[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR VETERAN HOMELESSNESS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
of the
COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016
FIELD HEARING HELD IN RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA
__________
Serial No. 114-50
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS
JEFF MILLER, Florida, Chairman
DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado CORRINE BROWN, Florida, Ranking
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida, Vice- Minority Member
Chairman MARK TAKANO, California
DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAN BENISHEK, Michigan DINA TITUS, Nevada
TIM HUELSKAMP, Kansas RAUL RUIZ, California
MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio BETO O'ROURKE, Texas
JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana KATHLEEN RICE, New York
RALPH ABRAHAM, Louisiana TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LEE ZELDIN, New York JERRY McNERNEY, California
RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania
AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa
MIKE BOST, Illinois
Jon Towers, Staff Director
Don Phillips, Democratic Staff Director
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
BRAD WENSTRUP, Ohio, Chairman
LEE ZELDIN, New York MARK TAKANO, California, Ranking
AMATA RADEWAGEN, American Samoa Member
RYAN COSTELLO, Pennsylvania DINA TITUS, Nevada
MIKE BOST, Illinois KATHLEEN RICE, New York
JERRY McNERNEY, California
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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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Page
Finding Solutions For Veteran Homelessness In Southern California 1
OPENING STATEMENTS
Honorable Brad Wenstrup, Chairman................................ 1
Honorable Mark Takano, Ranking Member............................ 2
Honorable Raul Ruiz, Member...................................... 4
Honorable Norma Torres, U.S. House of Representatives, 35th
Congressional District; California............................. 23
WITNESSES
Mr. Emilio Ramirez, Development Director, City of Riverside...... 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 35
Ms. Carrie Harmon, Principal Development Specialist, County of
Riverside...................................................... 8
Prepared Statement........................................... 40
Mr. Stephen Peck, M.S.W., President & CEO, U.S. VETS............. 10
Prepared Statement........................................... 43
Mr. Son Nguyen, Co-founder & President, Veterans Association of
Real Estate Professionals...................................... 12
Prepared Statement........................................... 44
Mr. Jose Rivera, Student, University of California, Riverside.... 15
Prepared Statement........................................... 51
STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD
Mike Michaud..................................................... 52
Stephen Peck..................................................... 56
FINDING SOLUTIONS FOR VETERAN HOMELESSNESS IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
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Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Committee on Veterans' Affairs,
U. S. House of Representatives,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:33 p.m., in
Riverside City College, AD122 of the Administrative Building,
4800 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, California, Hon. Brad Wenstrup
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Wenstrup and Takano.
Also Present: Representatives Ruiz and Torres.
OPENING STATEMENT OF BRAD WENSTRUP, CHAIRMAN
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, good afternoon, everyone. And the
Subcommittee will come to order.
I want to thank you all for joining us for this field
hearing of the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity of the U.S.
House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
My name is Brad Wenstrup, and not only is it my pleasure to
serve as the Congressman for the Second District of Ohio, which
includes portions of Cincinnati and southern Ohio, but also to
serve as the Chairman of this Subcommittee.
Before we begin, I want to say what a pleasure it is to be
here at Riverside City College, and I thank my colleague and
Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Congressman Mark Takano,
for hosting us here today. It is great to work with a
thoughtful legislator like Mark. He continues to put the goals
of the veterans first and to provide economic opportunity for
veterans. And I would say that the people of the 41st District
of California are lucky to have him as their Congressman.
Today, we are here to examine and highlight programs and
benefits that help combat veteran homelessness not only here in
southern California but nationwide. There has been significant
progress made in reducing homelessness among veterans, and
several municipalities are able to celebrate the fact that they
have eliminated veteran homelessness.
While this is certainly great news, as funding for homeless
veteran programs at VA and the Department of Labor continue to
reach record levels, we must ensure that we have a true and
accurate picture of how this money is being spent.
The Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program, HVRP,
administered by the Department of Labor, is designed to provide
homeless veteran providers with grant funds to provide job
training programs for homeless veterans. And while HVRP has
been determined to be one of the most successful job-training
grant programs in the Federal Government, I know there is
always room for improvement.
For example, as it was mentioned in Mr. Peck's testimony
with U.S.VETS, homeless veterans that are currently using HUD-
VASH vouchers are not eligible to receive services under HVRP.
And while I believe it is important to provide veterans with
short-term housing through VA's HUD-VASH housing voucher
program, it is even more critical that they also receive
comprehensive wraparound services like those provided by HVRP
that help them find employment.
Without helping veterans find meaningful employment through
HVRP, we are only providing them temporary housing, but we are
not setting them up for long-term and sustainable success. That
is why I was proud this past summer when the House passed my
bill H.R. 474, which would expand eligibility for HVRP to all
of the veterans in HUD-VASH housing and would also reauthorize
the program for 5 years.
