Opening Statement at the VA Summit to End Veteran Homelessness

John Driscoll, NCHV President and CEO
Nov. 3, 2009

On March 23 of this year, President Barack Obama walked into the national headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs and, while unveiling his first VA budget, made this statement:

"With this budget, we … provide new help for homeless veterans, because those heroes have a home – it's the country they served, the United States of America. And until we reach a day when not a single veteran sleeps on our nation's streets, our work remains unfinished."

I remember where I was and what I was doing when I first heard those words. And I remember being overwhelmed by the sense that we were witnessing a special moment in our nation’s history.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans – perhaps better than any organization in America – understood the magnitude and magnificence of what the President had just said.

For 20 years, NCHV has represented the community- and faith-based organizations serving homeless veterans across the country. I have had the rare privilege of participating in our work for nearly half that time.

Throughout our history, we have regarded our partnerships with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Labor as a sacred trust. These are the agencies that first acknowledged there were far too many veterans among the nation’s citizens living on the streets.

In 1990, the VA Grant and Per Diem Program and Department of Labor Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program were the only federal programs in place to offer support to these men and women – our nation’s former guardians. 

Both programs were brand spanking new and seriously under-funded, but they were the seeds of hope for the 16 community-based organizations that formed NCHV.

For the next 10 years, we worked with VA, Labor and the Congress to build up those programs, armed with little more than the full measure of our devotion to serve our fellow veterans in crisis.

Then, something of a miracle happened …

In 1999, The Urban Institute and still-young Interagency Council on Homelessness presented the results of the first comprehensive study on homelessness in U.S. history.

Their work – and the results it produced – shocked the nation …

Their study found that nearly one-fourth of the nation’s homeless population were veterans – and one of every three homeless men had served in a military uniform. In fact, the closer one looked, the more disturbing the truth became.

• Nearly 85 percent of these veterans had honorable discharges.
  
  
• 65 percent had served in the military for more than three years.
  
  
• They were more educated than their non-veteran contemporaries.
  
  
• Up to 75 percent had serious mental illnesses, substance abuse issues or co-occurring disorders.

It’s important to reflect for a moment on the history of the homeless veteran assistance movement NCHV represents because it speaks volumes about why we are assembled in this room … and the reasonableness of VA Secretary Shinseki’s ambitious vision of ending veteran homelessness in five years.

I also remember when I first heard those words. I wanted to shake his hand, give him a veteran’s embrace and, borrowing a line from the American cinema classic Jaws, tell him softly, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.”

As I look at the team gathered here today, I can see he found one.

I have been asked many times since the Secretary first mentioned this noble campaign, can it be done? Can we really end veteran homelessness in five years?

And I am humbled by how clearly I see the promise … 

In just the time I’ve been with NCHV – nine years – the VA has quadrupled its investment in the Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program from slightly more than 120 programs to nearly 500 across the country.

The Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program has more than tripled in capacity to serve homeless veterans, and has become one of the most successful employment assistance programs in the Department of Labor portfolio.

Under technical assistance grants and cooperative agreements with both those agencies, NCHV has provided program guidance, access to resources and vital communications to more than 1,600 community- and faith-based service providers from Seattle to Puerto Rico … from Maine to the island of Guam. 

Health Care for Homeless Veterans coordinators, women veteran coordinators and OEF/OIF specialists have been placed at virtually every VA medical center and most VA regional benefits offices.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development and VA have allocated 20,000 HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) vouchers to veterans with serious mental and physical disabilities, with another 10,000 expected to become available next year.

By our count, there are more than 3,500 points of access to assistance available to veterans today that did not exist 35 years ago when I came home from Vietnam.

So when I hear advocates and patriots express horror that veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are seeking help from VA and its community partners much sooner than Vietnam era veterans, I proudly remind them there wasn’t any place for Vietnam veterans to go when they needed help. Thank God we have turned the tide – and we have.

Five years ago, the VA CHALENG report estimated as many as 250,000 veterans slept on the streets of America each night. Today, that number stands at 131,000 – nearly a 50 percent reduction despite the fact the number of contact points in the CHALENG process has more than tripled during that time.

There currently 14 bills pending before the House of Representatives and the Senate that would have a direct impact on the delivery of services to homeless veterans and those at risk of becoming homeless – more than at any time in U.S. history.

I have testified before the Senate and provided statements for record to Congress on issues we dared not dream about just five short years ago – which, in historical terms, is like yesterday afternoon:

• Providing specialized support for homeless women veterans and single homeless veterans with dependent children
   
• Development of supportive housing for extremely low-income veterans who need some level of assistance to remain housed
   
• A build-out of the HUD-VA Supportive Housing Program – or HUD-VASH – to a level that would essentially end chronic veteran homelessness by the year 2014
   
• A significant expansion of employment assistance programs for homeless and unemployed veterans, including funds for child care and legal aid
   
• The development of a national call resource center manned 24/7 by trained specialists and counselors so that every call for help, whenever it is received, connects a veteran in crisis with the people who can help them
   
• Historic increases in the VA health services budget, and funding for veteran homelessness prevention initiatives that will strengthen the VA-community partnerships whose successes proclaim more eloquently than any of us …

Yes, we can do this …

I know to a certainty, because I have witnessed the miracles firsthand in communities all across America, that we as a nation have never been better prepared to embrace our warriors and their families … to accept the Secretary’s challenge, and the President’s call to finish the work we began 20 years ago. 

In closing, Mr. Secretary, and to all in this room whom I regard as heroes as surely as our nation’s founders:

We cannot end the private haunts of the men and women who have survived the numbing inhumanity of war. Indeed, all of us are destined to swim in our own personal seas of sorrow.

The great majority of us have learned, in our own time and in our own way, the wounds of war never truly heal. Rather they are endured and give special meaning to everything we achieve. 

And we cannot make whole again the men and women who sacrifice some measure of their lives in service to this country. We know that even with all our help, support and love, they must do that themselves.

But what we can do – what we are, in fact, doing – is to ensure that every man and woman who serves in our nation’s military, no matter how great their burdens, has the opportunity to stand proud and share in the blessings of the freedom and prosperity they served to protect.

As we move forward, NCHV is proud to stand with you. As I mentioned earlier, ours is a sacred trust. We were there in the beginning of the climb, and we’ll be there when we reach the summit.

On behalf of the veterans we all serve, I thank you for your service.

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