[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
COMBATING VETERAN HOMELESSNESS IN THE TAMPA BAY AREA
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-32
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
40-890 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
MARK TAKANO, California, Chairman
JULIA BROWNLEY, California DAVID P. ROE, Tenessee, Ranking
KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York Member
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania, Vice- GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
Chairman AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN,
MIKE LEVIN, California American Samoa
MAX ROSE, New York MIKE BOST, Illinois
CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
SUSIE LEE, Nevada JIM BANKS, Indiana
JOE CUNNINGHAM, South Carolina ANDY BARR, Kentucky
GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, JR., DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania
California STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota CHIP ROY, Texas
GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN, W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida
Northern Mariana Islands
COLIN Z. ALLRED, Texas
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
ANTHONY BRINDISI, New York
Ray Kelley, Democratic Staff Director
Jon Towers, Republican Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
MIKE LEVIN, California, Chairman
KATHLEEN M. RICE, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Ranking
ANTHONY BRINDISI, New York Member
CHRIS PAPPAS, New Hampshire JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia JIM BANKS, Indiana
SUSIE LEE, Nevada ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JOE CUNNINGHAM, South Carolina DANIEL MEUSER, Pennsylvania
Pursuant to clause 2(e)(4) of Rule XI of the Rules of the House, public
hearing records of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs are also
published in electronic form. The printed hearing record remains the
official version. Because electronic submissions are used to prepare
both printed and electronic versions of the hearing record, the process
of converting between various electronic formats may introduce
unintentional errors or omissions. Such occurrences are inherent in the
current publication process and should diminish as the process is
further refined.
C O N T E N T S
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Monday, September 16, 2019
Page
Combating Veteran Homelessness In The Tampa Bay Area............. 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Honorable Mike Levin, Chairman................................... 1
Honorable Gus M. Bilirakis, Ranking Member....................... 3
Honorable Ross Spano, Member, U.S. House of Representatives,
Florida 15th District.......................................... 6
WITNESSES
Mr. Joe D. Battle, Director, VA James A Haley Veterans' Hospital. 7
Prepared Statement........................................... 37
Mr. Danny Burgess, Executive Director, Florida Department of
Veterans Affairs............................................... 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 42
Mr. David Lambert, Chairman, Pasco County Housing Authority...... 11
Prepared Statement........................................... 48
Mr. Michael Raposa, Chief Executive Officer, St. Vincent DePaul
CARES.......................................................... 11
Prepared Statement........................................... 49
Mr. Brian Anderson, Founder and CEO, Veterans Alternative........ 13
Prepared Statement........................................... 50
Ms. Mary White, Veteran.......................................... 15
Prepared Statement........................................... 51
COMBATING VETERAN HOMELESSNESS IN THE TAMPA BAY AREA
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Monday September 16, 2019
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
U. S. House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:06 a.m., at
the West Pasco County Government Center, 8731 Citizens Drive,
New Port Richey, FL, Hon. Mike Levin [Chairman of the
Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Levin and Bilirakis.
Also present: Representative Spano.
OPENING STATEMENT OF MIKE LEVIN, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Levin. Good morning. I call this hearing to order.
I want to thank everybody for joining us today for the
House Veterans' Affairs Committee Economic Opportunity
Subcommittee. I am Mike Levin from Southern California, 49th
District, honored to be with you, honored to chair the Economic
Opportunity Subcommittee.
I am very excited to be here in New Port Richey with my
good friend, the Ranking Member, Gus Bilirakis, representing
the 12th District here in Florida. I am also happy to have our
friend Ross Spano from the 15th District here in Florida.
It is really a pleasure to get to work with my friend, the
Ranking Member, on veterans' issues. It is, I think, the one
area in Congress where we are working together across party
lines. And for everybody, I hope, if nothing else, you walk
away today knowing that we are trying to get things done for
our veterans, trying to give back to those who are serving and
those who have given so much for our freedom and our security.
Our Subcommittee addresses many of the key challenges
facing veterans such as housing and homelessness, transition
assistance, education, and job training programs. Today our
hearing is titled ``Combating Veteran Homelessness in the Tampa
Bay Area,'' and it is going to examine how Federal, state,
local, and nongovernmental resources are working to reduce
veteran homelessness. I can tell you, we just had a similar
hearing in my neck of the woods, in San Diego, California, and
I can already tell from my discussions this morning there are a
lot of issues that are very, very similar that we will be
discussing today.
I thank the Ranking Member for joining me in California a
couple of weeks ago to see the issues that we face there, and I
look forward to learning more about the issues here. I can
already tell things like trying to find enough affordable and
available housing for our veteran community is really critical.
The cost of housing might be a little different in California,
the tax system might be a little bit different in California,
but the issues are the same. I notice your gas prices are
pretty good.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Levin. I hope everybody knows that there is more going
on in Congress than you see on the cable news, and the work we
do on veterans' affairs doesn't always get covered but it is an
area where we are already making progress. I think we have
gotten something like 20 bills out of our Subcommittee,
something like that, and a lot of them are going to be signed
into law. A number of them have already been signed into law by
the President, and we are very, very grateful, everybody on the
Committee is very grateful for the opportunity to serve.
One of the things that we learned in our hearing last month
was that if we can prevent veterans from falling into
homelessness in the first place, as opposed to having to deal
with the issues surrounding homelessness, the cost is maybe
one-tenth for prevention as it is for actually dealing with the
acute problem. So that is something I want to keep in mind.
We also learned about the difficulty in actually counting
homeless veterans so we can focus our efforts and resources
where they are needed. There is some dispute over how that
count works. We heard ideas about how to better educate
servicemembers about Federal resources that will help them
avoid housing insecurity, specifically things like the HUD-VASH
program. A lot of people use SSDF, as well. I am really
excited. I think I can say this, right? That this week we are
going to be voting to reauthorize $380 million for SSDF, so I
am very excited about that.
We need to do more. We need to expand HUD-VASH so that it
provides assistance to more veterans. We need to improve data
collection, and we need to better share the data between the
Federal Government and local leaders, and we need to increase
Federal assistance to homeless veterans with children in
particular. We heard from a woman recently at one of our
hearings in D.C. that some mothers, veteran moms, single moms,
are worried that if they come forward and talk about the
services that they need, that they may be at risk of losing
their children. We have to make sure that we eliminate that
fear however possible.
We are only effective as members of Congress when we learn
from the experts, and that is why I am really grateful that you
are all here. I look forward to learning from you and hopefully
to continue the collaboration in the months and years ahead as
we try to craft public policy based on the actual needs on the
ground of the veterans in your community, the veterans in my
community and throughout the country.
And we have a couple of other great members.
I do need to say one technical thing. The lawyers, you
know, they make me say technical things. So I ask for unanimous
consent that any members of Congress present or that may appear
later, because we have invited a couple of others, may be
seated at the dais for the purpose of participating in this
congressional hearing. So, Ross, there you go; good stuff.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Levin. Second thing. With that, I would like to
introduce my dear friend, the Ranking Member of the House
Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity,
Florida's very own Gus Bilirakis.
OPENING STATEMENT OF GUS M. BILIRAKIS, RANKING MEMBER
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you, friends. Appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, welcome to California without the taxes.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bilirakis. It is a great place, and Pasco County is a
wonderful place to live, and I just want to thank all of you
for being here. We have the experts here, but there are experts
in the audience as well. It is just that we don't have enough
chairs for everyone to testify, but we will be available for
you after the hearing if you would like to come up to us.
I do have some prepared remarks, so I probably should stick
with them, and then we can hear from all these experts about
how to solve this issue because you are doing such a great job
here in Pasco County. But the entire congressional district, we
can do better. So we want to know what works and what doesn't
work, and we need to know how well these programs are doing so
we can continue the funding. But if they are not doing well,
let's put the funding elsewhere.
So, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you all for
joining us here for this field hearing of the Subcommittee on
Economic Opportunity of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.
Who says Republicans and Democrats don't get along? We work
together in a bipartisan fashion for true American heroes, and
I want to thank Chairman Levin. He has been outstanding. I am
telling you; they have been more than fair to me being in the
minority with regard to veterans' issues and getting veterans'
issues done.
So we are kind of a model for the rest of Congress, and
hopefully they are listening, and they are hearing us today
because these are non-partisan issues. They are American
issues.
My name is Gus Bilirakis. It is my pleasure not only to
serve as a congressman from the 12th Congressional District of
Florida--and, of course, we are here today in Pasco County--but
also to serve as the Ranking Member, the lead Republican, on
the Subcommittee.
I want to thank the Pasco County Government, the government
center, for providing the facilities to host this field
hearing, especially Vito Tomasco. Where is Vito? He is probably
working.
Vito, thank you so very much for what you have done.
Really, I know you have put a lot of hours into making this
happen, so we appreciate it very much.
And then also my colleague, as I said, Chairman Levin, for
being here and holding this field hearing. I had to get
permission from the Chairman to hold this hearing. I did go to
California, and we learned quite a bit. I never think it is a
difficult thing to come to Florida, Mr. Chairman, but I really
appreciate you being here.
And then Sheriff Nocco. I am not sure if Sheriff Nocco is
here yet. Oh, there he is.
Hi, Sheriff. Thank you so very much.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bilirakis. Thanks for keeping us safe, Sheriff. We
appreciate it so much.
Let's see, Dan Anderson from the Homeless Coalition.
I want to thank all of these people.
Steven Phears, who is representing Congressman Crist today.
As a matter of fact, I did call Congressman Crist a couple of
times. He probably has a conflict, but don't be surprised if he
shows up in the middle of the hearing, which is fine.
Katherine Starkey, Pasco County Commissioner. She is
coming, on her way.
And Jack Veriano.
I don't want to leave anyone out here.
And then, of course, Judge Shawn Crane. Shawn does a
wonderful job for our veterans, heading up the veterans' court
in this circuit. We appreciate you so very much.
All of you, you are veterans' advocates, you are selfless
as far as I am concerned. You know your priority is with our
heroes, and that is where my priority is as well.
It is great to work with a thoughtful legislator, again,
like Chairman Levin, on our continued goal to provide economic
opportunities for veterans. I thank him for traveling to our
community and hearing firsthand from Floridians on the issues
that our veterans face.
Let's just pause for a second, please, or more than a
second, to allow all the veterans to recognize themselves. If
you are a veteran, please raise your hand, or if you would like
to stand, if you are capable of standing, that is fine too.
Please, we need to honor you.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
service, again, to our country. It is an honor to represent you
in the United States Congress.
Before we begin, I want to point out members of my staff
standing in the back. We have a few.
Rob Leach. Where is Rob? Raise your hand, Rob. Rob is our
veterans outreach staffer. He does an outstanding job.
Obviously, he served in the Army as well. He was in the first
invasion of Iraq.
Joe Peters is here as well. Raise your hand, Joe. Joe can
help you with any case work you might have.
Our Chief of Staff might be running late, Elizabeth Hetos,
but she will be here.
And everyone knows Summer Robertson, who is our District
Director and our Deputy Chief of Staff. Raise your hand,
Summer. Thank you so very much.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bilirakis. Again, if you have any issues concerning
veterans, or anything to do with the Federal Government, please
don't hesitate to approach my staff. We will be happy to help
you out in any way we can. Please feel free to stop and ask any
questions you have. They work hard every day, again, for our
veterans in the 12th Congressional District to assist with VA
and Department of Defense-related issues.
Today we are here to examine and highlight programs and
benefits that help combat veteran homelessness. There has been
a significant amount of progress made nationwide in reducing
homelessness among veterans, but we still have much more work
to do.
Several municipalities have even eliminated veteran
homelessness altogether by obtaining functional zero, and we
will define that during the hearing. While this is good news,
as funding for homeless veteran programs in the Department of
Veterans Affairs and the Department of Labor have reached
record levels, we must ensure that we have a true picture of
how this money is being spent.
Last month we held a similar field hearing, as I said, on
veteran homelessness in Chairman Levin's district near San
Diego, California. One of the biggest issues facing homeless
programs in California is the lack of affordable housing and
the difficulties of building more of it. Sound familiar?
I am interested in finding out from our witnesses today how
high housing costs create major issues for homeless programs in
the Tampa Bay area and in Florida as a whole. While I believe
it is important to provide veterans with housing through the
VA's HUD-VASH housing voucher program, it is even more critical
for the long-term success of these veterans if they also
receive comprehensive wraparound services that help them find
meaningful employment. Do you agree? It is so important.
Without helping veterans find meaningful employment, we are
only providing them temporary housing and not setting them up
for positive long-term success.
I am grateful to our witnesses for giving us an opportunity
to hear directly from those on the ground in this fight against
veteran homelessness about what they believe works, doesn't
work, and how we in Congress can help combat this problem.
While we have had success in combating veteran homelessness
in our community, I know we all share the common goal to ensure
those who have worn the cloth of our country are never
homeless.
Once again, I thank the Chairman for holding this field
hearing in the 12th Congressional District, and before I yield
back, I wanted to thank Representative Spano, our neighbor here
in Hillsborough County, for being here today and caring for our
heroes.
So with that, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member.
Just to say something that hopefully you all realize,
Ranking Member Bilirakis is really one of the leaders in the
United States House of Representatives when it comes to
advocating for our veterans. You have a true national leader on
this issue, and I think everybody knows that, right? If you
don't, you have a great Member of Congress. We love our friend,
Gus Bilirakis.
With that, I would like to introduce another friend from
Florida's 15th District, Ross Spano, for his opening statement.
Thanks for being here.
OPENING STATEMENT OF ROSS SPANO
Mr. Spano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having
me, Chair Levin and Ranking Member Bilirakis. It is an honor to
be with you.
When I talked to the Ranking Member on the floor last week,
he made sure to remind me that he had invited me to be at this
event this morning, and as you probably are aware--you guys
certainly know this--we get so many invitations from all over
the place, but I immediately contacted my staff and said we are
going to move whatever we can move around so that we can at
least be there for the beginning of the hearing and show our
support for this effort, because it is an important one.
I do have the honor of representing Florida's 15th
Congressional District, and that is most of eastern
Hillsborough County and parts of Polk County and Lake County
over near Orlando. It is an honor to serve.
Very quickly, I just wanted to give a shout out to my
former colleague in the Florida House, Danny Burgess, who now
serves as Director of Florida's Department of Veterans Affairs.
It is good to see you, brother. I thank you for being here and
offering your testimony this morning.
I want to personally thank each and every one of the
veterans who are here this morning. Thank you for what you do
and have done. I am grateful, my family is grateful to you for
your service and your sacrifice. Thank you.
I am pleased to be co-sponsor of a number of veteran
support bills, one of which kind of falls right within the
wheelhouse of the hearing this morning, and that is H.R. 95. It
is the Homeless Veterans' Families Act. You may or may not know
about that bill, but it goes a long way toward ensuring that
the children of veterans have access to shelters and housing,
and I wanted to kind of give you an idea.
So currently, if you are a non-veteran homeless in the
United States, Federal funds will pay for each head in bed a
per diem to the service agency housing a family. However, if
you are a veteran homeless family, the VA's GPD program will
only pay for the cost of occupancy for the veteran but not for
the dependent family member. That doesn't seem to make a whole
lot of sense to me.
So what this has resulted in, unfortunately, is many GPD
providers not accepting homeless veterans with dependent
children, and that needs to change.
You have all heard the quote that freedom isn't free. That
is true in the sense that there is a great cost to defend
freedom emotionally in the sacrifices of health and life, but
also the understanding that we must devote our financial
resources as a Nation to support the men and women when they
come home to us. G.K. Chesterton once said that courage is
almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to
live taking the form of a readiness to die. So publicly,
nationally, we thank, and we honor the courage of our veterans,
and we demonstrate that gratitude by our actions when you
return home.
So I believe I speak for the entire Congress, and I know I
speak for the Committee, when I say that we now stand ready to
do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, to support you. So
thank you again. It is an honor to be here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Levin. Thank you for being here, Representative Spano.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. Well, we have a great panel, and we are going to
have, I think, plenty of time to dig into the issues with you,
just as we did, Mr. Ranking Member, back in California. My hope
is that we are informed, the work that we do in Washington is
informed by what you tell us today. I like to tell our local
constituents that my output as a legislator is only as good as
the input. So we need all the input we can get, and we have a
great panel. So I would like to introduce everybody.
First is Mr. Joe Battle, Director of the James A. Haley
Veterans Hospital. Thanks for being here, sir.
Mr. Danny Burgess, Executive Director of the Florida
Department of Veterans Affairs. Thank you so much for being
here and your service in Florida.
Mr. David Lambert, Chairman of the Pasco County Housing
Authority. Thanks for coming.
Mr. Michael Raposa, Chief Executive Officer of St. Vincent
DePaul CARES. Thanks for being here.
Mr. Brian Anderson, Founder and CEO of Veterans
Alternative. Thank you so much.
And Ms. Mary White, a formerly homeless veteran who served
the United States Army. We are deeply grateful for your being
here today to share your story with us.
As you know, you are going to have 5 minutes for an opening
statement. Then we will have time for questions. I think we
will have plenty of time for questions. Hopefully we will have
time for two rounds of questions. Your full statements, to the
extent you submitted written statements, will be added to the
record. Of course, we will welcome your comments and feedback,
and our dialogue doesn't just end here today. We need your
active participation in all the work that we are doing in
service of our veterans in the months and years ahead.