I want to thank Mr. Takano and the rest of our colleagues
for their support in passing this bill, and I hope the Senate
sends it to the President's desk very shortly.
Once again, I am very happy to be here this afternoon. I am
interested in hearing from our witnesses about ways to improve
HVRP and other suggestions they may have about how to improve
homeless veteran programs and services nationwide.
[The attachment appears in the Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. At this time I ask unanimous consent that our
colleagues, Dr. Ruiz from California's 36th District, and
hopefully Ms. Torres from California's 35th District, be
allowed to sit at the dais and ask questions. Hearing no
objections, so ordered.
It now gives me pleasure to recognize Mr. Takano for any
opening remarks he may have.
OPENING STATEMENT OF MARK TAKANO, RANKING MEMBER
Mr. Takano. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very
pleased to welcome you to my home district here in Riverside
County and the Inland Empire. Thank you for your kind words.
And I must say, I appreciate the bipartisan spirit in which you
chair this Committee and the bipartisan work we are able to do
on behalf of our Nation's veterans.
I am also glad that Dr. Ruiz is here. I know my mom is glad
you are here. She is in the audience. You saw her. And I am
hopeful that Ms. Torres will join us very shortly.
Thank you all for making the effort to learn how Riverside
County and the Inland Empire are finding solutions to the
problem of veteran homelessness. Today, we have come together
to talk about the fact that, as President Obama has said, ``too
many of those who once wore our Nation's uniform now sleep in
our Nation's streets.''
Veteran homelessness is a complicated problem with many
causes, which call for comprehensive and evidence-based
solutions. Each of us here today is dedicated to learning how
we can contribute to those solutions. Fortunately, we have seen
models that work, and many of those models have been
successfully implemented here in Riverside County.
I am extremely proud of the work that is being done in my
community to get veterans and their families off the streets
into permanent housing and entering meaningful employment or
pursuing higher education and training.
The five witnesses joining us today each have a unique
narrative to share on the topic of veteran homelessness. We
will hear from both the city and county of Riverside about what
is possible when we coordinate regional efforts among Federal,
State, and local governments; nonprofits; and the private
sector to provide a full spectrum of resources that meet the
needs of veterans transitioning from homelessness to permanent,
stable housing.
We will hear from two nonprofit organizations that have
each contributed greatly to ending veteran homelessness in this
region. U.S.VETS has been fighting veteran homelessness for
over 20 years and has a wealth of recommendations to share with
us, particularly regarding efforts to improve the Department of
Labor's Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program, or HVRP,
which our Subcommittee oversees.
U.S.VETS, along with other organizations, spearheaded the
creative strategy to reuse March Air Force Base and build the
new March Veterans Village in Moreno Valley. I am very proud of
this initiative, along with many others in this region.
The Veterans Association of Real Estate Professionals, or
VAREP, serves as a voice for the interests of veterans on the
topic of financial literacy, homeownership, and VA loan
education. They play a unique role in the effort to help
veterans achieve the American dream of homeownership, and I
look forward to their contribution to today's discussion.
Last but not least, we will hear from a veteran who served
our Nation honorably and then struggled on the brink of
homelessness before accessing the housing and education
resources that have ensured he and his family have a stable
home and a bright future. Welcome.
We have asked that the witnesses focus their testimony on
issues that fall within this Subcommittee's jurisdiction,
particularly programs that help homeless veterans find good,
stable jobs or that enable veterans to use the GI Bill to
pursue educational opportunities while receiving a living
stipend.
That said, we want to hear about the comprehensive
approaches that have worked to move homeless veterans into
permanent housing, including HUD-VASH vouchers, the Housing
First model, and issues related to mental health, health care,
and substance abuse.
We understand that veteran homelessness is a complicated
issue and that jobs and education are a part of the solution
but not the whole solution. Most importantly, we are all
looking forward to hearing about the initiatives and efforts
that have produced results in Riverside County and the region,
as well as your recommendations that we can take back to
Congress so that we may continue to see improvements.
Now, I want to thank all of you for being here today, and I
look forward to hearing about how Riverside County and our
region have made progress on this all-important issue. And, Mr.
Chairman, with that, I yield back.
[The attachment appears in the Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you, Mr. Takano.
And, Dr. Ruiz, please feel free to share any opening
remarks that you may have.
OPENING STATEMENT OF RAUL RUIZ
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is interesting. I am neighbors with the Chairman in the
Longworth Building. His door is right in front of my door so I
always know what time he gets in. He gets in pretty early. And
we have a good working relationship, so thank you for coming to
Riverside to hold this hearing. It is very important that we do
this in a bipartisan way, and it is very important that the
people see that in order to be an example of what we can do
together when we eliminate the hyper-partisanship and start
working together to get things done.
