Homes to Come Home To

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11 min read

Eliminating Veterans’ Homelessness

The treatment of military veterans has been an emotionally fraught and politically loaded topic since the beginning of the nation. It took until 1818 – 35 years after the British surrender – for Revolutionary War veterans to receive a pension. In the meantime, many of them had to sell off land claims they had been promised for their service to speculators. In the years since, the treatment of veterans has risen and fallen with the times and public temperament, from the Bonus Army marches following World War I to the G.I. Bill after World War II.

Today, political candidates are trying to enhance their own positions by standing up for veterans. Donald Trump has called the Department of Veterans Affairs “a scandalous, corrupt organization” and complained, “Frankly, illegal immigrants get treated better than many of our vets. It’s a disgrace what’s happening in this country.”

Ironically Trump’s first notable public mention of veterans came in 1991 when he wrote a letter to the New York State Assembly seeking a statute blocking disabled veterans from vending on Fifth Avenue in front of Trump Tower. His message to Mayor Michael Bloomberg was pretty much the same in 2004 when he complained, “Whether they are veterans or not, they should not be allowed to sell on this most important and prestigious shopping street.” That right, it turns out, goes back 150 years, when the state legislature granted special vendor’s licenses to disabled Civil War veterans.

Yet whatever political blather candidates may display, their concerns regarding veterans’ services should be taken seriously. Housing veterans is a responsibility and a challenge. How well is the challenge being met?

An Area of Progress
The problems of the VA (officially now the Department of Veterans Affairs) in adequate and timely delivery of health services is well-known, with each secretary, in turn, promising reform. It is too early to know whether the latest attempts will reverse what has been a chronic and often scandalous situation. On the housing front, however, where it has been estimated that between one out of every ten and one in four homeless persons was a veteran, measurable progress is being made.

“I do think the Department of Veterans Affairs has made a true effort,” states Patrick Sheridan,

Executive Vice President for Housing at Volunteers of America (VOA). “Also HUD and the President and First Lady.”

Several specific programs and initiatives have been responsible for putting more veterans under permanent roofs. In 2010, the Obama administration set a goal of ending veterans’ homelessness by 2015, called “Opening Doors.” Though hard figures are elusive in this field, that focus led to about a 36% decrease by the beginning of 2014 and a 50% decrease in unsheltered veterans living on the street. To push things further along, on June 4 of that year, First Lady Michelle Obama announced the Mayors Challenge to End Veterans Homelessness, saying that 77 mayors, four governors and four county officials had already signed on to meet that goal, and called on additional mayors and local leaders to join the commitment. Ultimately, 570 did.

On April 20, 2015, Mrs. Obama joined Mayor Mitch Landrieu in New Orleans to declare that city as the first to house all of its homeless veterans. She dubbed it an “extraordinary achievement.”

Landrieu commented, “We never leave a soldier on the battlefield, and we certainly never leave a soldier on the streets of America. That’s something that transcends politics, race and geography.”

The key to Landrieu’s success was bringing together and mobilizing an alliance of federal, state and local agencies, together with nonprofits, corporations and faith-based organizations. Together, they were able to establish a rapid-response system combining permanent housing and supportive services within an average of 30 days per case. Another innovation was recruiting 150 active and former service members as an outreach team to look for those needing assistance.

This multifaceted model has been duplicated in other regions with similar results. Mary Tingerthal, the highly regarded Commissioner of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency, which also signed on to the Mayors Challenge, is “very hopeful we will reach a functional level of zero by the end of 2016.” Minnesota’s integrative effort is built around the Veterans Registry, implemented last year. “It’s a voluntary system that allows information to be shared with multiple professionals and agencies,” Tingerthal explains. This is possible because of the Interagency Council formed in 2012 that encompasses 11 agencies related to homelessness and meets three or four times a year on the commissioner level. “We’re bringing together professionals who can speak each other’s language. We take a veteran-by-veteran approach and marshal all the resources we need – housing, food, mental health, transportation, addiction and so on. Because of a very robust outreach, we have housed 372 vets; 75 more than we counted last year.”

Thus far, 20 metropolitan areas have effectively ended veteran homelessness, including Albany, Houston, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Salt Lake City. Virginia is the first state to achieve 100% housing for its veterans.

While the President’s goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015 was not reached – 48,000 veterans remained homeless as of November – the trend is encouraging, down each year since 2010. At the same time as the New Orleans announcement, HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs made available $65,000,000 in rental assistance. Since 2010, HUD vouchers and VA programs have assisted around 230,000 homeless veterans and their families.

Housing First
One of the most encouraging initiatives is known as Housing First, and it runs counter to many traditional social service theories. In the past, to qualify for housing assistance, veterans first had to be successfully treated for substance abuse and/or mental/emotional problems. Says HUD Secretary Julian Castro: “Housing First means we don’t make people jump through hoop after hoop to prove they can have a safe place to live. We give them the safe housing right away and then work with the VA to get them back on their feet. It’s a model that really works.”

This testimonial is confirmed by numerous local experts.

“It’s critical,” says Patrick Sheridan. “From the standpoint of positive impact on lives, we think it’s been very successful.”

“Absolutely, yes,” says Mary Tingerthal. “We’ve had very good results.”

