Statement for the Record of the Subcommittee on VA-HUD-Independent Agencies, Committee on Appropriations, on FY 2005 Appropriations for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies.

Introduction

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans appreciates the opportunity to submit recommendations on FY 2005 appropriations for and program management issues related to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH).

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), established in 1990, is a nonprofit organization with the mission of ending homelessness among veterans by shaping public policy, promoting collaboration, and building the capacity of service providers.  NCHV’s nearly 250 member organizations in 42 states and the District of Columbia provide housing and supportive services to homeless veterans and their families, such as street outreach, drop-in centers, emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, recuperative care, hospice care, food and clothing, primary health care, addiction and mental health services, employment supports, educational assistance, legal aid and benefit advocacy.

The VA estimates that more than 299,000 veterans are homeless on any given night; more than 500,000 experience homelessness over the course of a year.  Conservatively, one of every three homeless adult males sleeping in a doorway, alley, box, car, barn or other location not fit for human habitation in our urban, suburban, and rural communities has served our nation in the Armed Forces. Homeless veterans are mostly males (2 percent are females). 54 percent are people of color.  The vast majority are single, although service providers are reporting an increased number of veterans with children seeking their assistance.  45 percent have a mental illness.  50 percent have an addiction.

America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America, Afghanistan and Iraq.  47 percent of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam Era.  More than 67 percent served our nation for at least three years and 33 percent were stationed in a war zone.

Male veterans are twice as likely to become homeless as their non-veteran counterparts, and female veterans are about four times as likely to become homeless as their non-veteran counterparts.  Like their non-veteran counterparts, veterans are at high risk of homelessness due to extremely low or no income, dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing, and lack of access to health care.  In addition to these shared factors, a large number of at-risk veterans live with post traumatic stress disorders and addictions acquired during or exacerbated by their military service.  In addition, their family and social networks are fractured due to lengthy periods away from their communities of origin.  These problems are directly traceable to their experience in military service or to their return to civilian society without appropriate transitional supports.

Contrary to the perceptions that our nation’s veterans are well-supported, in fact many go without the services they require and are eligible to receive.  One and a half million veterans have incomes that fall below the federal poverty level.  Neither the VA, state or county departments of veteran affairs, nor community-based and faith-based service providers are adequately resourced to respond to these veterans’ health, housing and supportive services needs.  For example, the VA reports that its homeless treatment and community-based assistance network serves 100,000 veterans annually.  With an estimated 500,000 veterans experiencing homelessness at some time during the year and the VA reaching only 20 percent of those in need, 400,000 veterans remain without services from the department responsible for supporting them.  Likewise, other federal, state and local public agencies — notably housing and health departments — are not adequately responding to the housing, health care and supportive services needs of veterans.  Indeed, it appears that veterans fail to register as a target group for these agencies.

We urge Congress to make a public commitment and take immediate action to ensure access to housing, income and health security for those who have nobly served our nation.

Veterans Affairs Appropriations and Program Management Recommendations

Appropriations for VA Homeless Programs — The landmark Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-95) establishes new program authorities and reauthorizes long-standing homeless programs within the VA.  While the authorization law set explicit funding levels for many of the VA homeless programs and authorities, actual annual spending levels are set by the VA Secretary via allocation of funds from the VA health care account, which are appropriated by Congress.

We are extremely disappointed that the VA, in the three budget cycles since passage of P.L. 107-95, has neither implemented each of its provisions nor allocated funds from the VA health care account to the Department’s homeless programs at the levels authorized in the statute.

Accordingly, we request the Subcommittee to ensure that sufficient funds are included in the FY 2005 VA budget for the Department’s homeless programs.  Further we urge the Subcommittee to include specific instructions in bill language or report language (as appropriate) directing the Secretary to allocate specific funding amounts from the VA appropriation to the following VA homeless programs:

• $75 million for the Homeless Provider Grant and Per Diem program, the FY 2005 level authorized by P.L. 107-95.  The GPD program provides competitive grants to community-based, faith-based and public organizations to offer transitional housing or service centers for homeless veterans.
• $45 million for the Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) program.  This level of funding would enable VA to continue to support 134 existing HCHV teams across the country that provide targeted outreach, medical treatment and referral services to homeless veterans.
• $51 million for the Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans (DCHV) program.  This level of funding would enable VA to continue to support 35 existing DCHVs across the country that provide residential rehabilitation supports to homeless veterans.
• $10 million for the purpose of expanding domiciliary care capacity (either directly or via contract with nonprofit homeless veteran service providers), the total level authorized for DCHV expansion in FY 2003 and FY 2004.  VA did not exercise this authority in either fiscal year.
• $10 million for Compensated Work Therapy and CWT/Therapeutic Residences.  This level of funding would enable VA to continue to support existing CWT and CWT/TR activities.
• $6 million for the VA staffing component of the HUD-VASH program.  Under this program VA disburses Housing Choice Vouchers and provides case management services to 1,780 chronically homeless veterans.
• $5 million for a demonstration grant program for homeless veterans with special needs, the FY 2005 level authorized by P.L. 107-95.
• $6 million to establish dental care services for certain homeless veterans, as authorized by P.L. 107-95.  The CBO estimate that accompanied P.L. 107-95 estimated this provision to cost $6 million annually.  VA implementation of this authority has been mixed.
• $750,000 for technical assistance grants for nonprofit community-based groups, the FY 2005 level authorized by P.L. 107-95.
• $500 million increase over the FY 2004 level of VA spending on mental health and substance abuse care, in part to implement provisions of P.L. 107-95 requiring the VA to ensure that each primary care facility of the Department develops and carries out plans to provide mental health services and substance abuse services.
• $27 million for additional comprehensive homeless service centers, as authorized in P.L. 107-95.  The CBO estimate that accompanied P.L. 107-95 estimated this provision to cost $27 million annually.

Of the programs and authorities above, we call special attention to our recommendations for the Homeless Provider Grant and Per Diem program and the Homeless Veteran Service Provider Technical Assistance program, as these are most germane to the community-based, faith-based and local public organizations we represent.

The Homeless Provider Grant and Per Diem Program provides competitive grants to community-based, faith-based, and public organizations to offer transitional housing or service centers for homeless veterans.  The GPD program is an essential component of the VA’s continuum of care for homeless veterans, assuring the availability of social services, employment supports and direct treatment or referral to medical treatment.  VA reports that in FY 2002, GPD grantees provided 11,013 “episodes of care” at an average 85 days length of stay per episode — and at an average cost of only $1,674 per episode.  Using this figure, an increase of the GPD allocation from its current $70 million to its full authorized level would enable VA to provide a bridge from homelessness to long-term rehabilitation or permanent housing for 3,345 more homeless veterans.  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2005 VA-HUD appropriations measure urging the Secretary to allocate VA appropriations to the GPD program at the $75 million authorized level.

The Homeless Veteran Service Provider Technical Assistance Program makes competitive grants to organizations with expertise in preparing grant applications to provide technical assistance to nonprofit community-based and faith-based groups with experience in providing assistance to homeless veterans in order to assist such groups in applying for homeless veterans grants and other grants addressing problems of homeless veterans.  Community-based and faith-based organizations serving homeless veterans rely on a complex set of funding and service delivery streams with multiple agencies in order to assemble comprehensive housing and supportive services.  These providers face a capacity gap around managing this complexity.  We are proud to have successfully competed for funding under this program.  We believe we have been effective stewards of the TA funds and look forward to participating in future competitions. We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2005 VA-HUD appropriations measure urging the Secretary to allocate VA appropriations to the homeless veteran service provider TA program at the $750,000 authorized level.

Capital Asset Realignment (CARES) — We are committed to assisting the men and women who have served our nation in the military in accessing adequate nutrition; decent shelter; safe, affordable, and permanent housing; health care; and employment assistance or income supports.  With that goal in mind, we work to ensure that organizations, agencies and groups desiring to assist veterans with these most fundamental human needs secure the public and private resources, including capital assets, necessary to provide opportunities and supports to them.  Hence we were and remain quite active in participating in the VA’s Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process.

With an estimated 500,000 veterans homeless at some time during the year and the VA reaching only 20 percent of those in need, 400,000 veterans remain without services from the department responsible for supporting them.  In the meantime, numerous VA properties sit vacant or underutilized.  We had hoped that the CARES process would have been the moment when homeless veteran needs could be finally aligned with VA property availability, thus making a major stride toward ending homelessness for our nation’s veterans.  In particular, we had hoped that the process would have elicited from the VA a commitment to fully implement the McKinney-Vento Title V (surplus property) program.  Sadly, the Draft National CARES plan submitted by the Department to the CARES Commission failed to articulate a coherent national plan to deploy its capital assets to maximize housing and supportive services opportunities for homeless veterans, and further, neglected to even reference the McKinney-Vento Title V program.