Mr. Wenstrup. Absolutely.
Mr. Ruiz. And I want to thank the Ranking Member Takano for
holding this timely hearing regarding a true crisis that has
been plaguing our veteran population for too long, which is
homelessness. Our veterans sacrifice so much for this country.
They are the men and women who left their homes, families, and
careers to defend our American values. Today, we must accept
that our veterans are also those homeless that we pass on the
street.
Although a veteran's service to this country is complete--
and for many, the passion to help and to serve is a way of life
that never ends; it is not a temporary job--many veterans still
desire to serve in their communities, and I am interested in
how we are educating and empowering those veterans to aid in
solving this current crisis. We must not overlook the well of
expertise we have right here in this room, right here in our
home and in our communities.
Two of these veterans, advocates from my district, are here
in the audience with us today. We have Anita Worthen, who
coordinates the annual Pass Area Veterans Expo, which will take
place in Beaumont Civic Center on Saturday, January 30. One of
the expo's goals is to connect homeless veterans with Loma
Linda VA Hospital for mental health services and other
services, including housing, et cetera.
And Shirley Powell, who spent 38 years in the Air Force,
and who participated in our Veterans University last year,
where community leaders learned the skill to ``pay it forward''
and help their fellow veterans. She is also coordinating the
Veteran's Easy Access Program Expo that will happen April 2 in
Indio. Both of them are my top advisors in relation to
veterans' issues.
We are holding this hearing a week before the 2016 Point-
in-Time count, which means that we can face those numbers with
realistic expectations, and more importantly, pragmatic
solutions. My hope is that these solutions will lead to a
veteran population that no longer has to wonder if they traded
their service for financial instability and homelessness.
But in order to solve this multifaceted, complex problem,
we must be dedicated not only to the end result, but also to
the process. And this process involves three main stages: One,
assisting veterans before the end of their activity duty
service; empowering veterans to succeed in the first months
after returning to civilian life; and providing a safety net
for veterans to avoid homelessness.
Each of your organizations is working to address different
aspects of this process, and there is value in the alternate
approaches to ensure no veteran slips through the cracks. And
as we evaluate the different points of intervention offered
through your organizations, we must be willing to perform a
critical analysis of our current processes and have a frank
discussion of successes and failures.
In 2014, I joined Congressman Takano and our neighbor
Congressman Calvert to support a Coachella Valley Housing
Coalition with U.S.VETS, and county housing authority
application for 75 project-based HUD-VASH vouchers to help
develop a community for homeless veterans here at March Air
Force Reserve Base in Riverside known as the March Veterans
Village.
So I am interested in learning about the successes of this
project and the obstacles that were realized prior to or during
implementation as well. As a physician, I understand that
homelessness and shelter is a major determinant of health. It
is one of the basic human necessities, and I know this being a
disaster specialist working in Haiti after the earthquake and
other areas of extreme poverty.
And I am also interested in hearing about how we serve our
homeless population with their health care. Just earlier this
week, I met with several community stakeholders that service
homeless populations in the hopes of starting a street medicine
program that actually provides point of care in the streets for
the homeless, finds them, integrates them, and helps them
there.
And also, if you all could shed light on specific issues
that women homeless veterans face in job placement, utilizing
their GI Bills, and also getting housing.
So I want to say thank you all for your passion and for
caring and for serving our veterans. Thank you.
[The attachment appears in the Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Ruiz and Mr.
Takano, for your statements. And I think that you can tell, at
least amongst the Congressmen sitting up here, that there is a
true desire to take care of our veterans and be successful at
doing it.
At this time, I would like to welcome our first and only
panel. And on our first panel we have Mr. Emilio Ramirez with
the city of Riverside, California; Ms. Carrie Harmon with the
county of Riverside, California; Mr. Stephen Peck with
U.S.VETS; Mr. Son Nguyen with Veterans Association of Real
Estate Professionals; and finally, Mr. Jose Rivera, a student
at the University of California, Riverside.
Each of you will be recognized for 5 minutes. And please
note that the timer in front of you, there will count down how
much time you have left. I thank you for being here. I have
read ahead and I am impressed with what all of you are doing,
and I thank you very much.
With that, Mr. Ramirez, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF EMILIO RAMIREZ
Mr. Ramirez. Thank you. Good afternoon, Honorable Chairman
and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Emilio Ramirez. I
have the honor of serving with the Community Economic
Development Department with the city of Riverside. And I am
honored to be in front of you today and to have been asked to
testify about what the city of Riverside is doing in its effort
in meeting the challenge to end veteran homelessness in our
community.
I will be speaking about the Riverside Ending Homelessness
5-year plan that is included in the written testimony and
focusing on being able to meet that challenge to end veteran
homelessness.
