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Resources from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Labor, among others, as well as innovative interagency collaborations are increasing housing and employment opportunities and medical care for homeless veterans. At the recent March 6, 2008 Full Council meeting at which he was elected Chair, VA Secretary James Peake noted that the VA has documented another decrease in homelessness among veterans, reporting a 20% decline.
The VA’s Grant and Per Diem program which supports the development of transitional supportive housing and/or service centers for homeless veterans is proposed to increase by 12% in FY 09. The VA has already approved funding for more than 12,000 beds in transitional housing programs. The joint HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) collaboration will fund about 10,000 new Section 8 vouchers this year for homeless veterans with mental illness and substance addictions. Through this interagency collaboration, the VA screens homeless veterans for program eligibility and provides case management to enrollees. HUD allocates the rental subsidies from its Housing Choice voucher program to the VA which distributes them to the enrollees. The Administration’s FY 09 budget request would make available another 9800 of these vouchers. Additionally, in December HUD awarded over $31 million for targeted veterans supportive housing through its annual homeless assistance grants competition.
The Department of Labor’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program has engaged 17,000 homeless veterans with nearly 10,000 becoming employed.
The “Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program Best Practices Project” produced by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor-Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (DOL-VETS) provides profiles of some of the most effective of these reintegration projects.
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