So with that, I would like to turn it to Mr. Battle. You
are recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JOE M. BATTLE
Mr. Battle. Thank you, sir. Good morning, Chairman Levin,
Ranking Member Bilirakis, and Representative Spano. Thank you
for the opportunity to speak before you today on the topic of
veteran homelessness.
Each area of the country brings unique challenges faced by
veterans at risk of experiencing homelessness. For those of you
who aren't familiar with the James A. Haley hospitals and
clinics, we are located in Tampa, Florida, with community-based
outpatient clinics in Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Polk
Counties. Haley is one of the five poly-trauma centers within
the VA system of care, and when combined with our 100-bed
Michael Bilirakis Spinal Cord Injury Center, it is the largest
Federal rehabilitation center in the country. In Fiscal Year
2018, we treated over 97,000 unique veterans and active-duty
patients, with almost 12,000 admissions and more than 1.4
million outpatient visits, of which 129,000 of those visits
were performed just down the road at the New Port Richey
outpatient clinic.
I firmly believe that to be successful, we need to be an
active partner in the communities we serve, and nowhere is that
more evident than in our mission to end veteran homelessness.
Through VA and our partners' efforts, homelessness among
veterans has reduced about 50 percent nationally from 2011 to
2019. Locally in our catchment area, it has reduced by more
than 70 percent during the same timeframe. Guided by the
principle of housing first and a goal of finding permanent
housing, HUD-VASH vouchers have been a key in providing homes
for these veterans.
We have accomplished these remarkable results to help meet
the need and challenges faced by homeless veterans through our
collaboration with our community partners, from local housing
authorities to veteran service organizations to faith-based
organizations, just to name a few. Haley has partnerships with
law enforcement and legal communities throughout our catchment
area. Staff provide outreach services in local jails to
justice-involved veterans. Individualized services are offered
with an effort to assist in discharge planning to prevent
homelessness upon release. The VGAO specialist staff work in
treatment courts with an effort to support justice-involved
veterans engaged in treatment services.
The priority of our Health Care for Homeless program is to
break the cycle of homelessness using a variety of community
resources which include permanent supportive housing programs,
transitional housing programs, prevention and diversion
programs, rapid re-housing programs, substance abuse treatment
programs, medical and mental health services, employment
services, and case management.
But most often it comes down to finding housing. At Haley,
we have 1,060 HUD-VASH vouchers available for use, and
currently 919 veterans are permanently housed using these
vouchers. Our staff connect homeless veterans to a variety of
services, including the HUD-VASH program, contract residential
services, grant per-diem programs, and have job programs such
as supportive services for veterans' families, rapid re-
housing, and homeless prevention.
The team manages a wide array of homeless veteran outreach
programs through street- and clinic-based services. I freely
admit we haven't eradicated homelessness as it continues to be
an issue in our catchment area, but we are a continuous
improvement organization, always striving to be better at what
we do and find innovative solutions to universal challenges.
The greatest challenge we face with housing veterans is the
rapid rise in rents throughout our area of operation. We are
working with Federal, state, and local partners to meet this
challenge and find innovative solutions.
The James A. Haley Veterans Hospital is committed to
providing high-quality care to our veterans that they have
earned and deserve. We will strive to continually improve
access to services to meet the needs of all veterans. We are
committed to working with our community partners to end
homelessness amongst veterans. We appreciate the opportunity to
appear before you today and the resources the Congress provides
the VA for our veterans.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony and I am prepared
to respond to any questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Joe M. Battle appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Battle.
Mr. Burgess, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF DANNY BURGESS
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Bilirakis, and Congressman Spano. It is truly an honor to be
able to present my testimony before this Committee today.
Welcome to Pasco County, proud to have you here.
FDVA seeks to address ways to provide the assistance the
veterans have earned and deserve by their service to the
Nation. As the newly appointed Executive Director for the State
of Florida for the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs, I
felt the need to look and find ways to address gaps in veteran
services and work together to solve some of the most crucial
and time-sensitive issues that face veterans today.
I am joined today by my Deputy Director, United States
Marine Corps Major General Retired James Hartsell, who is just
behind me to the back, and also a Pasco resident. We are so
very proud to have him on our team and have him with me today.
Together, our team and FDVA, we are scattered throughout the
state, and we led an initiative kicked off by Governor Ron
DeSantis called Forward March. FDVA hosted working groups in
this Forward March initiative in key communities across seven
regions of the State of Florida in a five-month period. Those
regions included Tampa, Pensacola, Jacksonville, Lake Worth and
West Palm Beach, Ocala, Miami, Cape Canaveral, and Sarasota.
Leadership from state, Federal, city, and county
municipalities, civic groups, church groups, veteran service
organizations, and anybody operating within that region that
has an ability to impact the veteran community were invited. I
would say collectively we touched over 1,000 leaders in the
veteran community throughout the State of Florida in this five-
month process, and this mission began on March 29th of 2019 and
continues to this day.
It is a combination of knowledge from leadership on the
state and local level, as well as the private sector, and these
groups and charities across the state, they address many
important topics, one of which, of course, we are here to
address today, which is the homelessness crisis amongst our
veteran community, veteran homelessness, and work groups
focused on the challenges, the impacts and gaps, best practices
and initiatives, and resources necessary to bring about change
to these existing conditions within these structures.
The results of these discussions across the state is that
there are a host of fragmented veteran services that augment
the Federal VA benefit system. That patchwork tends to be
locally focused, community oriented, and effective for its
regional population but often working in silos that are
separate and distinct and limited in their scope of focus.
Because they are local and inward, these groups face issues of
inadequate funding, lack of proper information dissemination
and sharing, lodging and subsistence inadequate resources for
outreach. So they are insular and must rely on benefits
coordination and mutual assistance and resource sharing, which
is one of the big things we gathered from Forward March, that
need for collaboration to help fill the gaps, open up lines of
communication and barriers, and everybody is marching to that
same beat of the drum and that same direction. That
collectivity and community-based effort will help resolve those
issues.
So we realize that we at FDVA can really become a true
conduit to try to help bridge those gaps and help connect all
these different resources and all these great organizations
that are doing so much good and help them work together to
combine their efforts.
As of August of this year, Florida has five counties and
three communities that declared functional zero for
homelessness. Those are Flagler County, Miami-Dade County, Ft.
Myers and Lee Counties, Punta Gorda, Charlotte County, Volusia,
and Daytona Beach. Homelessness among veterans in Florida, as
Mr. Battle mentioned before, has effectively been cut in half
from 2011, and a significant cause for this is because of the
national initiatives such as the HUD-VASH program. So we can't
thank you enough for your support and encouragement of those.
It is a very telling and significant decrease, but there is
still so much more we could do. The support clearly has not yet
ended or eradicated to functional zero veteran homelessness. We
have about an estimated 2,543 homeless veterans in Florida that
we know about. As we all know, some veterans do not want to be
identified. They may not want to come out of the woods, which
means we have to reach into those wraparound services and
provide that support for mental health and other community
care.
Employment is a critical issue. We have to work on
transition in employment to help them get better connected to
the skill trades that they had put into full effect in a
masterful way in the military. That is a keyway that we can do
this.
So the bottom line is we stand ready as an FDVA to assist
our local partners, our Federal partners, our members of
Congress on the legislative level, and we want to be a
resource, we want to be a conduit, we want to help connect dots
and raise awareness. What we found more than anything is that
the key is raising awareness, raising awareness to what is
available and what is out there. If veterans don't know, then
we won't be able to get them connected to those services. So we
need to be more proactive as an FDVA, get out of our foxhole,
and make sure that we are reaching those veterans who served
us.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for coming here. Ranking
Member, so proud to call you my congressman and my friend. It
is an honor to be here. Thank you, and we stand ready to answer
any questions that you may have. Appreciate your time.
[The prepared statement of Danny Burgess appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Burgess, appreciate that very
much.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Lambert for this opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF DAVID LAMBERT
Mr. Lambert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
Bilirakis, and Congressman Spano. I represent one agency who
works to combat veteran homelessness, along with other issues
related to homelessness in our community. Today I will
specifically speak to a local level, and I look forward to
answering any questions that you may have, especially on the
question of jobs as we move forward.
The Pasco County Housing Authority is the recipient of
Federal funds through the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. We receive VASH vouchers that are specifically for
veterans. Housing for veterans and others is extremely hard to
come by. So in our local area, there are no homes to be had, to
put a VASH voucher to.
The PCHA, in order to address this issue, we recently
purchased property to build a 78-unit veterans housing and
mental health housing community. While one would think that
progress has not been made and there is an extreme lack of
affordable housing in our area, in the case of the PCHA we
tried to get financing to build this new community. However,
banks would not lend to us, even though we are one of the best
agencies to help combat homelessness for families, even though
the VA and HUD approved project basing VASH vouchers, which
virtually guarantees the property would be successful, meaning
it would cash flow through the process.
We have met resistance at every level. This has been based
on the low funding from HUD through the Federal budget and our
balance sheet. Housing authorities are designed by nature to
have a very slim margin. We have been able to cobble together
approximately $2 million in funding, and we are seeking a
legislative budget request through working with our
representative, Mr. Burgess, to get funding to construct this
project.
We respectfully request the Federal Government create
regulations to do what you already have done in the housing
arena to allow banks to fund our projects even though we
operate on a low margin level, and to provide banking through
the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is
exactly what they are tasked to do and we have done in the past
in order to get local housing stock for veterans and folks with
mental illness.
Those are my comments, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of David Lambert appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Lambert. I know the Ranking
Member and I were writing notes down, so I am sure we are going
to have some follow-up regarding that project.
Now I would like to recognize Mr. Raposa for his opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RAPOSA
Mr. Raposa. I am really grateful for the opportunity to sit
before you, and I am incredibly grateful to Congressman
Bilirakis for his leadership in our area. Every community needs
a herald, and every community needs an advocate, and there is
no greater advocate than Gus Bilirakis for our community.
St. Vincent DePaul CARES is carrying out a 400-year
tradition that was set forth by our namesake in Paris, France,
and our worldwide role continues to be obliterating poverty on
the planet. Since 2012, St. Vincent DePaul CARES has been the
leader in many of the areas in ending veteran homelessness in
West Central County, including the counties of Pasco, Pinellas,
Hillsborough and Polk.
In 2018 we expanded our efforts to include the counties of
Citrus, Hernando, Sumter and Lake, and we are about to announce
that in 2019 we are going to be expanding our efforts to
Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Harding, Highlands, Henry Lee,
and Collier Counties. At this point, I need a helicopter.
When we embarked on the mission, the mere concept of ending
homelessness for any subpopulation was a dream that many felt
unrealistic. To that end, at one point I was summoned into a
local county administrator's office who requested that I stop
talking about it publicly because the commissioners of that
community thought that I was crazy.
I understood where he was coming from, because at that time
the number of veteran homeless was at 2,850, both on the street
and in shelters, and I am really pleased to say that the number
in that same county today is at 149. We have made significant
progress, much thanks to the congressional appropriations over
the years. And for that, we are really grateful.
The creation and the continuation of the Supportive
Services for Veteran Families program has completely
transformed homeless service delivery nationwide. The data
continue to show that the majority of veterans on the street
can be immediately moved into housing and, with wraparound
services, thrive. The length of time between being on the
street into housing has declined from nearly 180 days when we
began to just under 60 days today, not quite at the 30 where we
would like to be, but that is substantial progress.
In addition, the positive impact that SSVF has had on the
clients and the households served, the greatest impact has been
on our local communities. The program has proved that a
systematic approach to ending homelessness across our country
will produce a dramatic decline in the number of homeless.
In the Tampa Bay region alone, we have seen a dramatic
decline, as already recorded. Whereas within our community
there are some that are lagging behind, and there are some that
are not seeing the dramatic decrease. The numbers are stagnant,
or the numbers are on a slight increase. This has to do with
that system.
To that end, during the month of August, Pinellas County
saw the number of homeless families with children seeking
shelter and housing intervention at zero for four days. While
this may seem meager, you have to bear in mind the fact that
that number has been up over 200 at times, and we are making
great progress.
So the rapid access to affordable housing, supportive
stabilization services, community organization and
coordination, and strong advocacy for change have proven to be
the perfect combination.
The greatest obstacle that we have faced as a Nation is
that availability of affordable housing across the country. We
have to adapt our services to meet those needs, and I have some
real specific suggestions that I have put together in
conjunction with my friends at the VA.
The first is the need to expand the affordable housing
supply. VA's Enhanced Use Lease, EUL, program allows for the
development of housing on underutilized or unused VA
properties, but there are currently no capital funds associated
with this project. Allowing the EUL to offer both capital
resources as well as the ability to collaborate with the HUD-
VASH project-based one-stop procurement process, we would
eliminate the need for developers to seek out multiple
resources and operating assistance. This would help integrate
project-based HUD-VASH in EUL development.
And finally, we here in the State of Florida continue to
see the state's affordable housing trust fund being swept by
our state legislature. This is a huge problem for us, because
the resources are there, they were designated for that, and our
state legislature continues to move them in a different
direction. 2019 was the first time in many years that we saw
the Governor's Office and the Senate on the same page to
release an historic portion of that money, but the House did
not support it, and we desperately need your help with that.
When we get to the point of questions, I can offer some other
specific solutions to that, and I also hope that we will talk
about reaching an effective end of homelessness. Functional
zero was the definition that was set for one group, and the
effective end of homelessness is much more comprehensive and a
better alternative. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Michael Raposa appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Raposa, for your words.
I would now like to recognize Mr. Anderson for 5 minutes
for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF BRIAN ANDERSON
Mr. Anderson. Good Morning, Chairman Levin, Ranking Member
Bilirakis. My name is Brian Anderson. I am a medically retired
Green Beret, social worker, Founder and CEO of the Veterans
Alternative, and a Master's of Social Work candidate at
Columbia University with a focus on Social Enterprise
Administration. I truly appreciate the time given to speak on a
problem I am really familiar with.
I moved to Pasco County in 2012. At that time, Pasco and
Hillsborough Counties ranked in the top 10 for overall
homeless, and Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties ranked in the
top 10 for overall homeless. All three counties were rated as
small cities, counties, or continuums of care. Real change in
that area is not that significant, as the 2018 Point-In-Time
Counts reveals Pasco and Pinellas counties leading in several
homeless statistics, including veteran homelessness.
As valiant an effort as James A. Haley, Bay Pines, the
State of Florida, local municipalities, and nongovernment
organizations have made in the last seven years, homelessness
remains a major issue amongst our veteran population. Models
such as housing first have emerged as the leading evidenced-
based approach to ending homelessness, yet we lack the number
of beds needed, and unfortunately, we cannot build and fund
fast enough to keep up with the demand. This brings into focus
how we catalog homelessness, health care or societal, and the
approach in which we attack the issue.
By necessity, our country is shifting the focus of health
care from acute to preventive. You, our elected officials, have
played a major role in this shift, and it is evident in our
Veteran Health Administration. For the most part, at least in
the James A. Haley area of operation, a whole-health approach
is practiced and is increasing overall health and well-being of
the veterans served, but our approach to homelessness is still
acute, and that needs to change.
The health care shift articulates good health care as an
exercise in interdependency, yet our homeless programs focus on
reactive solutions and little on the preventive practices often
implemented by community wellness programs serving the
psychosocial needs in the population. Reactive solutions do
little in addressing the root cause of the problem, which was a
major topic in our Nation's discussion on health care
practices.
Homelessness is not the root cause. Rather, it is a
byproduct of several contributing factors, including mental
health, medical and economic hardship. These are being
addressed in standard practices of care, especially at the
state and Federal levels, but there is an element missing at
the community level, and it is prudent we address this by
allocating more resources to wellness programs addressing the
psychosocial needs of our veteran population.
These wellness programs are critical in reaching our most
isolated individuals who are often reluctant to engage services
through normal means of care, such as the Veterans Health
Administration. Community-based wellness programs are a crucial
part of the solution to prevent homelessness, suicide, and
risky behaviors from occurring, yet are often pacified as
``feel good'' services. It is time we start including
community-based nonprofits as a necessary part of overall
veteran care and prevention programs.
Many of these community-based nonprofits are providing
services alternative in nature, and include camaraderie as a
key component of programing. Numerous studies indicate the loss
of ``fictive kinship'' and the disconnect between veterans and
civilians as a major problem we face. Social isolation is a
significant concern among veterans from all generations,
including our transitioning veteran population, and is often
associated with homelessness, suicide and suicidal ideations,
risky behaviors, and use of drugs and alcohol. Veteran
nonprofit organizations providing alternative care often
utilize a model that includes peers in treatment in an
environment outside the standard medical model, and this
phenomenon needs to be researched, resourced, and replicated.
As the medical model would dictate, focus on treatments
rather than programs have emerged as the legislative test to
see what these nonprofits bring to our interdependent practice.
What started with the VA Committee as the COVER Act has been
replicated in the State of Florida. An extensive program
evaluation of alternative treatment options for veterans is
being implemented right now, and 12 of the 15 current
participants represent community-based nonprofits. It is
premature and under-resourced to hypothesize results on a
larger scale as it relates to homelessness, but our current
standard of practice is doing little to address prevention, and
these community-based veteran nonprofits providing wellness
programs are structured to prevent isolation, which is a
documented cause and result of homelessness, along with
suicidal ideations and risky behaviors.