First, let me take an opportunity to thank the Committee
and Chairman Wenstrup for the hearing and for the leadership
that he is showing in this very important cause.
I would like to acknowledge Representative Mark--
Congressman Takano, as well as everybody involved in bringing
the challenge to end veteran homelessness to our community.
In addition, I would like to greatly appreciate the local
leadership and thank Mayor Bailey and the city council for
accepting the challenge and offering the support that we needed
to succeed.
So getting started, first, I would like to talk a little
bit about what we have done. And in Riverside, the city and the
community, there was already an amazing partnership that
existed amongst a collection of real talent. But because the
need is so great and the resources are so limited, we often
find ourselves focused on what is immediately in front of us.
And we end up working independently to solve the issue that is
in front of us right now.
So sometimes, it takes a reason to come together to work
together, and the challenge brought that forward, not that we
didn't already know each other, not that we didn't already
share experiences, but now we had a reason. And we had to house
86 people in the Riverside community, and we had 6 months to do
it. And it didn't mean in a shelter, in an overnight bed. It
meant in a home, in a permanent unit, and that meant a lot of
work and a lot of collaboration in order to achieve that and do
that in a successful way. Because it is not easy to just hand a
person a key and say this is where you live. We need to make
sure that they are going to be successful after they move in.
We need to make sure that they are not going to be returning
back to homelessness, which we see all the time, and I will
talk about in a little bit.
They--the homeless person, veteran, or otherwise--has to be
ready to receive the unit. They have to have a job. They have
to be employed. They have to be trained. They have to have
education. And they need a lot of those resources that
sometimes some of us take for granted. Even little things like
a checking account are very important and it needs work. It
needs a lot of work. And we all know that training and
education is much more important than a handout.
So we, the partners, managed to find each other and we work
together and we exceeded the mayor's challenge by housing more
than the 86 veterans that we had first identified. We learned a
couple things along the way. When we are motivated, we can work
together and we can get things done. Given all of the amazing
bureaucracy that we all know exists at the local level, the
county level, Federal, State, we managed to make sure that we
found a way to work together and we met the challenge. We
housed the 86 plus people within the 6-month period. They were
not housed in a motel room. They were not housed in shelter.
They were housed in a permanent unit.
It caused us to work together and to identify things that
we didn't know, such as, we have plenty of cash, but sometimes
the cash is stuck in places that we can't use it. Sometimes, it
doesn't allow us the flexibility that we need.
We discovered that some of the programs that are out there
are very valuable, valuable programs, but as the Chairman had
identified in an opening statement, sometimes they are stuck
and they don't seem to work well together. We identified
programs like the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the VASH
program that can provide a unit, but then the landlord is
refusing to accept the tenants because it comes with a Section
8 voucher or a VASH voucher. Why? Simply because there is a
stigma attached to that voucher. I think that we need a little
bit of better policy and some homework in being able to
overcome that stigma.
We need someone who is going to be able to help the
homeless person from the beginning to the end. We need to be
fully engaged in housing and employment navigation as an
integral part of Housing First. We need effective case
management as an integral part of Housing First both before and
after they move into the home. We cannot just say here, here is
the place that you are going to live and expect that we have
done our job because that person is not going to live in that
unit for very long, and it is going to be vacant and it is
going to be available to another person for us to move into
that unit and there will be a revolving door. And that is not
success. That does not work. That is not Housing First.
I can share with you many, many stories. I am sure
everybody on the panel can share many stories about people who
have achieved success. I know personally of a veteran--we will
call him Fred--in Riverside that achieved success. And he
achieved success because he received that wraparound service,
housing navigation, employment navigation, a housing unit, case
management afterwards. All of the time from beginning to end,
the team was talking with the homeless person, his family, and
everybody around their community.
There is also failure that we have experienced then that we
have learned along the way of a person in the community that
just didn't receive a unit for failure of housing navigation.
We just were not ready to offer the service when he was ready
to receive it. We can't expect him to come to a meeting at 1:30
in the afternoon on Thursday and this is when you are going to
get the service. We need to be ready to be responsive when he
is ready to be responsive.
There is also examples that exist where a person did
receive a unit, they moved in, and they were not ready to live
in a unit. They did not have the ability to acclimate to their
surroundings and so they moved out. We found them on the street
3 months later. That is not success.
So what we are asking for you today is to acknowledge that
it is an entire process, and the process itself is Housing
First, not just the units. The process involves identifying the
person that is homeless with housing navigation and looking for
a plan as to how to accomplish permanent housing and
employment, and then identifying a unit in a way that is
actually viable that they can move in, whether it is a VASH
voucher or a Section 8 voucher or something along the lines, or
whether we actually construct a project much like what is
described in March and also much like what we have done in
Riverside with our Home Front at Camp Anza project. It is a
veteran disabled family reunification project, 30 units in a
historic Camp Anza military compound in Riverside that we are
repurposing for affordable housing.
