Noteboom The Law Firm

Center for Veterans Enterprise Called Unproductive

April 9, 2010 - The Center for Veterans Enterprise (CVE) was created to help veterans start their own businesses by being able to successfully bid on federal contracts. According to the American Legion (AL), however, the CVE is not only understaffed and under funded, but is basically useless.

The American Legion believes the CVE fails veterans in many ways and testified to this belief in front of the House Subcommittee of Economic Opportunity. According to the AL, the CVE:

• Cannot provide complete and inclusive technical assistance;
• Takes far too long registering clients (the timetable ranges from 1 month to 1 year); and
• Does not provide any assistance at all to veterans who run part-time businesses.

 The CVE offices are located in Washington D.C. and cannot or will not cover veteran's needs covering the United States. Unemployment rates have reached as high as 20% for veterans turning from deployment. The AL believes veterans willing to fight and die for this country should not return from deployment and be exposed to federal agencies failing them when they should be a place of help and support.

While the CVE's purpose is to provide veterans with practical and helpful information, the CVE is not producing the correct assistance. The CVE offices see only very few veteran clients. The AL believes answering phones about veterans owned businesses is an ineffective way of accomplishing training and market research.

If things are as bad as the AL believes they are, hopefully making these issues well known will improve the CVE's efforts so that veterans are indeed given what they deserve: a fair chance to thrive in the private sector.