Statement for the Record of the
Senate Appropriations Committee,

Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life

and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies

FY 2007 Appropriations for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

--February 2006

Introduction

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans appreciates the opportunity to submit recommendations on FY 2007 appropriations for and program management issues related to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

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 the states and territories 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 veterans’ benefit advocacy.

The VA estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night; more than 400,000 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 1.3 times more likely to become homeless than their non-veteran counterparts, and female veterans are 3.6 times more likely to become homeless than 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, including 634,000 living below 50 percent of 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 400,000 veterans experiencing homelessness at some time during a year and the VA reaching only 25 percent of those in need, 300,000 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 Recommendations

Congress has established a small set of programs to address homelessness among veterans. The bulk of these programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.  Collectively, they are identified as VA’s “specialized homeless programs” and include medical care, domiciliary care, transitional housing, and supportive services centers. The programs reside within the Mental Health Service of the Veterans’ Health Administration. Total spending on VA specialized homeless programs amounted to $182 million in FY 2005 and is estimated to reach $224 million in FY 2006. The Department projects FY 2007 spending on VA homeless programs to reach $244 million, should Congress accept the President’s budget request.

The landmark Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-95) established new program authorities and reauthorized 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 medical services account, which are appropriated by Congress.

We request that the Subcommittee ensure sufficient funds are included in the FY 2007 VA budget for the Department’s homeless programs.  Further we urge the Subcommittee to include specific instructions in bill language or report language directing the Secretary to allocate specific funding amounts from the VA medical services appropriation to the following VA homeless programs:

• $130 million for the Homeless Provider Grant and Per Diem program, the authorized level recommended by VA and approved by the U.S. Senate in 2005. The GPD program provides competitive grants to community-based, faith-based, and public organizations to offer transitional housing or service centers for homeless veterans. A $130 million authorization level would permit the establishment of 10,000 transitional housing beds.
• $51 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 67,000 homeless veterans annually.
• $72 million for Domiciliary Residential Rehabilitation and Treatment Programs (DRRTP).  This level of funding would enable VA to continue to support 43 DRRTPs across the country that provide residential rehabilitation supports through 2,241 operational beds benefiting approximately 5,500 veterans annually.
• $11 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.
• $5 million for a demonstration grant program for homeless veterans with special needs, including frail elderly, terminally ill, chronically mentally ill, and women homeless veterans.
• $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.
• $1 million for technical assistance grants for nonprofit community-based groups, the authorized level approved by the U.S. Senate in 2005 and supported by VA.
• $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 to more than 8,000 veterans.  VA reports that 75 percent of veterans provided residential services through either a GPD grantee or a DRRTP were either independently housed or moved to another residential program at discharge.  58 percent of those discharged were employed or participating in Compensated Work Therapy.  A VA-conducted follow-up assessing the outcome of these same programs founded that 80 percent of veteran residents were still housed 12 months after discharge.

An increase of the GPD allocation from its current $77 million to the proposed authorization level of $130 million would enable VA to provide a bridge from homelessness to long-term rehabilitation and permanent housing for even more homeless veterans.  We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2007 VA appropriations measure urging the Secretary to allocate VA appropriations to the GPD program at the $130 million authorization level requested by VA and approved by the U.S. Senate in 2005.

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 2007 VA appropriations measure urging the Secretary to allocate VA appropriations to the homeless veteran service provider TA program at the $1 million projected authorization level approved by the U.S. Senate in 2005.

Veterans Affairs Program Management Recommendations

GPD Per Diem Payments—Among Congress’s intent when it adopted the Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act (P.L. 107-95) was to simplify the process for paying GPD grantees.  Regrettably, VA is requiring GPD grantees to submit extensive documentation on all of their sources of project funding in order to secure per diem payments at the maximum rate permitted by statute (which is the rate authorized for State homes for domiciliary care), straining grantees and VA alike. This requirement basically hamstrings providers from using their other funds as leverage, and instead forces them to use them as subsidy.

In addition, grantees report a burden in preparing the documentation VA requires to negotiate the rate. Despite grantee appeals for intercession and Congressional intervention on a situation-by-situation basis, VA has done nothing to change its negotiating posture around GPD payments.  Accordingly, we urge the Subcommittee to include specific instructions in report language directing the Secretary to pay GPD grantees per diem payments without adjustments. Furthermore, we urge the Subcommittee to require the Department to prepare a report on GPD per diem payment rates, including the range of rates, average rate, median rate, and number of grantees and percentage of total grantees that receive the full per diem payment level authorized by statute.

VA Homeless Programs Specific Purpose Account—Presently Congress plays an extremely limited role in determining funding levels for medical programs within VA, including the Department’s specialized homeless programs.  Funding for veterans medical care is appropriated in aggregate to four accounts (medical services, medical administration, medical facilities, prosthetics and medical research), from which the VA Secretary allocates the appropriated funds across VA health care networks and through the Department’s specific purpose programs.

Congress has routinely provided increased funding to VA for medical care.  Regrettably, these increases have not been distributed equitably among VA specific purpose programs.  Specialized homeless programs are among those that do not always receive their “fair share” of annual appropriations. The establishment of a specialized homeless program specific purpose account within the VA medical services appropriation would serve to ensure that specialized homeless programs receive any increase in VA appropriations in proportion to their costs within the overall VA medical care budget.

We urge the Subcommittee to include report language with the FY 2007 VA appropriations measure instructing the Secretary to establish a specialized homeless program specific purpose account within the VA medical services appropriation and ensure that of such sums appropriated annually for VA medical services, the greater of a fixed sum of $345,672,000 or 1.26 percent of the total medical services appropriation be reserved for specialized homeless programs.

VA should use funds within the homeless specific purpose sub-account to operate: the program of the Department known as Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans, comprehensive service programs (GPD) (Section 2011, Section 2012), outreach program (Section 2022), Health Care for Homeless Veterans (Section 2031); therapeutic transitional housing assistance (Section 2032), comprehensive services centers (Section 2033), CHALENG (Section 2034); administration of the loan guarantee for multifamily transitional housing program (Section 2051), grant program for homeless veterans with special needs (Section 2061), technical assistance grants for nonprofit community based groups (Section 2064), annual report (Section 2065), advisory committee on homeless veterans (Section 2066), the program of the Department known as Stand Downs, evaluation centers for homeless veterans programs, and any additional specialized homeless programs designated by the Secretary.

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 quite active in participating in the VA’s Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process.

With an estimated 400,000 veterans homeless at some time during a year and the VA reaching only 25 percent of those in need, 300,000 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 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 were pleased that the CARES 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 have been 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 2007 VA 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 veteran.
• 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.
• 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.

GAO Study of Low-Income Veterans’ Permanent Housing Needs

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. Congress has taken initial steps in this regard by including language within the report to accompany the final FY 2006 military construction and veterans’ affairs appropriations measure requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study on housing assistance to low-income veterans.  The study is due in spring 2006, but we have heard nothing about its progress. We urge the Subcommittee to ensure the GAO’s timely completion of this required study.

Conclusion

back to top