Those things need to come as part of the whole of
wraparound services. And a funding source for that program,
that project, did not come from the VA. It came from other
sources that is traditionally affordable housing.
And so what we are asking for and what was included in my
written testimony is an opportunity to include a program that
is holistic in nature, that includes all the way from housing
navigation, employment, that includes identifying units or
actually constructing and developing the units and moving a
veteran into that unit and then providing continued case
management afterwards. We think that the VA has an opportunity,
like it did with VASH, to copy a lot of the programs that are
within HUD and provide for the wraparound services. HUD is
effective in those programs, although there could be more money
in them and more flexibility, but housing navigation,
employment navigation, production of units, and case management
afterwards.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Emilio Ramirez appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you very much, Mr. Ramirez.
Ms. Harmon, you are up for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CARRIE HARMON
Ms. Harmon. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and
other Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity
to appear before you here today. On behalf of our county, I
would like to thank you for your leadership and support, which
has been instrumental in providing local communities with the
resources needed to serve the Nation's most vulnerable
veterans.
As the representative from Riverside County, I have the
opportunity to speak on behalf of the county departments and
the partnering agencies that are actively engaged in our local
fight against veterans' homelessness. I also have the humble
opportunity to represent the homeless veterans in our county,
many of which are now housed--they have been assisted through
this national effort.
I am proud to report that our county has made significant
progress in ending veterans' homelessness, and we are very
close to reaching the finish line. Over the course of the last
2-1/2 years, we have housed over 1,000 homeless veterans, but
most importantly, we have also learned a great deal about what
systems locally need to be changed and what more is needed to
further refine our efforts.
So where are we at in Riverside County? We are now 2 years,
7 months into our fight against homelessness. We have
officially housed 1,007 homeless veterans countywide, and this
number represents the number of veterans that have been housed
through VASH, regular Section 8, permanent supportive housing
programs offered by the continuum of care, and other affordable
housing communities provided by our nonprofit developers, who
are rarely mentioned but have joined us in this cause and will
always offer a unit to a homeless veteran in our community.
This number also represents the number of homeless veterans
who successfully transitioned to market-rate housing and back
to their families following their stay in transitional housing
programs, grant per diem programs, and emergency shelters
because not every homeless veteran needs a permanent housing
subsidy. Some just need a temporary hand-up, and we cannot do
away with transitional housing, grant per diem, or those
temporary programs for our veterans that just basically need a
job and a little help.
In addition to housing--so we have 115 veterans left to go,
and about 80, 85 of these veterans have a voucher in hand and
are just looking for a rental unit. We will reach the finish
line very soon, but we still have so much more work to do in
our communities to service all veterans, especially low-income
veterans, and make sure they do not slip into homelessness.
In addition to housing veterans, we have developed more
units of affordable housing that are earmarked for low-income
veterans. Over the last 2-1/2 years this investment has
translated to about $10 million in local funding, and this is
not VASH funding, although there are some project-based
vouchers. This is our home money through that Federal program
that gets cut sometimes. But this is also money that flowed
through the States and money we had locally. But we made that
commitment. My goal is to create 1,000 units of affordable
rental housing that are there for veterans. Homeless or just
low-income, we have already created 739, so we are also very
close to that. So we don't just house veterans. We are creating
more housing units, which are very important in our southern
California market. We don't have enough housing for everybody.
The county started our effort with the passage of VALOR.
VALOR was passed by our board of supervisors in April 2013. It
was the board's public commitment to end homelessness, to craft
local policies which made sure that our homeless veterans had
access to the housing and services they so desperately needed.
And it was also the board's call to action to all county staff
and departments to go back and find out how we can do better,
serve better, and remove the barriers that are preventing full
access to our services.
VALOR is also a public-private partnership, and when I
speak of what we accomplish, we could not do it without private
landlords, without nonprofit agencies, and without citizens,
just regular citizens who have bought furniture, refrigerators,
and all to help our veterans.
In 2014, we did a veteran-only Point-in-Time count, but
what was more important than counting was we realized that we
need to survey them to better program our supportive services.
We also led all of this through the Housing Authority, which is
not usually tapped as the go-to person to lead housing efforts,
but housing authorities are valuable.
I wanted to leave you with some ideas of how we could
further improve. There is an urgent need for more affordable
housing for veterans and nonveterans, and we need to make sure
that home funding at the Federal level, Section 8 funding, CDBG
are brought back to levels that we can really make a difference
in our community through that work.