If we can accept societal issues are man-made phenomena,
then we have the opportunity to change through our constructed
system of human interaction. We can end a systemic problem,
like veteran homelessness, through the very structures we
created or place value on, such as legislation, resources, and
approaches. So I beg you, for the health and well-being of my
fictive brothers and sisters, include wellness programs as a
part of prevention in the legislation you present and in the
resources you allocate. Thank you.
[Applause.]
[The prepared statement of Brian Anderson appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you for your service and for your words,
really appreciate your being here.
Now I would like to turn to Ms. White, and I would like to
thank you again. I had a chance to read your testimony. Thank
you for your courage to come and speak to us today, and
hopefully we can learn from your story both things that worked
and other things that can be improved.
So with that, I will turn it over to you for your opening
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MARY WHITE
Ms. White. Thank you for the opportunity.
I am an Army veteran. I am also a mother. I became a single
mother when my son was 1 and also found us to face a
financially burdened situation. At that point, we had become
homeless. We couch surfed for a little while before I learned
that the VA had programs to assist us. I started advocating for
myself, and that is how I was connected to HUD-VASH. Through
that process, I was able to also find community organizations
such as Saint Vincent DePaul's Supportive Services for Veterans
and Families, and Boley Centers' Federal Employment Grant that
offers assistance to homeless veterans.
Saint Vincent DePaul assisted us with finding suitable
housing and the other financial aspects of actually moving into
that apartment. Once we had suitable housing, HUD-VASH was able
to take over with a housing voucher and case management. Local
nonprofit organizations donated furniture, household goods, and
sometimes food. They even provided Christmas presents for my
son.
Due to having sustainable housing, I was able to go back to
school utilizing the G.I. Bill and Vocational Rehabilitation
Chapter 31 educational benefits. I performed my required
Master's Practicum at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center as a
social work intern. I graduated with my Master's in August of
2018. While attending school and working, I received a voucher
to defray childcare costs through the Early Learning Coalition,
which is a very limited resource in the community that HUD-VASH
was able to connect me with. Without childcare assistance, it
would have been virtually impossible to succeed. Many single
parents remain trapped in the system due to this barrier alone.
During this time, in addition to mental and medical health
care by the VA, I also worked with the VA's Compensated Work
Therapy program. I also worked with the Boley Centers' Homeless
Veterans Reintegration program, who assisted with my job
readiness and my resume. I continue to work with vocational
rehabilitation employment services and Career Source's veteran
employment services to find a job that will utilize my Master's
degree. I am currently an Employment Security Representative
for the Department of Economic Opportunity.
All these programs, for me, started with HUD-VASH. HUD-VASH
interlinks with a multitude of resources to assist homeless
veterans in connecting us to the needed resources. One resource
is the Pasco County Housing Authority. They enrolled me in the
Family Self-Sufficiency and Earned Income Disallowance
programs, which allow me to continue to work towards financial
security and independence. I am working with these resources to
meet my last treatment goal of incoming out of HUD-VASH and no
longer being eligible.
These programs and resources available to assist homeless
veterans are the reason I am where I am today. I am a single
mother with a Master's degree and working towards becoming a
Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I am able to support my family
and maintain a normal living environment for my son. I would
not be successful without the assistance of these programs and
organizations that assist the homeless veteran population.
Even with these resources, barriers remain a very big
reality for struggling veterans. Transportation is a very major
barrier. Public transportation in Pasco County is minimal,
rendering it almost impossible to maintain employment or school
attendance without a vehicle. The financial burden is
overwhelming and impossible for the homeless. I was blessed to
have a vehicle, but the fear of repossession was a reality.
When my car broke down and I could not afford repairs, I could
have easily been derailed. But HUD-VASH was able to connect me
to Wounded Warriors, who helped to pay for my car repairs. If
they hadn't, I would still be solely relying on these programs
for financial stability and security rather than phasing them
out. Without reliable transportation, veterans also remain
trapped in the system. There are very few resources to help
obtain and maintain transportation.
In Pasco County, there are no shelters or transitional
housing opportunities for women and children, and very limited
shelter beds for men. Without short-term housing solutions,
many never have the opportunity to seek permanent housing and
independence. Mental health and medical treatment are a very
real option once someone is stably housed in a program such as
HUD-VASH. However, no dental resources have resulted in major
medical concerns that derail progress towards independence.
I entered into HUD-VASH in 2016, and it has taken me just
under four years to get where I am today. I am still a veteran
receiving services through HUD-VASH, but I aim not to make it
to the 5th year. Instead of being a homeless veteran family, we
are on the path of becoming homeowners with full-time
employment and being completely self-sufficient.
The resources my son and I utilized are vital to one
another and were possible through various grants and programs
that the VA helped me access. I have personally witnessed both
sides of these programs, one as a client/recipient of the
services, but also while completing my internships at the Tampa
VA. I got to see the clinical and administrative side of the
programs. It is my goal to put my experiences to good use and
help other veterans navigate my path to help them meet their
goals as well. None of it would have been possible without the
funding Congress provides through Federal grants, HUD, and
educational benefits. Additional funding is needed for
emergency and transitional housing, transportation and
ancillary services that will ultimately save money, as more
veterans become self-sufficient and productive members of their
own communities.
[The prepared statement of Mary White appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Levin. Thank you so much, Ms. White.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. Very grateful.
So, as you can see, we have a really, really good panel
here, and we want to get right to questions, and I would like
to recognize myself for 5 minutes to begin the question portion
of the hearing, and then the Ranking Member will have 5
minutes, and we will probably have more questions after that.
Mr. Burgess, thanks for being here. You mentioned five
counties in Florida that have effectively ended homelessness
for the veteran population in Florida. You discussed the
definition, but I nonetheless commend you. Flagler County,
Volusia County, Lee County, Miami-Dade County, and Charlotte
County. I would really like for San Diego County to get there
as well.
What lessons can we learn from these areas to effectively
end veteran homelessness in other places, whether it be Tampa
or San Diego or elsewhere?
Mr. Burgess. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question. We
can learn a lot from their experiences and their successes.
What we have found and what we believe, to piggyback off of Mr.
Anderson's statement, is that these community-based
organizations are where everything lives and dies. They are the
boots on the ground. They are the ones that know the people
that are within their own communities and neighborhoods.
So we as a state and as a Federal Government, I believe we
need to look to them for not just an example but the way I see
our DVA playing a role in this is discovering what those areas
that you just identified as our functional zeroes in Florida,
what did they do right, what were their lessons learned, and
how can we replicate that statewide, how can we support them,
as opposed to reinventing the wheel at the next level of
government. How can we support our local communities, our local
organizations, and provide them the resources they need to take
that and have a broader brush, be able to apply that across a
wider spectrum, and still have that community-based
localization within each respective area that you wish to
expand to?
I believe that that same principle applies to suicide
prevention among veterans and many, many other crises that we
are facing when it comes to our veteran community.
Mr. Levin. Thank you very much.
Mr. Raposa, I am going to turn to you. We talked before
about the use of the term ``functional zero'' and perhaps the
need for a more realistic view. We have a real issue getting an
accurate count of the homeless, not just homeless veterans but
the homeless, period. The methodology of the point-in-time
count could be improved. The data is sometimes misleading. For
example, the survey doesn't include individuals who live in
cars or are couch surfing, which leads me to believe if there
is a better, more accurate way to capture a snapshot of all
homeless individuals.
I would like your comments on this, and specifically the
2018 point-in-time count of 281 homeless veterans in Pinellas
County, 186 homeless veterans in Pasco County. Do you think
that is accurate? And if not, how can we get a more accurate
depiction of the homeless veteran population in the Tampa Bay
area?
Mr. Raposa. So, I am going to deliberately choose not to
discuss the accuracy of it, because there are no two
communities in Tampa Bay that count the same way. I like the
pit count, just standing before the Eiffel Tower on the ledge
facing east with Notre Dame behind you and taking a picture of
the people who are standing there, and going back 12 months
later on the same day and taking the same photo. It is a
snapshot, and it is not an accurate portrayal, and it is not
scientific.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which
mandates the count, does not provide--provides zero direction
to local communities on how to determine that. It is really
easy to count with your eyes closed, and it is really easy to
count in areas where you know there are no veterans. We have
seen as a community in some areas, and not Pasco, that I am
making reference to, where law enforcement has gone out for 48
hours to the areas where they know the homeless have gathered
and antagonized them to the point where they have fled and
scattered, so that when they have gone back to do the count,
there was no one there. That, to me, is just not right.
I think that there needs to be--and I think the
administration, the staff at HUD and VA and the Department of
Labor, really need to take a hard look to provide some specific
structure and some specific guidelines.
A more accurate look at it is through the AR reporting. The
AR report is a methodology that HUD uses that every community
through the HMIS system uploads. It more tracks the flow of
homeless in the system the other 364 days of who is in shelter,
who has moved from shelter into permanent housing, who has
moved from shelter to the street, who has moved from shelter
and died, who has moved from shelter to jail, and all of those
transitions. I think that that is a healthier picture for us to
look at as a community, and we need to be able to take a look
away.
There are communities that are afraid to report and afraid
to count too well in the pit count because they are afraid,
they are going to lose money if the count shows things that are
too good.
If I may, I would like to talk about the difference between
functional zero and an effective end.
Mr. Levin. Please do. That would be great.
Mr. Raposa. Okay. Functional zero--
Mr. Levin [continued].--[inaudible].
Mr. Raposa. Well, it is not easy to explain in a few
seconds.
So, functional zero is a valid concept and one of the early
adopters and early leaders in this process of community
solutions in a nonprofit. However, as time went on and the
numbers started to show, many of the communities that declared
functional zero immediately rebounded with a number of homeless
on the street astronomically in the opposite direction.
What we have learned through VA and through HUD and through
partnerships with the local communities, continuums of care in
the local communities, is that a more systematic and a systemic
approach needs to be looked at. Your funding of the USICH, the
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, has been
mission critical to this process. They have released five
benchmarks that local communities need to be striving for. This
is a much more holistic approach. They are harder to obtain,
but once obtained, they are easier to manage.
Three of the counties in Florida that were mentioned of
having achieved functional zero are struggling to maintain it,
hence our expansion south, because if they did it again today,
in all likelihood they would not achieve it today because the
systemic approach was not developed.
The communities need to be able to identify all veterans
experiencing homelessness almost instantly, instant
identification. The clock starts ticking when we say hello, not
once you hit shelter, not anywhere else. Once you say hello and
someone in the system has seen you, the clock starts ticking.
We need to be able to provide shelter to any veteran that is
experiencing homelessness and who is unsheltered. You are
sitting in a community with no shelter beds, and our county
leadership who are sitting in this room have taken bullets to
try to put this in place for a local community that does not
want shelter, and they are amazing. I know Kathy Pierson is
sitting behind me. Amazing leaders in this, and it is very
difficult to get the community to embrace that need.
The community needs to be able to provide intensive
transitional housing, but only in limited instances. We have
used GPD and transitional housing too prolifically, and it is
only for four targeted populations where it actually works. It
is very expensive to put people into transitional housing.
And we need to be able to measure the capacity of the
community to move veterans into housing quickly, and put
benchmarks behind that.
And finally, we need to have the resources in place. The
community needs to have the resources in place to plan, to
build partnership, to look at a systemic capacity in this so
that any veteran that becomes homeless or is at risk of
becoming homeless can do that in the future.
The challenge with functional zero was that many thought it
was a one-time thing that you reached. You grab at the brass
ring, mission accomplished, and we move forward, and that is
not what the communities have seen, especially here in Florida
and in California. We are two target communities because of our
palm trees and our mild winters, and we see about a 23 percent
increase in homelessness in the wintertime. The community has
to be able to--it is a more fluid and a more organic approach
to this than just mere functional zero.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Raposa. We really appreciate
that.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. I would like to turn it over to Representative
Bilirakis for his first round of questions.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Raposa, thank you for your exceptional work on behalf
of our heroes, and I want to thank your organization as well.
Ms. White, I want to start off with Ms. White, if that is
okay. Ms. White, first of all, I want to thank you again. You
are an inspiration to all of us, to all of us.
Ms. White. Thank you.
Mr. Bilirakis. And we appreciate it so very much.
Let me ask this quickly. How many people do you know that
are a success story like you? How many would you say were in
your position?
Ms. White. I would honestly say not many.
Mr. Bilirakis. Not many? Okay.
Now I will ask this question. Thinking back, what was the
one thing that you wish had been made just a little bit easier
for you to reach your goal of self-sufficiency? I know you
mentioned transportation and childcare were challenges. But
what was the biggest hurdle that you faced?
Ms. White. The biggest hurdle would honestly be childcare.
Without that, I would have been stuck trying to find a part-
time job so that I could actually find someone to take care of
my child and afford it at the same time. I would essentially be
working to pay for childcare. I would never have been able to
go to school or even have a full-time job.
Mr. Bilirakis. Okay. Conversely, what was the program or
benefits that helped you the most, and what would your
recommendation be to Congress on how to expand and invest in
this program or benefit?
Ms. White. The program that probably helped me the most
would be HUD-VASH and the housing voucher. Without that, I
would probably still be couch surfing with my son. But
something that I think the program needs to expand on is the
full--as you can see from my story, there are a lot of
different programs that all interlink and work together. Unless
somebody specifically tells somebody--I am very good at
advocating for myself. But if somebody was not aware of all
these programs, some of them would never have been introduced
or explained to them, so they wouldn't have known how to
actually get some of these programs.
For instance, the Family Self-Sufficiency program through
housing, I was calling every day to find out what things I
could do to try to get more self-sufficient for myself and my
son, but I would never have been introduced to those programs
unless I hadn't actually extended my own hand to do it for
myself. So I just think that better communication between the
actual programs and referrals to one another would help a lot.
Mr. Bilirakis. Okay. And also, for the audience and all
veterans, please contact our office, our congressional office,
because we can refer you to those programs.
Public awareness is so very important. But let me ask you--
maybe I missed this. I know that you are an exceptional woman,
but how did you know to get in contact with the housing?
Ms. White. It was kind of a nonchalant--I was kind of
looking for a job, and I had come across one of the programs
online. I didn't know if our housing authority actually had it,
so I kind of called and found out.
Mr. Bilirakis. Okay. Thank you very much.
Ms. White. Thank you.
Mr. Bilirakis. I know we are going to have a couple of
rounds. Mr. Chairman, can I ask more--
Mr. Levin. Go ahead.
Mr. Bilirakis. Okay. This is for the entire panel, so we
will start with the Director of Haley. My good friend is doing
a good job, by the way, a very good job.
From your point of view at the local level, what is the one
message that I need to take back to Washington with me that
would make your job easier or would reduce homelessness among
veterans? And that is for the entire panel.
Mr. Battle. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman
Bilirakis. For me, what I am seeing from a big-picture
perspective, it is rapidly rising rents, and how can we adjust
HUD vouchers to be able to accommodate for rising rents in
different areas and having affordable housing, having a
mechanism. As the gentleman said, he couldn't get a bank to
loan money, and this is a project-based voucher project where
we provided vouchers to help support the pro forma for that
project. Apparently, it wasn't enough for them to get a loan.
So some way to have these projects where they could be
guaranteed, kind of like a VA home loan, if you will. But how
can these projects get guaranteed backing where they can get
funding to build more affordable housing, because the biggest
problem I am seeing in Florida overall is people are still
moving to Florida, they want to live in the state, and it is
driving rents up.
There was just an article in the newspaper on August 29th
about rapidly rising rents in this area of Florida. So anything
we can do to provide help with that.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good.
Dan?
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Ranking Member Bilirakis. I still
have to call you that. I will call you Gus after the meeting.
Mr. Bilirakis. All right.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Ranking Member. I would say that a
key takeaway from today's meeting that I would love for you to
take back to D.C. would be the need for enhanced transitional
programs for our servicemembers that are getting out of the
service. We do a really good job, I believe, in the military of
teaching servicemembers to put their uniforms on, but maybe not
as good of a job teaching them how to take it off. So I believe
it is absolutely mission critical that we have a more
structured, unified approach to that, as opposed to, say,--you
hear veterans say it all the time, the ``check the box'' type
of approach. I believe that there is the first line of defense;
not the only defense, of course. It is wraparound services, as
you mentioned, Ranking Member.
But we absolutely need to, I believe, do a better job of
helping servicemembers take that uniform off and find their new
purpose here in the civilian world and connect them to those
resources, connect them to those jobs, and I believe FDVA can
play a big part in that in being partners with our Federal
partners at the VA, and of course DoD and other initiatives, by
utilizing our veteran claims examiners, our VCEs, who are also
our outreach individuals who do excellent work, and making sure
that we are being more proactive here in the State of Florida,
as opposed to reactive when a veteran calls us, or maybe
finding ways that we can reach out to them and see if we can
help them get connected to their earned benefits and services,
as opposed to maybe years later somebody tapping them on the
shoulder and saying you should probably check in to see if you
are eligible for some benefits. That is an all-too-common
occurrence. So maybe we can help bridge that gap that way.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good, Captain Burgess.
[Applause.]
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Lambert. Congressman, I think one of the biggest
things--and our county has been very progressive. Kathy Pierson
has been excellent for us, and Dan Viles and our commission on
moving things forward. I can't say that enough, what a great
team, and we were certainly behind the eight ball.
