VA cuts program for homeless vets after touting Trump's commitment

[babylonsister]

VA cuts program for homeless vets after touting Trump's commitment

By ARTHUR ALLEN and LORRAINE WOELLERT
12/06/2017 05:49 PM EST
Updated 12/06/2017 07:13 PM EST


Four days after Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin held a big Washington event to tout the Trump administration’s promise to house all homeless vets, the agency did an about-face, telling advocates it was pulling resources from a major housing program.

The VA said it was essentially ending a special $460 million program that has dramatically reduced homelessness among chronically sick and vulnerable veterans. Instead, the money would go to local VA hospitals that can use it as they like, as long as they show evidence of dealing with homelessness.

Anger exploded on a Dec. 1 call that was arranged by Shulkin’s Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans to explain the move. Advocates for veterans, state officials and even officials from HUD, which co-sponsors the program, attacked the decision, according to five people who were on the call.

"I don’t understand why you are pulling the rug out," Elisha Harig-Blaine, a National League of Cities housing official who was on the call, said in an interview afterward. "You're putting at risk the lives of men and women who've served this country."

“The VA is taking its foot off the pedal,” said Leon Winston, an executive at Swords to Plowshares, which helps homeless vets in San Francisco, where he said the VA decision is already having an impact. HUD recently put up 100 housing vouchers for veterans in the program, but the local VA hospital said it could only provide support for 50.

The agency's move came as HUD on Wednesday released its annual survey showing a 1.5 percent increase in veteran homelessness over 2016 — the first rise since 2010. Most of the jump occurred in Los Angeles, where housing costs are skyrocketing.

more...

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/06/homeless-veterans-benefits-trump-207781

[Wellstone ruled]

1. When in hell are the Military Vets

going to figure out that,the GOP hates them.

[bluecollar2]

3. This vet figured it out a long time ago...n/t

[riversedge]

2. It will take a congressional fix at this point, Harig-Blaine said....Congress is useless!

...............All 14 members of the Senate Appropriations Military Construction-VA Subcommittee, including Murray, asked the VA to reconsider its decision, but apparently the letter had no effect.

“It will take a congressional fix at this point,” Harig-Blaine said.

Advocates said cuts to the program were doubly foolish because the chronically homeless veterans it serves typically cost cities and the health care system hundreds of thousands of dollars for emergency room visits, ambulance runs and jailings that could be avoided if the veterans were reasonably sheltered.

“These are the kinds of veterans it deals with,” said Kathryn Monet, CEO of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.