We are pleased that the Commission surfaced our concern in its final report to the Secretary.  The Commission recommended that “any study involving excess or surplus property should consider all options for divestiture, including outright sale, transfer to another public entity, and a reformed EUL process.  VA should also consider using vacant space to provide supportive services to homeless veterans” (p. 3-33).

While the Commission recommends a helpful first step, we are urging the Department to be even more vigorous in ensuring that vacant or underutilized VA properties are first made available to organizations serving those in greatest need rather than continuing to gather dust or being converted to commercial purposes.  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2005 VA-HUD appropriations measure urging the Secretary to take the following actions with regard to management of capital assets:

• Issue a Department-wide directive that articulates that surplus, excess, unutilized or underutilized VA properties shall first be made available on a no-cost or lowest-cost basis to nonprofit or public organizations responding to the human needs of veterans (and low-income persons in general secondarily), with a preference for organizations experienced in serving homeless veterans;
• Establish as a Departmental goal the establishment of at least 50,000 additional supportive housing units for homeless veterans on VA property and instruct VISNs to develop concrete action plans for reaching this goal;
• Instruct VISNs to identify and advertise properties currently or potentially suitable and available for disposition under the McKinney-Vento Title V program;
• Instruct VISNs to use the Title V criteria for determining suitability for homeless uses when conducting these property assessments; and
• Take action to ensure the Department’s full compliance with the Title V program; prepare an analysis of VA property acquisition and disposition statutes, regulations and policy guidance, and their intersection with the Title V program; and recommend or adopt any changes needed in order for the VA to fully participate in the Title V program.

HUD Appropriations and Program Management Recommendations

Appropriations for HUD-VASH — The Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program provides permanent housing subsidies and case management services to homeless veterans with mental and addictive disorders.  VA screens homeless veterans for program eligibility and provides case management services to enrollees.  HUD allocates rental subsidies from its Housing Choice Voucher program to the VA, which then distributes them to the enrollees.  Rigorous evaluation of the program conducted by the VA’s Northeast Program Evaluation Center (NEPEC) indicates that HUD-VASH significantly reduces days of homelessness for veterans plagued by mental and addictive disorders.  HUD currently allocates 1,780 housing choice vouchers under this program.

The Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-95) authorizes HUD to allocate 500 additional HUD-VASH vouchers to VA in each of FY 2003 through FY 2006.  Congress authorized the additional vouchers because those currently in circulation have been fully utilized by formerly homeless veterans, and only a small number become available each year to veterans who are now ready to resume living in the community.  Inexplicably, HUD has not requested funding for additional HUD-VASH vouchers in any of its past three budget submissions to Congress.  This failure is particularly perplexing given that the Administration, with Congressional support, has made a commitment to ending chronic homelessness.  Yet, the HUD-VASH program, which addresses the very population addressed by the chronic homeless initiative, remains frozen.

We urge the Subcommittee to include in the FY 2005 HUD appropriation at least $13.5 million explicitly for the HUD-VASH program.  This level of funding assumes an average annual cost per voucher of $7,000 and would sustain the current 1,780 HUD-VASH vouchers in circulation, fill the backlog of 1000 additional authorized vouchers that were not put into circulation in FY 2003 and FY 2004, and fund 500 additional HUD-VASH vouchers authorized for FY 2005.

Appropriations for HUD McKinney-Vento Programs — HUD McKinney-Vento programs (Emergency Shelter Grant, Supportive Housing, Shelter Plus Care, and Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy for Homeless Individuals) provide access to emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing, and support services for homeless people across the nation.  From a veteran perspective, HUD McKinney-Vento programs are especially important for financing housing and services that the VA itself is not authorized to offer (e.g., emergency shelter, permanent housing), services that VA is not authorized to delegate to nonprofit organizations (e.g., case management services), and health and supportive services to homeless veterans who live far from VA medical centers or outside the range of VA homeless outreach teams.  We urge the Subcommittee to include at least $1.8 billion for HUD McKinney-Vento programs in FY 2005 VA-HUD appropriations legislation.  In addition, we support the Administration’s request for the Samaritan Initiative, which includes a $50 million component for HUD and a $10 million component for VA.