We continue to have veterans that stay homeless because
they don't have a birth certificate or a State-issued ID. We
can fix that. It is ridiculous that you can't rent an apartment
because you haven't gotten your birth certificate from New
Jersey to get your driver's license. These are things that we
can, by public policy, fix.
You know, employment is our most important thing. If I were
to ask you to tell me about yourself, you would tell me where
you live, where you work, who is in your family. Imagine if you
are a homeless veteran, how would you answer these questions?
You could not say who you were the way we normally say who we
are. We must give more money for employment programs that are
earmarked for veterans, and these must be on-the-job training
programs that provide them with real work experience.
And I know I am over my time, aren't I? Yes. So that is
pretty much it. We need more affordable housing, more funding
for employment programs. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Carrie Harmon appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you, Ms. Harmon.
Mr. Peck, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN PECK
Mr. Peck. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. And thank
you very much for holding this hearing.
My name is Stephen Peck. I am the president and CEO of
U.S.VETS. I am also a Vietnam veteran. I served with the 1st
Marine Division in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970, and I have been
doing this work with homeless veterans since 1991.
U.S.VETS has been in the fight against veterans'
homelessness since 1993 when we started our first program in
Inglewood, California. Since then, we have grown into the
largest nonprofit organization for homeless veterans in the
country, providing services at 21 residential sites, 9 service
centers in 14 different cities across 6 States and the District
of Columbia.
Last year, U.S. VETS touched the lives of over 17,000
veterans and family members, providing housing to more than
4,500, provided preventive and repaid re-housing services to
4,600 veterans and their families, and placed more than 1,200
veterans back into full-time employment.
Locally, U.S.VETS Inland Empire, our project headquartered
at March Air Reserve Base, is the largest veteran provider in
San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. This year, in these two
counties about 2,000 veterans will experience homelessness, but
26,000 veteran households are living in poverty on the brink of
homelessness, so we have a big job in front of us. The Inland
Empire unemployment rate among veterans is 9.5 percent, almost
double the national average.
Despite the fact that many of our veterans here have legal
issues such as DUI, domestic violence, and child support as a
direct result of dealing with traumatic brain injury, post-
traumatic stress, and/or combat trauma, we were able to help
about 90 veterans return to full-time employment this past
year.
With over 200 units of housing from permanent supportive to
Bridge Housing to Safe Haven, we have been able to help more
than 800 veterans and their family members find housing in
2014-2015 and are on track to serve 1,000 this coming year. And
we will be able to serve even more when we get our March
Veterans Village up and running in 2017. Keep your fingers
crossed on that.
U.S.VETS services are comprehensive. To us, there is no one
answer to homelessness, so we co-locate housing, counseling,
and employment assistance at each of our sites, helping to
create an environment that is responsive to the many challenges
veterans face as they transition from military to civilian
life. Our services include rapid re-housing beds, transitional
and permanent supportive housing, and support services to
homeless and at-risk veterans in the community, helping each
veteran, male or female, achieve self-sufficiency.
We want to prevent veterans from becoming homeless in the
first place if we can, so along with the VA Supportive Services
for Veterans Families program, we provide preventative mental
health counseling to veterans in the community through our
Outside the Wire program and employment assistance to veterans
who are not yet homeless and are ready to return to work
through our Career Development Initiative. Last year, through
this program, we helped about 450 veterans return to work at an
average wage of $45,000 a year. Both of these programs, both
CDI and Outside the Wire, are completely privately funded.
Back in 1993, we started with the idea that every veteran
should be empowered to live at their highest level of
independence, which means that we want every veteran who is
capable of full-time employment to have the dignity of finding
a job. Every site has a career center, and our workforce teams
are critical to the success of our veterans.
We have six HVRP programs across the country, including one
in Los Angeles County, which helped us place 618 veterans into
full-time employment this past year at an average wage of $12
an hour. We have developed other State and private workforce
funding to make up for the limitations of the HVRP program.
So let me make a few observations. First, one of the
limitations of operating HVRP is its inability to assist those
veterans that may be at risk of homelessness such as the
veterans we are serving through our SSVF program. They are not
yet homeless and therefore do not qualify for HVRP services. We
don't always have other workforce funding to help these
veterans, but if we could help them prior to the onset of
homelessness, we may be able to prevent them from losing their
housing.
This is where our Career Development Initiative comes into
play. Fully one-third of our job placements this last year were
made through the CDI program because of lack of sufficient and
flexible funding from DOL.
Nationally, the HVRP funding has been flat-lined for the
past 3 years while increasing numbers of vets return from
deployment, all of them needing jobs. The program is authorized
at $50 million, but has never reached that funding level and is
stuck at $38 million, leaving thousands of veterans without the
employment assistance they need. Currently, there is no HVRP
funding in Riverside County.