“Housing First has great value in recognizing the importance of a stabilized living situation in dealing with personal problems,” says Gary Busiek, Divisional Social Services Director for the Salvation Army in St. Louis.

Since 2008, HUD and the VA have partnered in the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program (HUD-VASH) that combines Housing Choice Voucher rental assistance with case management and clinical services, provided at VA medical centers and community-based outreach facilities. It was designed to identify and aid the most vulnerable and chronically homeless veterans. The program impacts about 50,000 of them and vouchers are allocated based on a combination of measured need in individual communities and the administrative performance records of the public housing agency in each of those locations. There is at least one local program operating in each of the 50 states, plus D.C., Puerto Rico and Guam. Michelle Obama has been outspoken in urging landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers from veterans.

The limitation of HUD-VASH is characterized by Busiek: “VASH presents a number of challenges. One is maintaining occupancy, and another is the challenge of available resources. We’ve found that these programs work best with a great deal of wrap-around supportive services. We, as a country, government and VA, have to supply more resources for supportive services, and place the same level of commitment on them that we do for housing itself.”

SSVF
Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) helps out low-income families who are in or transitioning to permanent housing. Funds are granted to private nonprofits and other community partnerships. “We probably have the most SSVF contracts in the country,” says Sheridan. “It’s meant to be transitional, to help families get stabilized. Project- and tenant-based VASH and SSVF have all made a positive difference.” In January, the VA announced the availability of up to $300,000,000 in grants to nonprofits providing SSVF services.

Another critical piece of the puzzle in some regions is the Enhanced-Use Lease program, whereby underutilized VA-owned land is leased to the private sector for veterans housing. “There were some questions at the beginning, such as, what was the selection process, and how do you lease land from the VA and use the tax credit structure?” Sheridan states. “But I really have to give kudos to the VA for working with us and other project sponsors, trying to make the process work.”

State Efforts
Minnesota has made broad use of Enhanced-Lease. For example, the Upper Post Veterans Community at Fort Snelling, an outpost dating back to the Indian Wars, located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, has 58 units of affordable housing and is only one light rail stop from the VA Medical Center, an essential VASH feature. It was built using both Low-Income Housing and Historic Tax Credits. Other such facilities are close to or adjacent to VA medical centers in St. Cloud and St. Paul.

Veterans For Tomorrow in Rhode Island is pursuing similar strategies throughout the small state. The Blackstone Valley Development Corporation, for example, converted a historic mill in providence into VASH voucher housing using 4% LIHTCs, federal Historic Credits and tax-exempt bonds. Other states have similar projects underway.

One thing all of the experts agree on is the need for additional resources to complete the veteran homelessness agenda. “There has been a fair amount of permanent funding,” observes Sheridan. “The question is: Is it enough? Homelessness is always a moving target.”

“You hear folks from the U.S. Council on Homelessness saying that we’re really about making homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring,” comments Tingerthal. Based on her experience, her three suggestions for other states are organized interagency cooperation that includes corporations and the philanthropic community; a veterans registry; and, simply, “We have to keep building more housing.” Sheridan and Busiek stress the need to maintain supportive services.

As Secretary Castro put it, “Despite the positive strides our nation has made, I know that we have a long way to go before we can end homelessness for good.”

That sentiment is echoed by committed developers. Richard Baron is founder and Chairman of McCormack Baron Salazar, one of the nation’s leaders in affordable housing and urban rebuilding and reuse. While he has high praise for the “superb” job the nonprofits have done, he says the government’s efforts have been fragmented. “The amount of veterans’ housing that has been generated has not, in any way, met the need. Like every other phase of affordable housing, not enough is being done.”

Baron is firm in his conviction that a much more focused capital investment is necessary from the government, as well as a focal point of action. “There’s no lack of interest,” he notes, “But HUD or the VA’s ability to do anything is a function of congressional appropriation. So far, it’s all been chipping away at the edges with a program here and another one there. Right now there is no clear program. You have to set out a goal, streamline the process and, say, ‘This is who’s in charge and these are the resources.’ If there is a hurricane, we know that FEMA drives the recovery; they are the focal point. We don’t have that for veterans housing.”

He would like to see an efficient process of nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies like his working together with adequate government support and cites his Conway Residence in Washington, D.C. as an example of the challenges. The architecturally striking mixed-income apartment includes permanent supportive housing for veterans exiting homelessness in addition to other affordable and low-income units. Financing the $33 million cost included LIHTC equity, tax-exempt bonds, Federal HOME funds provided through the DC Department of Housing and Community Development, support from the DC Housing Finance Agency and Department of General Services, several banks and four major foundations. “The layered financing to make these deals work is much too complicated. It’s not realistic to answer the need. It took us four years to build 124 units.”

So, while the task remains unfinished, those on the front lines are generally praising the HUD and VA efforts. And despite the political capital some of the current presidential candidates (not one of whom served in the military) are trying to generate, just about everyone actually involved in the housing effort wants to keep this nonpartisan.

Sharing the podium with Mayor Landrieu in New Orleans that day last April, Mrs. Obama summed up the nonpartisan commitment she and the President expected from the nation: “I think we can all agree that when our veterans risk their lives for this country and come home kissing the ground, none of them should ever have to sleep on it.”