HUD McKinney-Vento Program Management — HUD McKinney-Vento programs are the largest source of federal funding for emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing, and support services for homeless people.  Despite comprising between one-quarter and one-third of the homeless adult population overall, homeless veterans do not receive nearly that proportion of McKinney-Vento resources.  Homeless veterans are inadequately served by many general homeless assistance organizations because such agencies fail to identify veterans as they enter their programs and thus do not know to refer them to VA programs for which they may be eligible or to homeless veteran service providers with specialized expertise.  In addition, some regional and local homeless assistance planning bodies are not permitting homeless veteran service providers or VA representatives to participate meaningfully in their planning and priority setting processes.  Our efforts to persuade HUD to take action to ensure fairness in the allocation of resources for and focused attention to veterans experiencing homelessness have fallen on deaf ears.  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2005 appropriations measure urging the Secretary to issue HUD McKinney-Vento application or program guidance as follows:

• Require applicants for HUD McKinney-Vento homeless assistance funds to develop specific plans for housing and services to homeless veterans.  The veteran plans should inventory existing and proposed targeted homeless veteran programs in the service area; identify the unique housing and services needs of homeless veterans in the service area; outline a strategy for addressing services gaps; address how homeless assistance providers will screen housing and services users for military service experience; and describe processes for referring homeless veterans to VA or nonprofit homeless veteran service providers in the service area (if any exist).
• Require collaboration between continua of care established for the purpose of competing for HUD McKinney-Vento homeless assistance funds and Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education, and Networking Groups (CHALENGs) established by VA medical centers for the purpose of identifying and addressing unique needs of homeless veterans in their service areas.
• Require that continua of care established for the purpose of competing for HUD McKinney-Vento homeless assistance funds include at least one homeless veteran service provider, at least one homeless veteran, and representatives of the VA medical center(s) and Veterans Benefit Administration regional offices within the service area of the continuum.

Housing Assistance for Low-Income Veterans — While the federal government makes a sizeable investment in homeownership opportunities for veterans, there is no parallel national rental housing assistance program targeted to low-income veterans.  Veterans are not well-served through existing housing assistance programs due to their program designs.  Low-income veterans in and of themselves are not a priority population for subsidized housing assistance.  And HUD devotes minimal attention to the housing needs of low-income veterans, as exemplified by the long-standing vacancy in the position of special assistant for veterans programs within the Office of Community Planning and Development.  It is imperative that Congress elevate national attention to the housing assistance needs of our nation’s low-income veterans.  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2005 VA-HUD appropriations measure instructing the Secretary to:

• Conduct a quantitative and qualitative study of a representative sample of low-income veterans to determine the extent of housing insecurity among this population, including their barriers to rental housing assistance and homeownership and their past or current homelessness or risk for future homelessness.
• Amend the guidelines for public housing authority plans for public housing and Section 8 and consolidated plans to include veterans sections.  The new sections should identify veteran housing needs, priority veteran housing needs, and articulate a veteran housing strategy.  In addition, the guidelines should instruct jurisdictions to include veterans, veterans service organizations, homeless veteran service providers and VA representatives in the public participation processes used to develop the plans.
• Develop a guide for assisting low-income veterans in accessing federal, state and local housing assistance resources and services.
• Develop a guide for assisting veterans service organizations and homeless veteran service providers in accessing federal, state and local housing assistance funds, and housing and community development planning processes.   
• Fill the vacancy in the Special Assistant for Veterans Programs position within the Office of Community Planning and Development.

ICH Appropriations and Program Management Recommendations

We are pleased that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will assume the position of Chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness in April 2004.  This occasion provides a tremendous opportunity for the federal government to focus on the needs of homeless veterans that are best met through agencies other than the VA itself.  We have urged the VA Secretary to use his position as ICH Chair to focus on the following interagency efforts:  prevent future homelessness of separating service members (DOD, DOL, VA); ensure the housing security of low-income veterans (HUD, Ag); ensure homeless veteran and veteran service provider access to mainstream programs and funding streams (DOL, HHS, HUD); and deploy excess and surplus federal capital assets to best address the needs of homeless persons (DOD, VA, GSA, HUD, HHS).  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with its FY 2005 appropriation measure urging ICH to declare its 2004-2005 operating cycle as the “year for homeless veterans” and charging ICH to address homelessness prevention among separating service members, housing security of low-income veterans, veteran and veteran service provider access to mainstream resources and services, and government-wide capital asset management.  In addition, we urge the Subcommittee to include $1.5 million for ICH as requested by the Administration.

Conclusion

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans appreciates the opportunity to submit recommendations to Congress regarding the resources and activities of HUD, VA and ICH.  We look forward to continuing to work with the Appropriations Committee in ensuring that our federal government does everything within its grasp to prevent and end homelessness among our nation’s veterans.  They have served our nation well.  It is beyond time for us to repay the debt.

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