VA warns against cuts to vet housing program - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

VA warns against cuts to vet housing program

Budget cuts to a crucial housing program for homeless veterans could demolish the Veterans Affairs Department’s five-year plan to end veteran homelessness, Secretary Eric Shinseki said Thursday at a joint hearing of two Senate appropriations subcommittees.

Since 2008, Congress has allotted $75 million a year to the Housing and Urban Development Department and VA for the Supportive House program. But HUD has eliminated the program from its proposed 2011 budget, shifting the burden of funding entirely to 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, he noted, seems to be working.

The hearing on the program was held before the Senate Appropriations subcommittees on military construction and veterans’ affairs; and transportation, housing and urban development.

Shinseki assured senators that prevention is a major component of his plan to end homelessness among veterans by 2014; the chronically homeless, the population targeted by the HUD-VA program, will be addressed in the final phase of VA’s efforts.

The first marker of success will be in 2012, when 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. However, only 25 percent of the 10,000 vouchers disbursed in 2009 are actually being used to house veterans.

Shinseki acknowledged inefficiency problems with the program, which has grown exponentially since its first year, when it gave out 600 vouchers. Getting a veteran in a home takes an average of 109 days, he said. Additionally, the vouchers help with rent, but don’t cover start-up fees such as 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. Some additional funding possibly could go to the homeless vets program if the budget is approved, Donovan said.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., 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.

The problem, by the numbers

According to VA and the Housing and Urban Development Department:

* An 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.

* An estimated 44,000 to 60,000 veterans are chronically homeless. Chronic homelessness is defined as spending more than a year on the streets or being homeless for more than four periods within three years.

* Women comprise 5 percent of homeless veterans and are the fastest growing subset of the population.

* Veterans are 1 percent of the nation’s total population, but 10 percent of the homeless demographic.