Number of Homeless Veterans Down Overall

March 12, 2010 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is beginning of their second year of fulfilling VA Secretary Shinseki's vision to eliminate homeless veterans within 5 years. So far, the number of homeless veterans has dropped 18%.

VA Secretary Shinseki has made it very clear where he stands: he will not tolerate one single homeless veteran on the streets. At the same time, Secretary Shinseki also recognizes it is going to take a community of resources to make this vision a reality.

The Community Homeless Assessment Local Education and Networking Groups (CHALENG) conducts a well-respected, annual census of homeless Veterans. The numbers reflect the VA's efforts:

• 154,000 in 2007;
• 131,000 in 2008; and
• 107,000 in 2009.

 It's not just the VA's efforts alone. The VA teamed up with several other organizations on both the federal and the state level to combat the homeless veteran problem. The VA has almost 4,000 agreements of varying types with community partners. The VA's homeless programs serviced over 92,000 homeless veterans last year; this is a 15% increase over 2008.

The VA partnered with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2008 to help in their effort combating veteran homelessness and formed the HUD-VASH program. The VA treats the homeless veterans and HUD supplies veterans and their families with housing vouchers. Since the beginning of the program, HUD has distributed 20,000 housing vouchers.

The VA has improved the lives of homeless veterans in numerous ways over the last couple of years. Of the veterans that have been through residential rehabilitation and transitional housing programs, 79% of them are no longer homeless a year following their discharge.

It's not just about finding veterans a place to live and treating their mental health issues. It is also about doing what's possible to prevent those mental health problems and preventing veterans from becoming homeless in the first place.