But I would say this to the gentleman who oversees Haley:
it is access to capital, quite frankly, to build affordable
veteran housing units for families and for single people, folks
that are homeless. Just take a look at our project, and we will
build that project right now on Massachusetts Avenue. But banks
will not lend us money even though the county has put a million
dollars behind this project. Danny and I are working with our
legislative partners to try to get a $2 million budget request,
and we put about $1 million together for it. We have the
property; it is a PUD. But it is access to capital. Our balance
sheet is so low with HUD because we are not designed to make
money. We are designed to exist and to provide, try to provide
affordable housing communities for our most at-risk
populations. But because of that, we cannot get banks to
finance us for these types of communities.
So even though this project is going to be backed by HUD-
VASH and Section 11, I believe, homeless vouchers are vouchers
for folks with mental illness, we still can't get a bank to
lend us money, unless you go out to developers. By the way,
when you go out to those folks, get ready to add about 25
percent to the project cost. It will increase because they are
going to make money off this project. They are not in the
development business.
And that is a key component for us. We are taking on this
project to do it ourselves, but that is a key component to us,
to ensure that we have affordable housing so when the rents
rise within our market area, we can pretty much stay at or
below to continue to make sure that the VASH voucher in this
particular instance funds the project so it remains a viable
project, so it supports itself so we can make the improvements
that we need within the community. To me, that should be a
pretty simple thing to do because HUD has backed loans
historically to build housing communities across the country,
and they have transitioned out of building public housing and
things like that, which I don't think is a bad thing.
But why can't HUD--I believe that HUD should be able to
back these types of housing communities and provide oversight
of these housing communities when they back it to ensure that
they are viable and to ensure that they are maintained the way
that they need to be maintained, and to ensure that we can
increase veteran housing stock.
You have housing agencies that you fund all across the
country every day, the Tampa Housing Authority, places like
that. But if we can't build housing, then we have problems,
Congressman, and it is access to capital, especially when there
is a project like this that will easily cash flow. We shouldn't
be having a problem to get this project built.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much. We already came up with
an idea based on your testimony.
I will turn it to Mr. Raposa. What can I take back to
Washington with me so that we can make your job easier and help
our heroes?
Mr. Raposa. So, we might--in the backup to my testimony,
there is great specificity that I obviously couldn't get to in
my opening remarks. I want to tell you right now that if we
could convince the State of Florida to release the Sadowski
Trust Fund, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
[Applause.]
Mr. Raposa. We wouldn't need to have this conversation. Our
local health authorities wouldn't have to grovel to get the
money to fulfill the mission which they are funded to do, and
they are supposed to be doing, and the Federal Government
wouldn't have to come in and save us. We have the set-aside
money in Tallahassee. It is sitting in an account and being
used for purposes other than that which the voters put into
place for it.
I think that the greatest thing that we have going on right
now has to do with our ability to subsidize housing short term
and long term. An initiative under the Supportive Services for
Veteran Families program that is currently being piloted in 10
BOCs, and none of ours is one of them, has to do with child
subsidies. It would give the grantee the ability to take a
situation like Ms. White, who is really, really working hard,
working with the Department of Labor's Homeless Veteran
Integration program, to get an education, to get better job
training, to carry the subsidy that we currently offer them
from six months to nine months, to up to two years, and that
would allow greater stabilization in those families.
It is currently being piloted in 10 communities across the
United States. I think a large number of them are in
California, either in San Diego, L.A., or San Francisco, that
really do have a market issue there. But our veterans need more
time in the program to stabilize the economic situation of
their family. We are oftentimes struggling to get them to stand
on their feet in a matter of nine months or twelve months.
I think that if we can expand this--and we know that
everything happens as a pilot. But I think that if we can
expand this across the country or in areas where high demand
and rental issues are, I think that that would be something
that could be taken back.
I have already spoken to you about lowering the barrier for
HUD-VASH in allowing a little bit more wiggle room in who is
able to jump through the eye of that needle, and we have begun
the process of waivers in some of our communities to make those
vouchers available to more people. But I will tell you that the
landlord community and the free-market system is reluctant to
take a voucher of any kind to subsidize it because of the lack
of quality case management services that has happened in the
past, that that needs to be beefed up, because we are not
having an issue. St. Vincent DePaul is not having an issue in
re-housing people.
We have put 683 households from homelessness into housing
since October 1 of the current fiscal year, 683, all of which
are stable, and it is because of our relationship with the
landlords that we are able to do that.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much.
Mr. Anderson?
Mr. Anderson. Ranking Member Bilirakis, Chairman Levin, I
think it is pretty great that Danny kind of brought up
transition. On the transitional webpage, there are actually
five paragraphs about psychosocial well-being or mental health
care, behavioral health care. Inside the manual there are three
paragraphs about it.
Transition and wellness and psychosocial well-being don't
really pair. Instead, what we have done is we have taken
transition counseling and we have put it on the vet centers,
and the vet centers are not designed for transitional
counseling.
So we have this problem with wellness, but every single
place I go, and I travel a lot--I like to fly. Every single
place I go, I meet another organization that is providing
community-based wellness programs for veterans in that area,
yet we are not a part of the interdependent practice of serving
veterans. So it is only through VA grants, like the sports
grants and physical fitness grants, that you become part of
that. It is only through legislation passed at the state for
alternative treatment options for veterans that you become part
of that.
We are helping in the mental health/psychosocial area, and
I think these nonprofits that are across the United States
really need to be part of this game. They are interwoven into
our societies, and they need to have a bigger seat at the
table.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Let me add that the COVER Act,
Brian, which brings in alternative therapies into the VA, they
have just completed their work pretty much, and we have some
really good government agents. I asked them if they could give
me a hint as to what those recommendations might be. They said,
well, we will know in about a month, but it was very, very
positive. So I look forward to following up with legislation to
make sure that alternative therapies are available for all of
our veterans to access through the VA.
Ms. White, please? Again, what message--I know we touched
on this a little bit, but what message do you want to give me
and the Chairman to take back to Washington to see how we can
help you and others like you?
Ms. White. I would honestly love to see some of the
barriers--I know they won't get broken down, but I would love
to see some of them just minimized a little, such as the
transportation. It is just very hard to actually move up in the
world when you have no transportation to do it.
Another one would be--I know I have worked with homeless
veterans who have no teeth or no front teeth, or just a lot of
dental work that needs to be done, and it is a huge barrier for
employers when they go in for job seeking. So that is
definitely something that I would love to see touched on as
well.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good. Thank you so very much.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
I wanted to just, very briefly, address two of the topics
discussed to let you know kind of the lay of the land in
Washington on transition assistance. We actually passed in the
House earlier this year H.R. 2326. It is the William Mulder
Transition Assistance bill. It is named for a very good friend
of my colleague, Jodey Arrington, Republican from Texas. A good
friend of his, Bill Mulder, they went to high school together
and he served in Iraq and, of course, he took his own life. My
friend, Mr. Arrington, believes had he had better transition
assistance, that may have been prevented. So the bill is
designed to really ramp up transition assistance, including a
lot of off-days transition resources and grants for perhaps
places like Florida or California where they are trying to do
innovative things and have more collaborative relationships
between the community and the veteran service organizations in
those jurisdictions.
So that bill right now is in the Senate. We have been
working with our friends Johnny Isakson, Senator Isakson, and
the Ranking member, Jon Tester, to try to get that language
inserted in a package of veteran legislation that we are
hopeful will be voted on and will pass the Senate sometime by
the end of the year. That is what we hope, so knock wood on
that.
On the financing issue, it is really interesting. I know
the Ranking Member and I will talk about this. I think it is
probably going to require our colleagues in the Financial
Services Committee to get involved, and maybe Appropriations as
well. But it is one of those where I think we will definitely
take a look and try to figure out what can be done.
Mr. Battle, I want to turn to you for some questions.
During our Committees, we have a Member Day in the Veterans'
Affairs Committee. In fact, all the Committees have that same
Member Day, where members that are not on the Veterans' Affairs
Committee come in and testify about what they would like to see
our Committee do. There were a few members of Congress that
echoed an issue that I hear in my own district in San Diego,
and really it is that there is a delay in the VA referring
veterans to public housing authorities through HUD-VASH.
Mr. Battle, can you briefly talk about your intake process
for veterans who seek HUD-VASH resources?
Mr. Battle. Chairman Levin, thank you for the question.
Yes, I can. An initial intake, we try to turn that around
within 24 hours. Maybe if it is a holiday weekend, it may be a
little longer. But business days we try to turn that around in
24 hours because the person needs help. And then once that is
done, then it goes to the public housing authority to start an
orientation process after that. That is what we try to do.
Usually in the orientation process where a voucher would be
issued, that step can take two to four weeks, depending on
where you are at. And then once the voucher is issued there is
a housing search, and that search can vary depending on the
ability to find housing.
But usually in three or four weeks they would look for a
place to live, and then you have the rental application
process, which is generally around three to five days. Then you
have the housing inspection where the inspector has to come and
validate that it meets HUD standards for someone to live in it.
That typically can take up to a week to get that inspection
done. And then signing a lease to move in is another three to
five days.
So when you add all that up, you have a nine-week
timeframe, something like that.
Mr. Levin. Got it.
Another issue that you hear a lot is that the VA nationwide
is suffering a shortage of support staff, and specifically HUD-
VASH case managers. In fact, I think I even heard that today.
Would you care to comment on the HUD-VASH program and the case
workers themselves?
Mr. Battle. Sure. At the Haley VA today, we have five case
workers and one social worker associate assigned to Pasco
County. One of those case workers is vacant. It has been hired.
Selection has been made, and that person is going through the
boarding process to fill that position.
Overall across our enterprise, we have around 70 people
associated with homelessness. That also includes vocational
rehab. It includes veterans' treatment court, HUD-VASH, some
substance abuse and other things. Out of the 70 FTEs
altogether, we have three vacancies. Two of those are case
workers, and one is a VJO that has to be hired.
Mr. Levin. What hurdles do you face in hiring, and what can
we do in Congress to provide the resources to help you in the
hiring process?
Mr. Battle. Well, thank you for that question. The hurdles
we have in hiring, fortunately in Florida we have been able to
hire social workers and mental health professionals that are
affiliated with homeless programming. The process of going
through and getting someone on-boarded, a social worker, for
example, who has a clinical background, and so they have to go
through a boarding process and their credentials have to be
verified, and that takes some time.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
Ms. White, I wanted to turn to you and ask you whether your
experience lines up with all of that, and specifically--and I
want to thank you again for your candor and your courage to
come and speak with us all. It is not the easiest thing in the
world to testify, but you are doing a great job, and you are
really helping to inform us as we go back and try to, again,
craft good policy.
Can you speak to, I guess, the timing, what the HUD-VASH
application process looked like for you and kind of walk us
through how that process worked?
Ms. White. Yes. It roughly took us about three months from
the day we actually started intake to actually move into an
apartment. So the timeline is actually pretty much perfect
right there. The same thing, we also had St. Vincent DePaul in
that timeframe also assisting us with finding housing as well.
Mr. Levin. And you had mentioned before getting childcare,
the importance of getting childcare. Where did the--I guess
which program did you take advantage of to be able to get
childcare?
Ms. White. The Early Learning Coalition.
Mr. Levin. And do you happen to remember, if you care to
share this with us, do you happen to remember roughly how much
a month was provided or how long it took to get the program--
Ms. White. I was actually on the waiting list for the ELC
voucher for about a year, and then once I had entered into HUD-
VASH, it just so happens they called and said they had a couple
of vouchers just for veterans, which is very, very rare. So it
actually went from a year to you have it. And they actually do
it based off of income. So at that time I was paying, I
believe, when I first initially started, about $25 a week for
childcare.
Mr. Levin. Another question. When we had an advocate for
homeless veterans, homeless women veterans specifically come
and testify before us in D.C., she had mentioned that there are
some who are afraid to come forward and to try to seek services
or support because they don't want Child Protective Services or
someone else to say what is going on with this child.
I guess how did you overcome that? Were you ever worried
about that? Did you have anybody at VA or otherwise that did
anything to assuage your concerns about that?
Ms. White. A little bit. I had my son through the VA, so I
had known the social worker at the outpatient clinic over here
in New Port Richey, and I kind of briefly talked with her about
the homeless situation, what would happen with my son, because
that was the last thing I wanted, for my son to be taken away.
So just talking with her kind of helped me, that reaching out
for help wasn't going to harm us in any type of way. So that is
when I found out that there was HUD-VASH and everything like
that, and I was able to actually get in touch with those
programs at that point.
Mr. Levin. So that is really interesting. If you hadn't
known, if you hadn't had your child through the VA, you may not
have known that social worker. So that really is a real
problem, and I think it is important that we are always
thinking about what we can do to better educate folks who are
in need, that we are going to be there to help and that they
are not at risk of losing their child by getting the support.
I want to turn it over to my friend, Mr. Bilirakis, if you
have more questions.
Mr. Bilirakis. Absolutely. Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate that.
I want to start with Mr. Battle, if that is okay. What role
does substance abuse and mental health play in hindering
success for the chronically homeless, and which programs should
we be investing in to address this particular issue?
Mr. Battle. Ranking Member Bilirakis, thank you for the
question. Substance abuse and mental health issues clearly play
a role in the homeless situation. As a result of those issues,
veterans may experience incarceration, they may get evicted
multiple times from housing that they have been in. Again,
employment can be an issue. Transportation can be an issue. So
all those things play against the substance abuse.
Now, in our homeless program, we actually have two
substance abuse staff that work in the homeless program that
are not mental health; they are embedded. We also have some
ARPs embedded in the staff. We are a facility that also has a
homeless primary care clinic that homeless veterans can walk
into. So we look at this as a no-wrong-door approach, whether
it is us or the community, and we try to follow these veterans
to those services that they need. We do look at it from a
housing-first perspective. We want a person to address their
health care needs, in this case if it is mental health and
substance abuse. If they don't have a safe place to sleep, the
chances of them addressing those issues are very slight. So we
try to approach it from those perspectives.
So anything that we can do as a collective, the VA and the
community working together. One of the things that we tried to
do recently is work with more faith-based organizations. While
clergy may not be mental health counselors, a lot of people
will go to them. So we want to make sure the clergy know how to
direct these veterans to resources where they can get the help
they need. So that is something we have been doing more of in
the last couple of years in that regard.
But from a congressional perspective, I would say making
sure that we have the resources to continue providing the
support that we currently have is the most important.
Mr. Bilirakis. What about those who are being released from
incarceration?
Mr. Battle. Well, thank you for asking that question. We
try to safety-net those veterans. What we believe is that if a
veteran is incarcerated or in jail with the potential of long-
term incarceration due to a mental health or substance abuse
type of issue, or maybe a physical issue that manifests a
certain way, we would rather have that veteran in treatment
where we can take care of them where they can reintegrate into
society in a productive way, and that we are not using
resources of the Federal, state, or local government to keep
them incarcerated. We are not necessarily helping anybody by
having them incarcerated. If we can get them in treatment, that
is life changing, and that is what we need to do.
Mr. Bilirakis. I see my friend, Judge Crane, in the front
row. Do you work with the veterans' board in all these counties
that you--
Mr. Battle. Yes, sir, we do. In fact, at the homeless stand
down here in Pasco County, the judge runs court there, and we
work with them to help veterans get certain legal issues taken
care of. In Hillsborough County, we actually host a court once
a year at our hospital, at our primary care annex, and the
county court there actually comes to the hospital.
Mr. Bilirakis. Very good.
One follow-up to the Chairman's question with regard to
medical professionals, medical providers, in this case
specifically doctors. I have heard that doctors want to work
with the VA, but it takes so long for the verification process,
sometimes a year, so they just give up and go back into the
private sector. What can we do to fix that issue? I mean, I
don't think it needs to take a year to get verification as to
what their qualifications are when looking into their
background. Can you give me some suggestions on that?
Mr. Battle. Well, I can give you one in particular. The VA
historically, every time a person comes to work at a particular
facility, we require primary source verification for every one
of those, even if they are transferring within the VA. One
thing might be if we could do primary source verification
within the VA once, and then if you are moving around within
the VA, you wouldn't have to do that again.
Mr. Bilirakis. That makes a lot of sense.
Mr. Battle. Or even for the Federal Government. If someone
was in the military wanting to come to work for the VA and
their stuff had been primary-source verified, do we need to do
it again?
Mr. Bilirakis. That makes a lot of sense. Even volunteers,
doctors who want to volunteer their services, it takes so darn
long for them to do it, and they get frustrated. So they will
go work for a free clinic instead, which is good too. But the
fact is I want to tell you that all these witnesses are in the
field. They are boots on the ground. They are grassroots
people. They are in the community talking to veterans. So you
are not getting any lawyer answers here today, the lawyer
answers that you would get in Washington, D.C.
So I have a proposal for you, Mr. Chair. We can, instead of
having our hearings in Washington, D.C., we can have half in
San Diego and half here in Florida. How does that sound?
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. If that means I get to see my wife and kids
more, I can deal with that.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Levin. Well, I wanted to thank the Ranking Member for
his excellent questions. We will begin to wind this up.
But before that, I wanted to ask each one of you--just go
in order--what we missed, what questions didn't we ask, what
comments do you have to inform our work in Washington.
