USA Today (12/29, Vogel) reports, “Halfway into an ambitious five-year campaign to end homelessness among veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs says it has made enough progress that the goal is within reach, even as a new generation of veterans returns from Iraq and Afghanistan.” Over the past two and a half years, the VA has aggressively used a “voucher program” to house “more than 33,000 veterans.” The VA “did so by changing its longtime policy of requiring homeless veterans to be successfully treated for substance abuse and mental ailments before being given apartments.”
To curb homelessness among returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA has allocated $160 million in grants to non-profit community agencies to prevent low-income from falling into homelessness. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said, “We’ve learned we can’t end homelessness by street rescues alone.”