Noteboom The Law Firm

House Eliminates Millions Of Dollars Used For Housing Vouchers

March 10, 2011 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) still has a couple years to reach their goal of eliminating homelessness among veterans within 5 years. Progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go. The House made it much more difficult for the VA to reach that goal by passing H.R. 1, the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011. In doing so, the House cut $75 million from the money used to help veterans considered chronically homeless obtain vouchers for permanent housing, which equates to 10,000 vouchers.

The vouchers are the product of a joint effort between the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In addition to keeping the veterans under a roof, the HUD-VASH Supportive Housing vouchers provide health and personal services. Veterans eligible for the vouchers include veterans:

• Suffering from serious mental illnesses;
• With serious disabilities; and
• In need of long-term assistance.

To successfully combat veterans' chronic homelessness requires 60,000 HUD-VASH vouchers. Since 2008 approximately 30,000 have been issued, but of those, 11,000 have yet to be used. With over one third of the issued vouchers outstanding, it is hard to make a straight face argument for the program being necessary and effective. The VA rebuts this statistic by claiming 29,000 HUD-VASH vouchers went to homeless veterans and 7,000 of those are in the final stages of solidifying their housing.

The HUD-VASH vouchers play an integral role in the VA's goal of eliminating homelessness among veterans. How the $75 million cut will affect the program will be seen over the course of this year.