Secondly, the ultimate goal of the HVRP program is to place
veterans into long-lasting employment. If there were additional
funds available to expand follow-up services to include more
than just counseling and placement, services such as additional
training if necessary, grantees could be more supportive to
those veterans, help them secure higher-paying jobs, and ensure
that they keep those jobs.
And finally, the VA and HUD emphasis on quickly moving vets
out of service-intensive transitional housing into permanent
housing does have some unintended consequences. Once they are
in permanent housing, they are ineligible for HVRP. Making them
eligible for 90 days after they move would alleviate this
problem.
But the ready availability of HUD-VASH vouchers marketed
heavily by the VA and others in the community can create a
disincentive for some veterans to seek employment. Crawling out
of homelessness and building the skills to become self-
sufficient is difficult. We and other providers have had many
veterans who have been in our workforce programs readying
themselves for employment who suddenly drop out of the job
search because they have heard the possibility of receiving a
VASH voucher. What they say to us is, I don't want to endanger
the possibility of getting my voucher by getting a job. The
income may disqualify me. That is a terrible disservice to
veterans, trading a productive career for a lifetime of
dependence.
We have more resources than ever before to help veterans
who are homeless, and it is up to all of us to use them wisely,
empowering the veterans we are pledged to serve, and making
sure we are providing them the skills that will help them, as
one of our vets said, ``to bring back the man who once wore the
military uniform with pride and honor.''
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Stephen Peck appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you very much, Mr. Peck.
Mr. Nguyen, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF SON NGUYEN
Mr. Nguyen. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and
Members of the Committee, good afternoon.
My name is Son Nguyen. I am a Navy veteran, cofounder and
president of the Veterans Association of Real Estate
Professionals, also known as VAREP. With 24 chapters and
growing, we are pleased to share the perspective of those most
directly impacted by the subject that this Committee addresses.
Established in 2011, VAREP has grown to be the voice for
the interest of veterans in financial literacy education, VA
loan education, and homeownership counseling. Additionally, we
have become the educational resource for the real estate,
lending, and housing professionals. Our Capitol Hill visits
have advocated for a multi-agency collaboration, including
specific legislative and administrative changes in removing
barriers to homeownership.
Our proudest accomplishments in 2015 include educating over
1,500 veterans on the importance of good credit, benefits of
homeownership, the home-buying process, the VA loan benefit,
and down payment assistance programs across the country. As a
direct result of our housing summits, we have placed 500
families and helped them realize the American dream of
homeownership. Of that 500, 50 families were helped in southern
California.
We are also proud to say that we were able to give away 10
mortgage-free home donations to wounded warriors and heroes in
2015. We also gave away $40,000 in forms of grants for down
payment assistance, closing costs, and adaptive housing
rehabilitative grants.
We are also very proud of being able to take blighted
homes, rehabilitate them, and resell them to 70 veteran
deserving families in 2015.
While southern California has made great strides in ending
chronic veteran homelessness through programs such as HUD-VASH,
we must now focus on the marginally homeless younger veterans.
A young couch-surfing low-income veteran who cannot afford a
permanent dwelling is essentially homeless. However, currently,
these type of veterans have shared with us that they don't
qualify for the HUD-VASH voucher program. HUD-VASH should be
reconsidered and expand its definition of homelessness to be
more inclusive of the marginally homeless low-income veterans.
The transitional period is a critical time in a veteran's
life. They are brought in off the street. They are provided
with psychological assistance, physical assistance, but there
is no fiscal education. They are not financially fit when they
graduate from the program. We recommend that financial
literacy, education, and housing counseling services need to be
part of the wraparound supportive services provided and
overseen by case management and required as a daily living
activity. This would arm the veterans and make sure that they
reintegrate sustainably in permanent housing.
Lack of financial literacy education may trigger veteran
homelessness. A study published in the American Journal of
Public Health in 2013 stated ``an overlooked contributor to
veteran homelessness is not achieving financial stability after
military service.'' A 2014 USC Los Angeles County veterans'
survey backed this up. They said that of the veterans they
surveyed, 30 percent of them reported financial troubles, which
many began during their military service. A 2014 Blue Star
Family survey revealed that 65 percent experienced stress
related to their family's current financial condition, and 84
percent agree that greater focus should be placed on
preventative financial education as a whole.
A financial literacy education and coaching program needs
to be established under the GI benefits so veterans can apply,
participate, and graduate financially if, ensuring
sustainability. The new benefits should be implemented in all
phases during active-duty, transitioning, and reintegration for
sustainability.
Barriers to homeownership: The biggest barrier of
homeownership is lack of outreach, education, and counseling.
The lack of these services have caused confusion, frustration,
and in some cases, housing discrimination.