Mr. Battle, I will start with you.
Mr. Battle. Thank you, Chairman Levin. I appreciate the
opportunity. For us, combating homelessness is very much about
having affordable housing for veterans to be able to take
advantage of. I see that overall as a huge issue that is
preventing us from getting homelessness not only down to zero
but below that. It also would allow us the opportunity to
safety-net veterans in a more efficient manner to have that. So
anything we can do along those lines would be much appreciated.
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention one thing that
began in our hospital a few months ago, and actually it is
about a homeless veteran who passed away. Many times they have
no family or no one to claim them. One of our employees saw a
hearse coming to get a veteran to take him to the National
Cemetery to be buried, and nobody was going to be with them.
They were just going to go up there and be interred.
Our employee said, you know, that is not right, we need to
do something. So his veteran organization, Combat Veterans
Motorcycle Association, they have started a program that is
starting to spread across the country, and it is an honor
escort where they actually escort that veteran to the National
Cemetery and make sure that they have proper honors for their
last act. While that is kind of on the back end of the issue, I
think it is still nonetheless important that every veteran, if
they are homeless, they have value in their life that means
something, and that people want to honor. So I would like to
leave you with that.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. Mr. Burgess?
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. It
has been an absolute honor to be able to be here today and
participate in this worthwhile and engaging discussion with
these experts. I have learned more today than I ever knew
before on this topic coming into today, so I think we are all
better for what we have gone through and where we can go from
here.
I think what I would like to do in the short time that I
have to be able to close is to just give a plug for the State
of Florida, as well as for this community here. I think it is
no coincidence that we are here in Pasco County. The people
here lead the way every day on community services and support,
whether it is veteran homelessness or any other type of
opportunity to help our neighbors in need.
So Pasco County is a great example of that, but even more
so across the State of Florida. Florida is the bellwether state
of the Nation. We are such a diverse state. We have a little
bit of everything here that is out there in the rest of the
Nation, which makes us a great test site, a great beta test
site to pilot programs, to pilot initiatives. We have such an
amazing working relationship with VISN-8 and our partners at
Haley and across the State of Florida and the Federal VA
system. There are plenty of examples of existing partnerships
that we have had a lot of success with.
So I would just like to encourage the Committee, encourage
our friends and partners in D.C. that when you are looking to
implement a program--the PREVENTS Program is a great example
with the suicide prevention--look to Florida. We will work with
you. And we also, I believe, are just a great conglomerate of
opportunity for that test and that result that could then be
multiplied and set a standard nationally.
Mr. Levin. Thank you.
Mr. Lambert?
Mr. Lambert. Mr. Chairman, thank you for coming.
Congressman Bilirakis, it is always a pleasure. You are a great
asset to our community and a great congressman. We appreciate
it.
I appreciate your comments on saying we need to get out of
Washington and not have attorneys come and testify before
Congress, because they don't really represent what is going on
within our communities. The people who are volunteering here
each and every day--and I am a volunteer, as the Chairman of
the housing authority--see what is going on, see the resources
that have worked, and see the resources that you have allocated
that have been extremely wasted.
I leave you with this conversation: housing first. Housing
is critical. We have to have access to capital. We have to have
housing for our veterans, but for every member of our
community. We are the greatest Nation in the world.
We see when people get housing, then we can get them into
recovery.
The electric cooperative, my regular job that I actually
get paid for, we have seen an initiative for recovery, recovery
through work so that folks with a mental illness--and we serve
veterans at Benson House, the clubhouse model--can get into
recovery and we can partner with transitional employers to get
these folks jobs.
Many of our veterans who come in have had brushes with law
enforcement. That is an issue. So when they go in and they talk
with an employer, we know what is going on with them. Then we
can transition to the work component to get them back into the
workforce, because there is dignity in work. I have not met a
veteran, or I have not met someone who is homeless that doesn't
want to go to work, that doesn't want to have a full and
sustaining life, just like Ms. White did for her son.
Then I would say the housing authority, which I am very
proud of, implemented a self-sufficiency program. No veteran,
no person who is homeless, wants to be on a lifetime of
dependency for the Federal Government. Family self-sufficiency
is absolutely critical in those steps. When we get them in
there and we can get them in and start working through the
Family Self-Sufficiency Project and get them a home and get
them a permanent roof over their head, you will have basically
taken them from homelessness through recovery, into the
workforce, to a permanent roof over their head, and then you
will have success.
Listening to some group of people who come to Washington to
tell you that probably don't have an idea of what we are faced
with and challenged with within our community with the
Department of Veterans Affairs, with our local county
government, and with St. Vincent DePaul and Veteran
Alternatives, this means everything to the people in these
local communities because we are facing it every day. If I can
tell you that, I can tell you housing, recovery, mental health
counseling, training--training is absolutely critical.
So at WAC, we have a training program for linemen.
Electrical [inaudible] across the country have made veteran
employment a first option for us. So we have apprenticeship
programs. We are facing a severe shortage of linemen. They come
in, they are allowed to use their VA GI Bill, and then we put
them through a five-year apprenticeship program. When they
leave our program and they are employed, they are making a six-
figure salary with overtime, usually, which enables them--and
yes, there are some challenges. We have veteran service
officers that help us with those folks. We know that there are
challenges, but we make that a priority with the employment.
So working and self-sufficiency will lead to permanent
housing, stable families, and we can keep them in recovery and
into work and be productive citizens in our society.
So I thank you for coming today and I look forward to
seeing us do a lot of great things together.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Lambert. I appreciate that very
much.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. Mr. Raposa?
Mr. Raposa. So again, I echo the incredible sense of
gratitude to be here. It is really easy to focus in on what is
broken and what is wrong with us, but I have to tell you that I
was just appointed this year by our organization as one of 15
ambassadors for homelessness and affordable housing development
across the planet to work within the veteran family, and also
work within the Catholic Church and the Vatican.
In the two meetings that we have had, we are the only
Nation on the planet that has solutions, and we have begun the
process to educate the rest of the planet on what is working
here in the United States of America. It is easy to focus in on
what is wrong with us, but the fact of the matter is that in
the last 15 to 20 years, the delivery of services has been
revolutionized, and we are well on the way to achieving great
success, and it is a matter of fine-tooth-combing and getting
some stuff in mind.
The first and foremost thing that you need to take back to
Washington has to do with the need for a systemic and
systematic approach to doing this. There are communities across
this country that are claiming to be functioning in the system,
and they are claiming to be doing a systematic approach to
this, but they are not, and the numbers are beginning to prove
it, and the data is beginning to prove it.
I think those of us that are should be reinforced, and
those of us that are should be given the opportunity to kind of
take the lead and fix that in other areas.
I have grave concerns about the HUD-VASH program and about
the service delivery within the HUD-VASH program. You do not
have the housing location services in that program that are
required. When you look at the recidivism rate and the success
rate of the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program
going back to 2012, we are running year after year after year
with an 85 percent or higher success rate. This means that
these veterans, once housed and once stably housed, do not
return to the homeless system. I think it is time to take a
look and try to model the delivery of services under HUD-VASH
in accordance with the successes that have been proven through
SSVF. This has to do with housing location. You have Master's
degree case management people who are brilliant and excellent
in the field, but they are not housing locators. The housing
location function needs to be introduced into that HUD-VASH
system.
And also, the relationship with the landlords long-term is
really, really lacking. We have landlords in our community that
will rent to us who will say I will do it as long as you are
not going to turn the case over to HUD-VASH, and that is a
problem, and I don't believe that we are doing anything
extraordinary. It is about relationship-building, and I liken
it to the only healthy triangular relationship that exists on
the planet, because triangular relationships are clearly not
good in interpersonal relationships, but they are good when it
comes to housing veterans. It is the relationship between us as
an agency and the client, the veteran, and it is also a
relationship between us and the landlord, and then the lease
becomes the relationship between the landlord and that veteran.
We maintain that triangular relationship even after we close
the case, and we maintain that relationship so that the
landlord knows that if St. Vincent DePaul has his or her hand
on that client, we are never letting that client go, and
therefore landlords are willing to rent to us.
This is a huge issue, and I also think that a huge issue
within the HUD-VASH program is the case load ratio to case
manager. They cannot effectively manage a chronically placed
veteran in housing with their emotional, mental, and
psychological needs anything above 25 to 1. It is just not
humanly possible, and our state welfare system can prove that,
because the last thing that our state welfare system--I don't
believe that we have the issues that you see in other parts of
the country where families are afraid they will have their
children taken away, because our state welfare system, they
can't afford another child in shelter.
We don't have that worry, and we address that right from
the beginning. They tell us, ``Please, please, please, please,
please, continue to intervene,'' because there is no more
capacity in the child welfare system across this country, and I
don't know of a state that has extra capacity in child welfare.
So there is a lot of work to do, but I have to tell you, we
are a lot better than we think we are. When you take a look at
what is happening in Europe and what is happening in Australia,
and even what is happening up in Canada, and what is happening
in Africa and all of these other areas where I now have access
to what is happening in those areas, we are really in a good
spot.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Raposa. I appreciate that.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. Mr. Anderson?
Mr. Anderson. Well, I heard a lot of talk about capital. We
can always change the tax laws and allow nonprofits to have a
share of the market. But it is probably a bigger obstacle to
overcome.
Prevention. I mean, we talk about it and it is always
brought up, but when are we ever actually applying and
allocating resources towards prevention? I think it would help
out on the back end quite a bit. Are we going to catch
everybody? That is not the reality. But if we can catch a
majority of these guys through prevention--and I am looking
forward to looking up H.R. 2326 to find out what that entails.
But I think that preventive maintenance, being able to have
some of these programs, will help us reduce a lot of the social
isolation, the isolation that our warriors face.
The University of Southern California did a study. They
found--not one study; they did multiple studies in various
areas. And they found three-quarters of our veteran population
felt disconnected from the civilian world. That is already
isolation in itself. So that is something that we have to
combat. We are taking guys from an institution and bringing
them into this open world, and they are feeling isolated, and
that is what leads to so much of what we have that are
problems--suicide, suicidal ideations, risky behaviors.
So at some point, we need to start taking a look at how we
can prevent that social isolation that these warriors are going
through after they leave military service. Thank you.
Mr. Levin. Well, hopefully the veterans of the 12th
District, and for that matter California's 49th District, know
that they are not disconnected, that at least in their
congressional offices that they have a place where they can
turn for resources and for fellow veterans to actually work in
those offices.
Mr. Anderson. On that, sir, just real quick, you guys
passed the COVER Act back in 2016. It took about three years to
pass it, and then it took about three years for the Committee
to start. But my friend Danny Burgess down there on the end, he
put it up in the State of Florida because this is good
legislation, and he said we are going to get it going as quick
as possible, and it took about three years to pass it. But now
it has passed, and it is actually going into formation right
now. So when he said that Florida would be the perfect test
site for some of these programs, we are actually laying the
foundation to be the test site.
Mr. Levin. Very good.
Ms. White, some closing remarks?
Ms. White. I just want to thank you again for the
opportunity for veterans like myself and other veterans like
myself. I am really looking forward to hopefully seeing more
success stories like mine in the future. And given some of the
subjects that were touched on today, I am hoping that is going
to start soon. So I just want to say thank you. I know just
from my experience, the programs that I have dealt with, they
have phenomenal people. A lot of my case managers are actually
here today from HUD-VASH. Even without their individual
assistance, looking at my situation individualized, I wouldn't
be where I am. So I just want to say thank you.
Mr. Levin. Thank you so much.
Well, I will have a few closing comments. I know the
Ranking Member will, too. Before that, I want to just say thank
you. I want to say thank you to everybody in this room for
spending a good chunk of your morning with us.
I want to thank our law enforcement. Can everybody thank
our law enforcement?
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. I want to thank the amazing staff of the House
Veterans' Affairs Committee. Can you all raise your hands?
Can we give them a round of applause also?
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. We are actually live streaming this on YouTube.
I hope we got some people to watch. If they are watching right
now, thank you for watching. But we had the great audio-visual
folks come out to live stream this as well, and it is really an
honor to get to do this.
I learned a lot today that did not come up in California,
and between those two, I think we got a whole bunch of
information that we are going to use in the weeks and months
ahead.
With that, I would like to turn it over to my friend. Not
just for hosting us today but for all the work that you do and
that we continue to do together, I am truly honored to get to
serve with you, Ranking Member Bilirakis.
Mr. Bilirakis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really
appreciate you bringing this hearing to Florida.
You know, as a matter of fact, we were going to have
possibly the gentleman here that represents the St. Vincent
DePaul. He was thinking about coming out to California, but he
didn't get the approval, so we brought it here to you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Bilirakis. He did a wonderful job in the community, all
of you, and I know you all personally, and I know the veterans
know you. More importantly, the veterans know you all
personally, and I think we got a lot of suggestions, great
suggestions today.
I also wanted to thank the organizations that came out
today. I haven't had a chance to shake their hands, but I would
like to. This is a wonderful community. I know I am biased, but
I think it is number one in taking care of our veterans in the
Tampa Bay area. We just have great people, volunteers,
volunteers, and they give their time to our veterans, and they
work together.
I want to specifically thank our Vietnam veterans for
making things easier for the veterans from our current military
personnel. When they become veterans, they are going to have it
a lot easier because of our Vietnam veterans.
If you are a Vietnam veteran, raise your hand, please.
[Applause.]
Mr. Bilirakis. We love you all, all the veterans. But
again, the Vietnam veterans stand out because they are selfless
in their service. They were selfless in their service in
Vietnam, and they are still serving our community.
So thank you, God bless you, and again, Mr. Chairman, think
about my proposal, because this was outstanding. We had a great
one in San Diego as well.
So thank you, God bless you.
I also want to tell Ms. White that you are welcome to serve
on my advisory council.
You mentioned dental care; we are working on that.
Ms. White. Good.
Mr. Bilirakis. We are working on that, and the Chairman
knows that I have a bill in Committee.
So thank you, God bless you, thanks for the turnout, and we
will continue to fight for our heroes.
[Applause.]
Mr. Levin. I will bring this hearing to a close.
It is a great honor to be with you all.
Gus is going to take me to what he says is a really good
Greek restaurant.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Levin. So I am very anxious to do that.
My grandfather was a World War II veteran. The resources
that we have been able to bring for our veterans since the
Greatest Generation, I think we have made a lot of positive
progress. We are cutting down on the rate of homelessness. One
homeless veteran is still one too many, and I am absolutely
committed to getting that number down to effective zero, I hope
better than that, functional zero in my district, in my part of
the country.
Just note, and I will say it again, this is one issue where
it is in no way, shape, or form a partisan issue. We work
across the aisle to get things done in support and in service
of those who have given so much on behalf of our country, that
have sacrificed for our freedom. We are truly grateful for your
service and for all that you continue to do to be engaged with
your fellow veterans. We will continue to work as hard as we
can to get things done.
All members are going to have 5 legislative days to revise
and extend their remarks and to include additional materials.
Again, thank you so much.
Without objection, the Subcommittee stands adjourned.
[Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Prepared Statement of Joe D. Battle
Good Morning, Chairman Levin, Ranking Member Bilirakis, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on the topic of Veteran homelessness, the
challenges faced by homeless women Veterans, and the risk factors and
unique challenges faced by all homeless Veterans with respect to
nutrition, employment, and criminal justice.
James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital (JAHVH) is committed to improving
Veteran outcomes and providing Veterans access to comprehensive
homeless programs, services, and resources. We also provide Veterans,
including those who are at-risk of or experiencing homelessness, with a
full spectrum of services designed to meet their unique needs. JAHVH is
committed to ending homelessness among Veterans. Our focus is
threefold:
Conducting coordinated outreach to proactively seek out
Veterans in need of assistance;
Connecting homeless and at-risk Veterans with housing
solutions, health care, community employment services, and other
required supports; and
Collaborating with Federal, state, and local agencies;
employers; housing providers; faith-based and community non-profit
organizations; and others to expand employment and affordable housing
options for Veterans exiting homelessness.
Introduction
JAHVH is accredited by The Joint Commission and has 21 programs
accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation
Facilities (CARF). JAHVH is in Tampa, Florida with Community-Based
Outpatient Clinics (CBOC) located in Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, and
Polk Counties, including the new South Hillsborough Outpatient Clinic
that opened May 2019. Additionally, JAHVH will begin serving Veterans
in Citrus County when it takes administrative control of the Lecanto
CBOC beginning in October 2019. The number of Veterans in Tampa and
surrounding counties is estimated to be over 230,000. The hospital is
comprised of 499 operating beds, including medical and surgical
inpatient, acute psychiatry, pain/rehabilitation units, and a community
living center. JAHVH is also one of five Polytrauma Centers and when
combined with our 100-bed Michael Bilirakis DVA Spinal Cord Injury
Center, it is the largest Federal rehabilitation center. In Fiscal Year
(FY) 2018, JAHVH treated 97,045 unique Veteran and Active Duty patients
with 11,720 admissions and more than 1.4 million outpatient visits - of
which about 129,000 were performed just down the road at the New Port
Richey Outpatient Clinic.
