Homelessness

During 2022, the Department of Veterans Affairs permanently housed 40,401 homeless Veterans, providing them with the safe, stable homes that they deserve. This exceeded the department’s goal to house 38,000 Veterans in 2022 by 6.3 percent.

Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness announced preliminary results of the 2022 Point-in-Time Count showing an 11 percent decline in Veteran homelessness since early 2020, the last time a full count was conducted. This is the biggest drop in Veteran homelessness in more than five years.

This week, as a part of ongoing efforts to end Veteran homelessness, the Department of Veterans Affairs published three grant opportunities for Fiscal Year 2024 that will help Veterans who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

As a part of ongoing efforts to end Veteran homelessness, the Department of Veterans Affairs published a Notice of Funding Opportunity for more than $11 million in legal services grants for Veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

On Sept. 13, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it awarded $137 million in grants through VA's Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program to help Veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and their families.

On Aug. 1, the Department of Veterans Affairs awarded $431 million in grants to 258 non-profit organizations across the nation to help homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families.

The Department of Veterans Affairs published a Final Rule (insert link) on (insert date), allowing Grant and Per Diem program grantees to receive reimbursements for costs associated with serving the minor dependents of homeless Veterans.

For the story of Justin’s service, the year was 2009, and Justin had come out of retirement to go on active duty in Iraq at the height of the war—serving as a part of the 34th Infantry Division’s Army National Guard Band... that’s Minnesota’s Red Bull.

As part of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ national homeless prevention efforts, VA published an Interim Final Rule which allows VA to enhance the provision of legal services for Veterans experiencing or at risk for homelessness.

As part of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to end Veteran homelessness, Secretary Denis McDonough released Master Plan 2022, April 22, detailing the updated vision for a stable and supportive community for homeless and other at-risk Veterans and their families at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is awarding 36 capital grants totaling approximately $64.7 million to community organizations under VA’s Grant and Per Diem program to improve the quality of housing options for Veterans experiencing homelessness.

We’ve lost so many of the Vets we serve, the colleagues we work with, and the family and friends we love. And we’re still not out of the woods after two long years of the pandemic. But the reality is that—because times have been hard—this is the moment when Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors need us most. I know DAV has risen to that challenge—driving hundreds of thousands of Vets to VA hospitals for free during the pandemic and helping Vets and their families file 150,000 new claims last year alone.