergency shelter, then you'd work your way to transitional, then you'd work your way into housing," Mr. Leslie says. "But that was leaving some of the really vulnerable people with potential mental illness, substance abuse, they'd just get left out.... My belief is a housing plan should be started on Day 1."This had led to the implementation of housing-first policy, which takes away some of the barriers to obtaining housing. Increasingly, policymakers and advocacy organizations point to permanent housing as stabilizing factor that enables the formerly homeless to start to address other issues.The government is also focusing on prevention by providing short-term support and relief to provide services necessary to keep veterans from becoming homeless."It's really that collection of interventions and a huge commitment from our leadership and from Congress to support those changes that really defines and describes the successes we've had," O'Toole says. "I think it's exciting because it really proves that something can be done for something that has not always been considered fixable."
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 2, 2016 2:32 PM