Policy Issues Related to Veterans Homelessness (Risk Factors)
According to the 2018 Point in Time (PIT) Count (the most recent
publicly available data), Tampa and its surrounding counties reported a
total of 2,376 homeless individuals, of which 411 (11 percent) identify
as Veterans. Veteran status and character of discharge are not verified
during the PIT. Of those who identify as Veterans, 174 were sheltered
and 237 were unsheltered. The total number of homeless Veterans in the
region decreased by 1 percent since the 2017 PIT count. Since 2011, the
region's overall number of homeless Veterans has decreased by 72
percent. This doesn't include Hernando County since PIT data is
combined with Citrus, Hernando, Lake, and Sumter Counties for years
except in 2019, which recorded 5 unsheltered and 2 sheltered Veterans
in Hernando County.
VA's Homeless Veteran programs comprise the largest integrated
network of homeless treatment and assistance services in the Nation. As
a component of this network, JAHVH strives to provide a continuum of
service-from outreach to permanent housing-to our homeless Veteran
population. JAHVH partners with local communities to offer a wide array
of special programs and initiatives designed to help homeless Veterans
live as self-sufficiently and independently as possible.
Over the past 5 years, VA and its partners have made a concerted
effort to collaborate at the Federal level to ensure strategic use of
resources to end Veteran homelessness. Coordinated Entry Systems (CES)
were developed to provide a systematic approach that is needed at the
community level to ensure resources are being used effectively and
Veterans in that community are offered the resources he or she needs to
end their homelessness. The CES framework is designed to promote
community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness and
efficiently using community-wide resources (including VA resources) for
any Veteran experiencing homelessness.
At the local level, we collaborate with Federal, state, and local
agencies; employers; housing providers; faith-based and community
nonprofits; and others to expand employment and affordable housing
options for Veterans exiting homelessness. The JAHVH Health Care for
Homeless Veterans (HCHV) program fully participates in the CESs
throughout all our counties and will expand engagement to Citrus County
in FY 2020.
A priority of our HCHV is to break the cycle of homelessness using
a variety of community resources, including permanent supportive
housing programs; transitional housing programs; prevention and
diversion programs; rapid-rehousing programs; substance use treatment
programs; medical and mental health services; employment services; and/
or case management. Veteran sub-populations served range from those who
are newly homeless and can self-resolve, to those who need temporary
housing with short-term intensive services, to those who have severe
mental health and/or substance use disorders and require ongoing
supportive services to maintain permanent housing.
Our HCHV manages a wide array of Homeless Veteran programs
including those focused on the following:
1. Conducting coordinated outreach to seek out Veterans in need of
assistance. Including those focused on the following:
JAHVH has outreach social workers who provide services at
our VA clinics. The Outreach staff work alongside community partners,
such as Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program
outreach teams. The outreach teams respond to calls from the National
Call Center for Homeless Veterans and work directly with social workers
from our hospital and CBOC locations.
JAHVH has an extensive Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO)
program. Staff provide outreach services in local jails to justice-
involved Veterans. A few of the jails have established pods to keep
Veterans centrally located, which assists in more localized assessments
and interventions. Individualized services are offered with an effort
to assist in discharge planning to prevent homelessness upon release.
VJO specialists staff Veterans Treatment Courts with an effort to
support justice-involved Veterans engaged in treatment services.
And JAHVH participates in community stand-down events
such as the annual three-day Pasco County Annual Homeless Stand-Down
and the City of Tampa's Operation Reveille.
2. Another area of focus is connecting homeless and at-risk
Veterans with housing solutions, health care, community employment
services, and other required supports. JAHVH offers a variety of
services to homeless Veterans and/or Veterans at risk for homelessness.
These programs include the following:
Department of Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive
Housing Program (HUD-VASH), offering permanent supportive housing;
Grant and Per Diem (GPD), offering transitional housing and program
services; Contracted Residential Services Programs (CRS), offering
specialty transitional housing and program services such as
Recuperative Care and Safe Haven; Outreach, providing street-based and
clinic-based outreach services, as well as responding to the National
Homeless Call Center; Homeless - Patient Aligned Care Team, offering
primary care services to homeless Veterans; and VJO and Veterans
Treatment Court programs. We collaborate with adjunct programs, such as
SSVF to ensure Veteran accessibility to prevention, rapid resolution,
and rapid rehousing programs.
JAHVH also participates in the S.A.V.E. (signs, ask,
validate, encourage, and expedite) program, a partnership between our
HCHV and Suicide Prevention Program. Homeless program staff will
provide suicide prevention training to community partners about this
vulnerable population.
We have a Homeless Veterans Community Employment Services
(HVCES) program that connects Veterans to local employers and assists
Veterans through individual and group services to access competitive
employment opportunities. HCHV staff refer Veterans to VA's Therapeutic
Supported Employment Services Program and Vocational Rehabilitation and
Employment programs. Staff also link Veterans to the Homeless Veterans
Reintegration Programs, a Department of Labor-funded program offered by
local grantees.
3. In addition, JAHVH HCHV has actively participated in past local
community initiatives such as the 25 Cities Initiative. These community
partners have been strong partners in our efforts and we appreciate
their contributions to our Veterans' health and welfare. JAHVH has
worked with our community partners for more than 30 years. Ending
Veteran homelessness depends heavily upon collaborative, joint efforts
from community agencies and local governments. Some of our local
partners include the following:
Permanent supportive housing: JAHVH HCHV program
collaborates with Hernando, Hillsborough, Pasco, and Polk Housing
Authorities, HUD, and Project-Based housing organizations contracted to
offer HUD-VASH units, such as Steps Forward and Volunteers of America.
Permanent housing programs: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with
Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative, and local SSVF programs,
including, St. Vincent DePaul and Tampa Crossroads.
Transitional Housing programs: JAHVH HCHV collaborates
with Agency for Community Treatment Services (ACTS), Steps to Recovery,
Tampa Crossroads (Athena House), and Volunteers of America.
CRS Programs: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with Circle of
Veterans, New Beginnings, Salvation Army and Steps to Recovery.
VJO: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with County Sheriff
Departments, County Jails, Circuit Courts (each County has a Veterans
Treatment Court), State Attorney, and Public Defenders.
Outreach: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with Homeless Community
of Care (CoC), Tampa Crossroads, Saint Vincent DePaul, local Police
Departments, Salvation Army, New Beginnings, Steps To Recovery, and
Circle of Veterans.
Stand Down: JAHVH collaborates with local County Homeless
CoC's for Stand Down events.
Operation Reveille: JAHVH collaborates with Tampa
Hillsborough Homeless Initiative for Operation Reveille events.
Coordinated Entry System: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with
the local Continuum of Care Councils and is an active member of these
councils.
Other non-profit organizations providing goods and
services: JAHVH HCHV collaborates with the Knights of Columbus, AmVets,
Feeding Tampa Bay, and American Legion.
These community partners have been strong partners in our efforts,
and we appreciate their contributions to our Veterans' health and
welfare.
Homeless Women Veterans
The women Veteran population is growing. In FY 2018, JAHVH saw a 19
percent increase in women Veteran patients from the previous 2 years.
JAHVH offers services to women Veterans in the Tampa Crossroads (Athena
House) GPD program. The local emergency shelter offers emergency
shelter beds to women Veterans. JAHVH staff have established
relationships with the shelter program staff and are able to assist
with referrals for women Veterans when beds are available. Our HCHV
collaborates closely with the Women Veterans Program at JAHVH, which
offers resources to women Veterans, and connects them to specialty care
for medical and mental health services.
VA has made significant progress serving women Veterans in recent
years, but homelessness among women Veterans remains an important
concern and focus. Women Veterans can face many challenges when
returning to civilian life, including raising children on their own and
dealing with the psychological after effects of events such as military
sexual trauma, employment, and housing barriers. Local Communities
across the Nation are continuing to align resources to address these
unique challenges. The following VA Women's Health services programs
are engaged to support a systematic and coordinated approach to care:
Women Veteran Program Managers (WVPM) are located at
every VA Medical Center (VAMC). WVPMs help coordinate all the services
that women Veterans may need. Services include primary care, pregnancy
care, psychiatric care and sexual trauma counseling, inpatient medical/
surgical care, programs for homeless women Veterans, and quality of
care issues.
Military Sexual Trauma (MST) is the term used by VA to
refer to sexual assault or repeated, threatening sexual harassment
experienced during military service. Homeless women Veterans who use VA
health care have higher rates of experiencing MST compared to all women
Veterans who use VA health care. MST-related health care for physical
and mental health conditions is available free of charge at every VA
facility for eligible persons. There are MST Coordinators at every VAMC
who can connect Veterans who have experienced MST to VA health care
programs and services.
Mental Illness
Secretary Wilkie recognizes Veterans who are homeless are a high-
risk population for suicide and has made suicide prevention one of his
top priorities.
VA's National Center on Homelessness among Veterans published
research in 2018 (https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/nchav/research/HERS6--
Suicide.asp) that found homelessness is associated with an increased
rate of all-cause mortality and of suicide in Veterans. A study by John
McCarthy highlighted at the VA Homeless Evidence and Research Synthesis
Roundtable Proceedings in 2018 found that the suicide rate among
Veterans with homelessness in the past year was 81.0 per 100,000 as
compared to Veterans without recent history of homelessness with a rate
of 35.8 suicides per 100,000.
Because suicide prevention is one of the Secretary's top
priorities, VA Homeless Programs are required to collaborate with
Suicide Prevention programs using the S.A.V.E. program to cross-train
homeless program staff on suicide prevention programs and to enable
homeless program staff to train community providers and first
responders on suicide and suicide prevention. Additionally, regular
meetings occur to review high-risk Veterans to discuss and develop
appropriate treatment plans to address risk factors. JAHVH has staff
that meet with the Suicide Prevention Coordinator monthly. Staff
involved in this effort are working towards providing formal training
to local GPD and Contract Bed Providers as well as other Veteran
community partners and first responders.
Affordable Housing
VA continues to promote the establishment of affordable and
permanent supportive housing and works with all partners to encourage
efforts aimed at financing and developing additional housing stock to
address the market factors. JAHVH's Homeless Program is working with
local housing authorities to open project-based housing units for the
HUD-VASH program. The first project came online in 2015, with an
additional project in 2016. JAHVH's Homeless Program is currently
working with Housing Authorities in Pasco and Hillsborough Counties for
two additional housing projects.
Criminal Justice History
Studies of Veterans receiving VA homeless services have shown that
65 percent have a history of incarceration in prison or jail. Criminal
justice histories create barriers-in addition to those noted above-to
permanent housing, employment, education, and other resources, further
limiting VA's ability to help homeless Veterans access these resources.
This limitation is particularly acute for Veterans with histories of
sexual offenses, for whom barriers to critical resources imposed by
Federal, state, and local authorities pervade most areas of life. VA
serves Veterans with criminal justice histories in its own programs
(e.g., HUD-VASH) and facilitates Veterans' access to legal services,
which may offer opportunities for record expungement; however, access
barriers for those with criminal justice histories continue to limit
the ability of many Veterans to take advantage of non-VA resources.
Employment
The lack of employment opportunities and services that mitigate
barriers to employment will adversely impact housing stability and
community integration for formerly homeless Veterans. Without enough
income, transitioning homeless Veterans will not be able to exit
homelessness into permanent housing successfully. As mentioned above,
VA's HVCES staff work closely with community partners and VA Medical
Facilities to ensure that a range of employment services are accessible
to Veterans who have experienced homelessness.
VA continues to support Vocational Development Specialists who are
embedded in homeless program teams and serve as Employment Specialists
and Community Employment Coordinators. In addition, HVCES program staff
ensure that Veterans who have experienced homelessness, including
chronically homeless Veterans, have access to a range of employment
services that complement existing medical center-based employment
services and are a bridge to employment opportunities and resources in
the local community.
In April 2018, the HVCES program set a national goal of
reaching 10,000 unique instances of employment (each episode of
employment gained by a Veteran) between April 1, 2018, and March 31,
2019.
As of April 1, 2019, there were over 21,000 unique
instances of employment, more than double the employment goal for
Veterans engaged in or who exited from VHA Homeless programs or
Services.
Data Sharing
Due to the transient nature of this population, a loss of access to
Veteran health care information may also lead to inaccurate master by-
name lists of Veterans experiencing homelessness in local communities
and local resource planning as a result. Improving data sharing
processes between VA and communities will ensure that Veterans
experiencing homelessness have access to available services and
resources. The risk of not improving data sharing processes will impact
community's ability to successfully assess needs of homeless Veterans
and match services to meet those needs.
Reducing Veteran Homelessness
Reducing the number of Veterans who become homeless continues to be
a vital step towards VA's goal of ending homelessness among Veterans.
VA is working to improve predictive strategies and deploying evidence-
based practices designed to identify and prevent homelessness. VA has
begun a national rollout of the Rapid Resolution Initiative which
expands on a pilot program begun in FY 2018 to reunify Veterans with
family members or friends as an alternative to shelter entry. SSVF is
supporting mediation training by conducting free train-the-trainer
programs for grantees around the country supported by an SSVF technical
assistance grant. The train-the-trainer approach literally trains
grantee staff to become trainers, so they can educate other staff in
their agency and the broader community on these mediation techniques.
VA Community Entry Specialists have also been invited to these
trainings so VAMC staff are able to join this collaborative effort. In
addition, SSVF has provided grantees with additional funding so they
can support education for their staff on these techniques. Using
mediation training and modest financial incentives through the SSVF
program, VA is working with HUD, the U.S. Interagency Council on
Homelessness, and other Federal agencies to create policies and train
community-based staff to support implementation of this model. VASDHS
SSVF providers have been working with VASDHS HCHV to implement the
Rapid Resolution program locally in FY 2020.
Unique Challenges
Nutrition, the Criminal Justice System, Health Care, and Employment
Significant progress has been made in preventing and ending Veteran
homelessness. The number of Veterans experiencing homelessness in the
United States has declined by nearly half since 2010, as more than
700,000 Veterans and their family members have been permanently housed
or prevented from becoming homeless. Although significant progress has
been made, homeless and at-risk Veterans are faced with many
challenges. VA has taken the following actions to address these
challenges.
Nutrition
In 2018, VA partnered with Feeding America with a shared goal and
commitment to Veterans who require immediate hunger assistance in
support of ending Veteran food insecurity. Through this partnership, VA
and Feeding America have worked together to support participating
Feeding America network food banks and VA medical facilities, through
the development of pop-up food pantries at 18 VAMCs. Through these
pantries, more than 600,000 meals have been served to more than 30,000
Veterans and their family members who were experiencing food
insecurities or those at risk of experiencing food insecurity. This
partnership is growing as more VAMCs set up pantries through this
partnership.
Veterans Justice Outreach
VA serves justice-involved Veterans through two dedicated national
programs, both prevention-oriented components of VA's Homeless
programs: Health Care for Reentry Veterans (HCRV) and VJO. Known
collectively as the Veterans Justice Programs, HCRV and VJO facilitate
access to needed VA health care and other services for Veterans at all
stages of the criminal justice process, from initial contact with law
enforcement through community reentry following incarceration.
Part of the continuum of services offered by JAHVH is the VJO
program. This program provides resources, referrals, and case
management services by VJO Specialists to Veterans with a variety of
justice-involved needs, ranging from those participating in Treatment
Court to those who are incarcerated, those that may be on probation/
parole, and for those in need of homeless court advocacy.
Each year, we participate in two Veteran outreach courts. One in
conjunction with the Pasco County stand-down and one we co-host with
the Hillsborough County 13th Judicial Court at our Primary Care Annex.
Outstanding legal issues can be addressed such as active misdemeanor
warrants, fines, legal fees, court costs, and ordinance violations. In
addition, we hold Legal Clinics for Veterans monthly to cover Family
Law, Landlord/Tenant, Bankruptcy, Expungement, and Civil Matters. JAHVH
VJO Specialists are assigned to provide case management services to
Veterans involved in the following VTCs: Hernando County (5th Judicial
Circuit), Hillsborough (13th), Pasco (6th), and Polk (10th).
The VJO program works closely with local police and Sherriff
departments. Many Veterans are linked by the VJO Specialists to VA-
funded GPD programs, SSVF, and HUD-VASH programs, as well as JAHVH
alcohol and drug treatment programs as part of their probation/parole.
A VJO Specialist provides case management services to ensure greater
success and to help reduce recidivism. The VJO program works closely
with sheriff departments in local county detention center to offer
information, resources, and participates in discharge planning for
incarcerated Veterans to ensure that Veterans are linked to programs to
address issues related to housing, substance use, medical care, mental
health, and employment programs prior to their release. Hillsborough
and Pasco County Detention Centers have allocated resources for the
creation of Veteran pods that help streamline Veteran services to
incarcerated Veterans.
The Veteran's participation in these programs and other VA
treatment is often a part of a Veteran's case plan and probation
expectations. VJO case management services assist the Veteran in
navigating the Court's expectations and gaining access to treatment.
This has helped ensure that more Veterans successfully complete the VTC
programs in each county.
Expanding Access
H.R. 2398 would amend the United States Housing Act of 1937 and
title 38, United States Code (U.S.C.), to include those who are
ineligible for other VA Homeless programs authorized by 38 U.S.C. 2011,
2012, 2013, 2044, and 2061. As VA expressed in a letter to the
Subcommittee on May 31, 2019, VA supports the expansion of eligibility
in section 1(b) of the bill, although we note that the amendments made
by section 1(a) of the bill are unnecessary because there is no
eligibility issue on the HUD authorization side. This legislation is
designed to match HUD-VASH eligibility criteria to that of the GPD and
SSVF programs. Although VA supports this proposed legislation as it
will allow additional vulnerable chronically homeless Veterans to
receive much-needed HUD-VASH vouchers and case management, we note that
in expanding eligibility, VA and HUD will need to coordinate to ensure
responsible program implementation in order to maintain continued
quality of care and success of the HUD-VASH program.
VA also supports H.R. 716 if amended, as the bill is similar to a
legislative proposal in VA's FY 2020 budget request. VA testified on
this bill at a July 19, 2019, Subcommittee hearing.
Conclusion
Across VA and locally at JAHVH, we are committed to providing the
high-quality care our Veterans have earned and deserve. We continue to
improve access and services to meet the needs of Veterans. We support
all efforts to increase Homeless Veteran HUD-VASH prioritization
eligibility. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today
and the resources Congress provides VA to care for Veterans.
Testimony of Executive Director of the Florida Department of
Veterans' Affairs
Prepared Statement of Captain Daniel W. ``Danny'' Burgess
Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony before the
Committee on Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity as
we seek to address ways to provide the assistance Florida veterans have
earned and deserve for their service to this nation.
As the newly appointed Executive Director of the Florida Department
of Veterans' Affairs, I felt the need to look and find ways we as a
state could address gaps in veteran services and work together to solve
some of the most crucial and time sensitive issues that face veterans
today. The mission began on March, 29, 2019 and continues today. The
information I present to you below is the combination of knowledge from
leadership on the state, federal, city and county level as well as
civic groups, veteran service organizations and charities across the
state who have worked together over the past 5 months to address many
important topics including the veteran homelessness crisis.
Before jumping into specifics, I want to refresh everyone on the
fact that the federal government utilizes the term functional zero when
addressing homelessness matters - this term meaning that for veterans
who want to come in off the street, there are ample resources to affect
them doing so. To that end some good news. While Florida has a long way
to go, as of August 5, 2019, Florida has five counties, and three
communities that have declared functional zero for homelessness
(Flagler County, Miami-Dade County, Fort Myers/Lee, Punta Gorda,
Charlotte County, Volusia County/Daytona Beach).
Homelessness among veterans in Florida has been effectively cut in
half since 2011. A significant cause for Florida's substantial decrease
in the rate of homelessness among veterans are national initiatives to
end veteran homelessness. In Florida, millions of dollars have been
invested through VA Supportive Services for Veteran Families grants, as
well as HUD VA Supportive Housing (VASH) vouchers that provide long-
term rental assistance to help homeless veterans with high needs obtain
and sustain permanent housing. Florida's Council on Homelessness's 2019
report conveys:
The annual Point-In-Time (PIT) Count, completed over a 24-hour
period in January 2019, offers a snapshot of homelessness in Florida
and nationally (available in Appendix III, Tables 1-7). Within the last
year, the number of people experiencing homelessness in Florida
decreased by almost four percent since last year's count and by 20
percent since 2015. The number of people experiencing homelessness
identified in 2019's count totaled 28,591; amounting to a reduction of
1,126 people since last year's PIT Count. This decrease tells us that
the implementation of best practices and targeted housing interventions
paired with services are effectively creating successful outcomes in
the fight to end homelessness in local communities throughout Florida.
Importantly, while we recognize that homelessness among veterans in
Florida is decreasing, we know we can do more. We hope to work with you
all to find ways to join Connecticut, Virginia and Delaware and be the
next state to join the list of states who have ended veteran
homelessness across all counties.
So now, let me go back to my earlier point in my remarks and
discuss what the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs discovered
regarding homelessness across the state during our Forward March
initiative:
The Florida Department of Veterans Affairs (FDVA) chaired an
initiative called ``FORWARD March.'' The FDVA core team hosted forums
in key cities across seven regions of Florida, namely: Tampa,
Pensacola, Jacksonville, Lake Worth/West Palm Beach, Ocala, Miami, Cape
Canaveral and Sarasota. Leadership from State, Federal, City and County
municipalities, civic and church groups, veteran service organizations
and charities operating within these regions participated in workgroups
within their area of expertise, one of which was Veteran Homelessness
and Community Services.
The Veteran Homelessness and Community Services workgroup focused
on the challenges, impacts/gaps, best practices and initiatives, and
resources necessary to bring about change to existing conditions. Each
subtopic began with a premise statement, and in discussing the
challenges across the regions, found quite a few similarities in
resolution approaches, programs and processes initiatives instituted,
best practices, and resources need to bring about resolution. In each
area visited, there was no doubt as the passion and compassion these
entities embraced when it comes to assisting Veterans and their family
members.
The result of our discussions across the state is that Florida has
a host of fragmented veteran services that augment the Federal VA
benefits system. That patchwork is local focused, community oriented
and effective for its regional population, but often work in silos,
separate, distinct, and limited in their focus. Because they are local
and inward focused, these groups face issues of adequate funding, lack
of proper information dissemination and sharing, lodging and
subsistence, and inadequate resources for outreach. They are also
insular and thus miss out on the benefits of coordination, mutual
assistance and resource sharing. Devoting resources to help fill these
gaps will allow FDVA, city and county municipalities, agencies, civic
organizations to be more effective. It takes a collective and combined
community based effort to resolve these issues.
Veteran Homelessness:
A Florida centric point in time study conducted by the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on Homelessness in January 2018
and the 2019 Council on Homelessness study showed that an estimated
that 31,030 experienced homelessness on any given day. Of that total,
2,757 were family households, 2,543 were Veterans. This data does not
take into account veterans and their family members who are being
temporarily sheltered on someone's couch, commonly referred to as
``couch surfing.'' Important is that veterans and their families are
rolled up in these dire statistics.
These statistics point to a very telling problem statement: Florida
has not ended homelessness for Veterans and their families. Tied
closely to the issue of Veteran Homelessness is the receipt of
community services whether on an emergency or routine basis. This
suggests another problem statement, that being: Veteran centric
community resources are disparately apportioned and distributed across
the public and private sector. Ultimately, this subsection of the white
paper will not resolve veteran homelessness or community services
matters, but will illustrate the regional challenges inherent to
transitioning veterans, the gaps/barrier in service(s) provision, the
initiatives and best practices being utilized within the various
regions, and the resources necessary to bring about resolution.
Importantly, it will position community collaboration and communication
as the best tool to bring about positive change to current community
challenges in these areas.
Veteran homelessness was a challenging and emotional topic for all
involved. While all agreed that this was a prevalent and growing
problem across Florida, the degree of impact varied, as well as their
belief that they could resolve the problem with available resources and
within a certain amount of time. Also, that services were extremely
limited, and disparate based on gender, family structure (single
parent, previously incarcerated veteran with family members, and female
veteran with children), characterization of service (honorable, general
discharge, other than honorable, and dishonorable discharge).
Importantly, they all believed that resolution lied in (less
restrictive) funding, standardization of the definition of a veteran,
and collaborating, communication and actually sharing resources to meet
all veterans need.
Challenges to ending homelessness in Florida:
How to resolve homelessness appears to be a matter of defining or
characterizing homelessness among our Veterans and providing services
irrespective of the veteran's type of discharge (honorable, other than
honorable, under honorable conditions, or bad conduct discharge).
In addition, in defining homeless status, many veterans seeking
services are not homeless by the definition of homeless - as they are
``couch surfing'' or temporarily sheltering on someone's couch. Also,
most homeless programs have no provisions to support single veterans
with children, especially female veterans, and those who have run afoul
of the law. Conversely, those who are eligible for housing find that
there is little to no safe affordable housing available for their
particular situation. When it came to landlords, those whose property
may have been damaged in some way, refused to rent to Veterans as there
was no funding mechanism to mitigate the damage. In gathering data
across the seven regions, we found key issues to be:
A shortage or lack of financial resources and
availability of `safe' affordable housing, including but not limited
to:
Subsidies/Vouchers to supplement or offset the high cost
of housing coupled with long term landlord engagement to maintain
housing
Address the shortage of participating landlords; and
restrictive housing, as well as the lack of housing and/or funding to
create affordable housing
Limited shelter/lodging for female Veterans with
children; as well as single male Veterans with children
No transitional programs for incarcerated veterans to
assist them in getting reestablished in society.
Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Administrations
Supportive Housing (HUD--VASH) voucher programs amounts are stagnant/
decreasing - - don't keep pace with the fluctuating prices of housing
Lack of financial resources for move-in costs (i.e. 1st,
month, last month and security deposit(s), as well as utility deposits
- - items not covered by the HUD-VASH vouchers
No statewide resources for veterans transitioning from
services to civilian life
Lack of agreement among providers on the use of available
funds
Lack of city participation in community service and
outreach programs
Limited supportive services are available in most cities,
counties and communities and those supportive service work in their own
silos and leading to unnecessary duplication of efforts; reduced
opportunities for education/sharing of information among service
providers. Agencies and service organizations providing these services
must move away from a - my program - approach to my community program
approach.
The definition of Homelessness differs at each level of
government (federal, State, county, and city which significantly
impacts resource allocation. All programs would benefit tremendously
from a clearly defined end- state for homelessness.
Lack of supportive benefits and conversely a lack of
awareness and communication of available resources. This shortage of
supportive benefits fall into the following areas:
Lack of access to mental health care for veterans in
conjunction with administering other supportive services.
There is a competition among organizations for veterans
as programs are productivity or quota driven; also creates a lack of
transparency regarding services available and provided.
Lack of employment assistance for homeless veterans
No centralized resource or process to direct veterans to
appropriate assistance and no follow-up process for those who are
provided assistance (Veterans seen as a piece of paper vice solving
human issues)
Limited financial resources for crisis or preventive
services
Public Awareness and communications issue (root causes
must be determined as each area is different (employment, drugs, mental
health)
All regions echoed a concern regarding a comparable
living wage to support housing and subsistence. After subsistence
vouchers ran out, previously homeless veterans could not find
employment that kept pace with housing costs.
Lack of unified effort to identify veterans. (Census
count may possibly identify vets)
There are associated mental health issues underlying
veteran homelessness. Some veterans don't want to leave the confines of
the woods. Mental health services are limited and sporadic across
Florida.
Misinformation and guidance regarding available resources
- perhaps consider revamping Transition Assistance Programs (TAPS) and
similar programs to extend transition assistance for Active duty
military personnel to 60, 90+ days post service.
Last, finding those veterans will also be difficult as they are
transient by nature and a good bit of those refuse, for various
reasons, not to come out of the woods.
Gaps/barriers impacting the eradication of Homelessness:
Across the regions assessed, gaps and barriers affecting
homelessness followed closely the challenges mentioned above,
especially when it came to resources and services provided. So, as not
to mention them again, this section will focus on or expound of those
mentioned above. Repetitively, income played a key factor in services
and creating a gap in the amount of services available. For example,
Area Medium Income (AMI) does not equal to the Cost of Living Allowance
(COLA). These thresholds disqualified a good segment of Veterans from
receiving services that could have alleviated a homeless situation.
From a legislative and municipal perspective, there were no policies to
mandate a percentage of housing to be dedicated to homelessness
initiatives. Gap/barriers repetitively mentioned or listed above
included:
Lack of landlords and `safe' affordable housing including
no damage mitigation support for landlords. Also, there was a lack of
education on housing. Key concerns included:
A lack of affordable housing outside of VA restrictive
requirements Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Administrations
Supportive Housing (HUD--VASH)
Housing choice voucher or similar programs were
nonexistent - - rental help only.
Lack of landlords willing to accept HUD-VASH vouchers,
termed landlord burnout. This landlord burnout stems from housing being
trashed or otherwise abused without any recourse
Existing housing is typically service animal restrictive.
This restriction is applied informally but not officially.
Consequently, veteran won't give up service or support animal; and
there are also challenges connecting vet with pet services.
Lack of legal services and social services for veterans
Discharge upgrades (dishonorable discharge, bad conduct
discharge) for Veterans ineligible for Veterans Administration services
Lack of employment assistance, peer support, and case
management
``Stovepipe'' programs (Community Vs. my organization)
Transportation shortages: lack of dedicated
transportation services to and from appointment areas
VA systems & community system don't interface (HOMES/
Homeless Management Information System). There is consequently a
disconnect between private and VA doctors on claims (claims exams,
data, and the like).
Mental health services /providers differ by location and
are not connected. More specifically there is a disparity between
homeless and near homeless services. Needed are:
Separate program for spouse and family members
Preventive assistance for those who don't meet income
requirements
Automation driven services by the VA and access limited
by veterans individual resources (phone, computer)
Lack of communication to discharged veterans on benefits
and services. A solution might be an information or exit package
There is currently no centralized process to gather data
and evaluate for services/``follow-up'' (clearing house)
Analyze data to determine root cause (Mental health;
transportation; education; or physical health
Specialized services needed - current programs cater to a
particular group while others fall through the gaps.
211 Initiative not promoted well
Resources provided by 211 may not be available
Trainer/mentor/counselor is needed in each prison
facility to get Veterans needed help
Provides for early assessment
Community Forum for vets issues that meets periodically
with due outs by subsequent meetings. Key to success of this venture is
frequent meetings with proactive measures for veterans before
incarceration/before imbedding them into the community
Guardianship Program with resources to service needy
veterans and family members
Guardian Ad Litem/Peer to peer level services
Help vets manage their compensation and pension
Also, assist with doctor management issues
State of Florida lacks a Welcome Packet for departing
military - Florida-centric packet.
Initiatives Agencies or Organizations currently working on:
Initiatives varied across the regions as some services did not
exist in all areas. Also, initiatives were at different stages of
development, so a clear assessment of their productivity was not
available. Important is that most initiatives were grass roots with
limited provision for expansion across counties or the State for that
matter.
Veteran Integrated Services Network 8 (VISN8): Supportive
Services for Veterans and Families; HUD-VASH, and MyFloridaVet line
funded by VISN8
Florida 211
Mission United
Florida Veterans Foundation; Floridaveterans.org
Continuum of Care (CoC) Initiatives (Share Information);
moving from CoC to my State
Stand Downs Reboot
Sharing transportation resources - communication
Homeless Outreach T3AM
Community collaboration
Homeless Management Information System -open system
Coordinated intake of Veterans.
Housing First model
Residential based certifications
By Name List/Case conferences
Her Total Wellness Initiative
Standdowns - organizations collaborating formally and
informally (network); Mini stand-downs
100 vets off the street in 111 days initiative (joint VA/
Palm Beach County/HUD/Standdown House collaborative initiative)
VA socialworkers (referrals)
VA Domiciliary Project Initiative at VA Hospital
Adult Health Day Care
Coordinated entry/by name list (VA and community
initiative)
Build for Zero: ``Community Solutions'' partner with
community partners) assessing best practices for homeless community
members
Goal is functional zero by year end
Point in time count of homeless Veterans and families
Shared Housing - - two or more vets sharing housing
Community coalitions forming to provide funding for
emergency services
Food Banks
VA Expanded case management programs
Survey of veteran's needs - survey/study
Mental health needs
Housing needs
County Veteran Services Officers - roving veterans
seminar
Sarasota Jail - Veterans pod created at facility - -
keeps veterans together while incarcerated, while providing a
transition program
Gulf Coast Partnership - ``Continuum of Care''
Collaboration - Sarasota & Manatee County on veterans,
their families and related issues.
Punta Gorda Police Department - trained in veteran
intervention
Homelessness Outreach Teams - trained in veteran
interventions
Resources necessary to bring resolution:
Repetitive across all counties was the lack of sufficient financial
support to support or enhance existing programs, or to develop new
programs or initiatives, especially housing. Also, participants echoed
that when financial resources were provided, they were so restrictive
that their use was largely prohibitive or restricted to a small segment
of the veteran population. Also, that the persons to manage the
programs were underpaid and at the macro level, there was no dedicated
personnel to coordinate State level support, and systems utilized by
the different social service programs did not integrate. Critical also
is being able to evaluate success given the resources provided.
Safe, affordable housing and the creation of housing
developments (affordable and near jobs); Affordable safe housing units
and participating landlords; housing specialist to work with landlords
and companies/organizations; landlord damage mitigation fund, and space
allocated for housing (tiny housing)
Develop a program of monetary incentives for initiatives
reaching the programs goal for initiatives or other metrics based
programs.
Mandate a Statewide software system to manage
homelessness data and matters (HMIS); HMIS/Homes integration, as well
as a Statewide client and data management system
Develop a State of Florida Level - dedicated think tank
to look and develop solutions to Statewide problems/issues impacting
our veterans
Employ gender/specific counselors at agencies,
departments, or organizations that have counseling as part of their
veterans benefit programs.
Expand mental health services: expand to include
supporting medical and mental health services
Offer communications mediums as part of Career
development; Computer Training/educational resources for Veterans
(phones, pagers, etc)
Expand existing VA education on current programs to reach
a more diverse audience, including family members.
Mobility options (transportation and transport services
close to Veterans lodging areas
Funding
Use vacant buildings for safe and secure housing
State, city and county provide seed money for this
initiative
Use existing land set asides for affordable housing
Solicit/use nonprofit resources - - tiny housing
Definition of homelessness (Define so homeless can move
from transitional housing to permanent housing)
Sustainment resources - - use to assist while families
develop income levels to sustain themselves
Funding (grants and related subsistence funds)
Coordinated database; Marketing of resources available;
Consolidated database of services/resource index statewide
Homelessness prevention programming - - one time funding,
SSVF assistance
Education and peer support - follow up and budgeting
training
Access to FEMA resources for Vets
Manpower/personnel for sustainability (volunteers
diminishing)
Subsidies for aging, homeless, indigent veteran
population - assisted living facilities for veterans that require
supervised care
Additional veteran service officers (VSOs) - perhaps
place additional VSOs in existing VA clinics
Policy changes (State & Federal) to allow or expand
services to a larger group of Veterans
Pamphlets for law enforcement/first responders to hand
out to veterans with whom they interact
Public awareness campaign (i.e. Public Service
Announcements, billboards, etc.) that is led by veterans, subject
matter experts, as well as ``boots-on-the-ground) community members
Messaging to position VSOs as veteran advocates to
facilitate greater interaction of veterans who are in need of services
and supports
Conclusion
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony on behalf of
the Florida Department of Veterans' Affairs for your records. We know
this issue is a serious problem facing not only our state, but the
country. We look forward to working with the committee and offer our
assistance in trying to address the major challenges that face Florida
veterans. We also appreciate any additional resources that can be
provided to help address the veteran homelessness crisis.
Prepared Statement of David Lambert
Dear Sir,
The Pasco County Housing Authority is the recipient of Federal
Funds through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We
receive VASH Vouchers that are specifically for Veterans. Housing for
Veterans and others is extremely hard to come by. The PCHA recently
purchased property to build approximately 78 units of Veterans family
housing and mental health housing. While one would think progress has
not been made and there is an extreme lack of affordable housing stock
in our area. In the case of the PCHA we tried to get financed before to
build the new community however banks would not lend to the PCHA. Even
though the VA and HUD approved project basing VASH vouchers which
virtually guarantees the property would be successful.
We have met resistance at every level. This is based on the low
funding from HUD through the Federal Budget and our balance sheet.
Housing Authorities are designed by nature to have a very slim margin.
We have been able to cobble together approximately two million dollars
in funding and we are seeking a legislative budget request for two
million more and banks will approve funding and we can begin
construction on a new community.
We respectfully request the federal government create a regulation
and a funding stream that gives enough capital to obtain financing from
private banks or federally back loans specifically to build Veterans
and mental health housing
Respectfully,
David B. Lambert
Chairman
Pasco County Housing Authority
727-505-3179
Prepared Statement of Michael Raposa
My name is Michael Raposa, and I am the CEO of St. Vincent de Paul
CARES, Inc.
Since 2011 we have been the lead agency leading the charge to end
veteran homelessness in the West Central Florida area - including the
counties of Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Polk. In 2018 we added
the counties of Citrus, Hernando, Sumter and Lake to our service area.
When we embarked on the mission, the mere concept of ending veteran
homelessness for any sub-population was a dream that many felt
unrealistic. To that end, I was summoned at one point to a local County
administrator's office who requested that I stop talking about it
publicly; stating that the commissioners thought that I was crazy.
I understood where he was coming from - as the number of
unsheltered/sheltered veterans was approximately 2,850 in that County.
I am pleased to stay that the number is significantly less than 200
today . 164 last time I looked. We have made significant progress -
much thanks to substantial congressional appropriations over the years.
The creating and continued funding of the Supportive Services for
Veteran Families (SSVF) program under the Veterans Administration has
completely transformed homeless services delivery nationwide. The data
continues to show that the majority of veterans on the street can be
moved into housing immediately and, with wrap-around supportive
services, thrive. The length of time between being on the street and
housing has declined from nearly 180 days when we began - to near 40
days today.
In addition to the positive impact that SSVF has had on the clients
and households served - the greatest impact has been on the local
communities. The program has proved that a systemic approach to ending
homelessness across the US can/will produce a dramatic decline in
homelessness. In the Tampa Bay region alone, we have seen the dramatic
decline in communities (as illustrated above) - whereas other portions
of our community where the system is less developed; the numbers remain
stagnate - or continue to increase. The substantial foundation laid by
SSVF is now able to be easily replicated with other subpopulations.
To that end - during the month of August Pinellas County saw the
number of homeless families with children seeking shelter and housing
intervention at zero for four days. While this may seem meager - it is
substantial considering the number has been over 200 at various points.
So, the rapid access to affordable housing, supportive
stabilization services, community organization and coordination, and
strong advocacy for change have proven to be the perfect combination.
The greatest obstacle being faced across the nation today is the
availability of affordable housing. We, as a nation, need to adapt
services to meet the changing conditions it has created. The first is
the need to expand the affordable housing supply. VA's Enhanced Use
Lease (EUL) program allows for the development of housing on
underutilized or unused VA properties, but there are no capital funds
associated with the program to develop targeted rental housing or
permanent supportive housing. Allowing the EUL program to offer both
capital resources as well as the ability to collaborate with the HUD-
VASH Program on Project-Based HUD-VASH, in a one-stop procurement,
would eliminate the need for developers to seek out multiple sources of
capital and operating assistance. This would also help integrate
Project-Based HUD-VASH into all EUL development.
Within HUD, there are cross-cutting HUD regulatory requirements
(e.g., Davis Bacon or Environmental Review requirements) that are
applied to programs and projects regardless that offer rental
assistance or operating assistance (e.g. Section 811 Project Based
Rental Assistance or Section 8 Project Based Vouchers) not capital
sources that support housing development. HUD may want to consider
conducting a review of the cross-cutting regulatory requirements to see
if any of these requirements could be eliminated to reduce barriers/
burden on developers of multi-family rental housing or permanent
supportive housing, as well as the time it takes for a project to come
to fruition. Eliminating or reducing some of these requirements would
both lower developer costs to comply and improve the efficiency of the
development process (i.e. reduce time to develop an affordable multi-
family development). As a result, these reforms may increase housing
developers, especially for-profit entities, participating in these HUD
programs.
Two promising practices being initiated by SSVF should be supported
and expanded.
Its Rapid Resolution seeks to identify available housing
that veterans may access by moving in with family or friends. Through a
process of conflict mediation and limited financial assistance, Rapid
Resolution helps homeless and imminently at-risk veterans reconcile
sufficiently so that these relationships can become housing resources.
This avoids the trauma of homelessness for these households and creates
a new untapped housing resource. SSVF has supported this national
initiative by training grantees on mediation techniques and creating
the programmatic framework to make this initiative possible.
A second SSVF initiative is known as shallow subsidies.
Shallow subsidies offer a fixed rental subsidy of up to 35 percent of
the Fair Market Rent (as published by HUD) for 2 years. As the subsidy
is fixed for 2 years, participants are strongly incentivized to
increase income as their rental subsidy would not be impacted by income
growth. SSVF has partnered with DOL's Homeless Veterans Reintegration
Program (HVRP) to co-enroll participants with the goal of reach
economic self-sufficiency by the end of SSVF's 2-year shallow subsidy
period. Currently offered in 10 CoCs, we would like to see this
resource expanded into other communities with inadequate supplies of
affordable housing.
Finally, we here in Florida continue to see the states affordable
housing trust fund being swept by our state legislature. 2019 was the
first time (in many years) that we saw the Governor and Senate on the
same page to release a historic portion of fund. However, with House
opposition - no great change happened. We desperately need more
advocacy from Washington.
Prepared Statement of Brian Anderson
Good Morning Chairman Levin, Ranking Member Bilirakis and members
of the Committee,
My name is Brian Anderson; I am a Medically Retired Green Beret,
Social Worker, founder and CEO of the Veterans Alternative, and a
Master's of Social Work candidate at Columbia University with a focus
on Social Enterprise Administration. I truly appreciate the time given
to speak on a problem I am all too familiar with.
I moved to Pasco County Florida in 2012. At that time, Pasco and
Hillsborough Counties ranked in the top ten of chronically homeless,
and Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties each ranked in the top ten for
overall homeless (Alvaro Cortes, 2012). All three counties were rated
as small cities, counties or continuum of cares. Real change in our
area is not significant, as the 2018 Point In Time Counts reveals Pasco
and Pinellas counties leading in several homeless statistics including
Veteran Homelessness (Meghan Henry, 2018).
As valiant an effort as James A. Haley, Bay Pines, the state of
Florida, local municipalities and Non-government organizations have
made in the last 7 years, homelessness remains a major issue amongst
our Veteran population. Models, such as housing first, have emerged as
the leading evidenced based approach to ending homelessness, yet we
lack the number of beds needed, and unfortunately we can not build and
fund fast enough to keep up with the demand. This brings to focus how
we catalog homelessness, health care or societal, and the approach in
which we attack the issue.
By necessity, our country is shifting the focus of health care from
acute to preventative (Stanhope & Straussner, 2018). You, our elected
officials, have played a major role in this shift, and it is evident in
our Veteran Health Administration. For the most part, at least in the
James A Haley area of operation, a whole health approach is practiced
and is increasing overall health and wellbeing of the Veterans served,
but our approach to homelessness is still acute, and that needs to
change.
The health care shift articulates good health care as an exercise
in interdependency, yet our homeless programs focus on reactive
solutions and little on the preventative practices often implemented in
community wellness programs serving the psychosocial needs of a
population (Brown, Besterman-Daban, Chavez, Njob, & Smith, 2016).
Reactive solutions do little in addressing the root cause of the
problem, which was a major topic in our Nation's discussion on health
care practices (Stanhope & Straussner, 2018).
Homelessness is not the root cause; rather it is a byproduct of
several contributing factors, including mental health, medical and
economic hardship (Madlen, Jepson, Laird, & McAteer, 2019). These are
being addressed in standard practices of care, especially at the state
and federal levels, but there is an element missing at the community
level, and it is prudent we address this by allocating more resources
to wellness programs addressing the psychosocial needs of our Veteran
population.
These wellness programs are critical in reaching our most isolated
individuals who are often reluctant to engage services through normal
means of care, such as the Veterans Health Administration (Madlen,
Jepson, Laird, & McAteer, 2019). Community based Wellness programs are
a crucial part of the solution to prevent homelessness, suicide and
risky behaviors from occurring, yet are often pacified as ``feel good''
services. It is time we start including community-based nonprofits as a
necessary part of overall Veteran Care and prevention programs.
Many of these community-based nonprofits are providing services
alternative in nature, and include camaraderie as a key component of
programing. Numerous studies indicate the loss of ``fictive kinship''
and the disconnect between veterans and civilians as major problems we
face (Wilson, Hill, & Kiernan, 2018). Social isolation is a significant
concern among Veterans from all generations including our transitioning
Veteran population, and is often associated with homelessness, suicide
and suicidal Ideations, risky behaviors and use of drugs and alcohol.
Veteran nonprofit organizations providing alternative care often
utilize a model that includes peers in treatment in an environment
outside the standard medical model and this phenomenon needs to be
researched, resourced and replicated.
As the medical model would dictate, focus on treatments rather than
programs have emerged as the legislative test to see what these
nonprofits bring to our interdependent practice. What started with the
VA committee as the COVER Act, has been replicated in the State of
Florida. An extensive program evaluation of Alternative treatment
options for Veterans is being implemented right now, and 12 of the 15
current participants represent community-based nonprofits. It is
premature and under resourced to hypothesize results on a larger scale
as it relates to homelessness, but our current standard of practice is
doing little to address prevention and these community based veteran
nonprofits providing wellness programs are structured to prevent
isolation which is a documented cause and result of homelessness, along
with suicidal ideations and risky behaviors.
If we can accept societal issues are man made phenomena, then we
have the opportunity to change through our constructed system of human
interaction. We can end a systemic problem, like Veteran homelessness,
through the very structures we created or place value on, such as
legislation, resources and approaches. I beg you, for the health and
wellbeing of my fictive brothers and sisters, include wellness programs
as a major part of prevention in the legislation you present and in the
resources you allocate.
References
Alvaro Cortes, M. H. (2012). Annual Homeless Assessment Report. The
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Community
Planning and Development. Alvaro Cortes, Meghan Henry, RJ de la Cruz,
and Scott Brown, Abt Associates.
Brown, C., Besterman-Daban, K., Chavez, M., Njob, E., & Smith, W.
(2016). ``It gave me an excuse to get out into society again'':
Decreasing Veteran Isolation through a Community Agricultural Peer
Support Model. Journal of Veteran Studies (1), 164-186.
Madlen, S., Jepson, R., Laird, Y., & McAteer, J. (2019). A Theroy
based evaluation of an intervention to promote positive health
behaviors and reduce social isolation in people experiecing
homelessness. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless , 28 (2),
158-168.
Meghan Henry, A. M. (2018). Annual Homeless Assessment Report
(AHAR) to Congress. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
Stanhope, V., & Straussner, S. L. (2018). Social Work and
Integrated Health Care. New York, NY, United States: Oxford University
Press.
Wilson, G., Hill, M., & Kiernan, M. D. (2018). Loneliness and
social isolation of military Veterans: systematic narrative review.
Occupational Medicine , 68, 600-609.
Prepared Statement of Mary White
I am an Army Veteran; I am also a mother. I became a single mother
when my son was one, I also found us to be in a financially burdened
situation. At that point, we had become homeless. We couch surfed for a
little while before I learned that the VA had programs to help us. I
started advocating for myself and that's how I was connected to
HUDVASH. Through that process, I was also able to find community
organizations such as Saint Vincent DePaul's, Supported Services for
Veterans and Families (SSVF), and Boley Centers Federal Employment
Grant that offers assistance to homeless Veterans. Saint Vincent DePaul
assisted us with finding suitable housing and also the financial
aspects of securing and moving into my apartment. Once we had suitable
housing HUDVASH was able to take over with a housing voucher and case
management. Local non-profit organizations donated furniture, household
goods and sometimes food; they even provided Christmas presents for my
son. Due to having sustainable housing, I was able to go back to school
utilizing G.I. Bill and Vocational Rehabilitation (Chapter 31)
benefits. I performed my required Masters Practicum at the James A.
Haley VA Medical Center as a social work intern. I graduated with my
Masters in Social Work in August, 2018. While attending school and
working, I received a voucher to defray childcare costs through the
Early Learning Coalition (ELC), which is a very limited resource in the
community that HUDVASH was able to refer me too. Without childcare
assistance it would have been virtually impossible to succeed. Many
single parents remain trapped ``in the system'' due to this barrier
alone.
During this time, in addition to mental and medical health care by
the VA, I also worked with the VA's Compensated Work Therapy (CWT)
program to try and find employment. I received assistance from Boley
Centers, Homeless Veteran's Reintegration program, who assisted with my
resume and job readiness. I continue to work with Vocational
Rehabilitation employment services and CareerSource's Veteran
Employment services to secure a job that will utilize my Master's
degree. I am currently an Employment Security Representative, with the
Department of Economic Opportunity.
All these programs, for me began with HUDVASH. HUDVASH interlinks
with a multitude of resources to assist homeless Veterans, connecting
us to needed resources. One resource is the Pasco County Housing
Authority. They enrolled me into the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) and
Earned Income Disallowance (EID) programs, which allow me to continue
to work towards financial security and independence. I am working with
these resources to meet my last treatment plan goal of incoming out of
HUDVASH and no longer being eligible.
These programs and resources available to assist homeless Veterans
are the reason I am where I am today. I am a single mother with a
master's degree and working towards becoming a Licensed Clinical Social
Worker. I am able to support my family, and maintain normal living
environment for my son. I would not be successful without the
assistance from these programs and organizations that help the homeless
Veteran population.
Even with these resources, barriers remain a very big reality for
struggling Veterans. Transportation is a major barrier. Public
transportation in Pasco county is minimal rendering it almost
impossible to maintain employment or school attendance without a
vehicle. The financial burden is overwhelming and impossible for the
homeless. I was blessed to have a vehicle but the fear of repossession
was a reality. When my car broke down, and I could not afford repairs,
I could have easily been derailed. HUDVASH connected me with Wounded
Warriors who paid for car repairs. If they hadn't, I would still be
solely relying on these programs for financial security rather than
trying to phase out of them. Without reliable transportation Veterans
are trapped in the system. There are very few resources to help
Veterans obtain or maintain transportation. In Pasco County, there are
no shelters or transitional housing opportunities for women and
children and very limited shelter beds for men. Without short term
housing solutions many never have the opportunity to seek permanent
housing and independence. Mental health and medical treatment are a
real option once someone is stably housed in a program such as HUDVASH.
However, for some, no dental resources have resulted in major medical
concerns that derail progress towards independence.
I entered into HUDVASH in 2016 and it has taken just under 4 years
to get to where I am today. Although I am still a Veteran receiving
services through HUDVASH, my aim is to not make it to the 5th year.
Instead of being a homeless Veteran family, we are on the path of
becoming homeowners with full time employment and being completely
self-sufficient.
The resources my son and I utilized are vital to one another, and
were possible through various grants and programs that the VA helped me
access. I have personally witnessed both sides of these programs. One
as a client/recipient of the services, but also while completing my
internships at the Tampa, VA. I was able to see the clinical and
administrative side of some of these programs. It is my goal to put
these experiences to good use and help other veteran's navigate my path
and reach their goals as well. None of it would be possible without the
funding Congress provides through federal grants, HUD and educational
benefits. Additional funding is needed for emergency and transitional
housing, transportation and ancillary services that will ultimately
save money, as more veteran's become self-sufficient and productive
members of their communities.