In 2015, VAREP surveyed 500 veterans through our housing
summits and found that 95 percent said they did not receive
housing training and counseling services while in the service.
Ninety percent said they did not receive VA loan benefit
training during the service, transitioning out, or post-
separation. Forty-five percent said they thought that they
could never own a home. Sixty-five percent said they did not
know where to go to get help with their credit. Seventy percent
said they could not find a home on a limited income. Ninety
percent said that VAREP was the first group that actually
focused on educating veterans on homeownership. Seventy percent
said that they had a hard time finding a realtor or lender that
would work with them if they were using the VA loan program.
The Department of HUD has proven that homebuyer pre- and
post-purchase and default housing and education works. We
recommend that the VA take a look at this program and come up
with a solution to come up with a VA housing-approved
counseling agency.
To illustrate these points, I would like to share an
example of a veteran that we have helped. In the Housing Summit
held in Riverside, which Ranking Member Takano addressed the
audience, we had 29 attendees and 6 confirmed veterans who
bought a home within one year of attending. His name is Dennis.
He is in the audience right now. He fell into hard times. He
lost his job due to his injuries. His wife, himself, his
daughter, who was pregnant at the time, was not technically
classified as homeless, but they were living in a fifth wheel
without electricity, borrowed electricity, and no running
water.
Since he did not fit the description of homelessness, he
did not qualify under any of the Federal programs. Real estate
agents and lenders did not want to work with him because he
wanted to use his VA loan. He was not informed of the down
payment assistance available, and his credit needed repair.
Bottom line, no one would help him. He attended our Veterans
Housing Summit and 6 short months later he realized the
American dream of homeownership.
In conclusion, the points of this proposal is clear.
Financial literacy education and homeownership education with
counseling services are proactive and preventive measures in
ending virtual homelessness in southern California. Pilot
programs should be focused here with scalability across the
United States. It is our hope that VAREP can work with the VA
to bring this concept from possibility to reality.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Son Nguyen appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you, Mr. Nguyen.
Mr. Rivera, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF JOSE RIVERA
Mr. Rivera. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
speak today.
Good afternoon. I would like to share my experiences as a
beneficiary of the HUD-VASH program. The program has been life-
changing. The HUD-VASH program has empowered me to actualize my
educational and professional plans. The staff at the Veterans
Affairs in Loma Linda, especially Ms. Jennifer Sircar, played
an important role by mentoring and supporting my educational
and professional goals. Ms. Sircar was a great liaison and
spokesperson by referring me to the U.S.VETS for further
assistance in accessing resources. Furthermore, I was referred
to the Warehouse for Heroes, which furnished my apartment
completely.
The program has been full of great opportunities. I am
indebted to the Veterans Affairs and HUD. The services provided
by both HUD and the VA have prepared me to transition into a
new phase in my life. I am now on my way to realizing a
lifelong goal of attaining my bachelor's degree in
anthropology. This summer, I will graduate from the University
of California, Riverside.
I have been able to utilize the post-9/11 GI Bill benefits,
which has contributed to the improvement of my quality of life
for my daughter and myself. The GI Bill has been the platform
which has allowed me to pursue my education. I have benefitted
from the book stipend, from the tuition fee payment, and from
the monthly living allotment. I have utilized the resources
made available, and they have truly changed my life.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences.
[The prepared statement of Jose Rivera appears in the
Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, I want to thank all of you for your
testimony here today.
And now, we are going to go into the question phase. And I
recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
And I think one of the things I heard a couple of times
here today was about prevention and what we can do to try and
prevent homelessness to begin with. One of the things that we
on the Committee over the last couple years have fully
recognized is that we need to engage people while they are
still in uniform, that is the best time to reach them, not here
is your DD-214, we will see you later, good luck, go call the
VA, that we need to engage people and get them educated on the
programs.
Now, I know what it is like when you come off duty. It is
probably the last thing you really want to hear about. You are
ready to just get home. And so that is the challenge with our
Transition Assistance Program is how do we continue to capture
everyone. But to me, we want it to be not only a presentation
to them, something that they get while they are still in
uniform, but know where they can go for the information and
know where they can go for help.
So my question really to each of you, whoever wants to
weigh in, and we can go down the line, is some tips that you
may have from your experiences of how we can prevent
homelessness to begin with or at least reduce the rate, because
it is always going to be a challenge. I mean, this is not a
transition that most people make in their life, and it is
different from most transitions in life like from college right
to a job and things like that.
So anything you might want to share with us where you think
we can do more to prevent that first step that we are trying to
bring people out of.
Mr. Ramirez. Well, unfortunately, I don't have the direct
experience to be able to address coming out of service and into
civilian life. However, I do think that there is a lot to learn
from the work that the community does in preventing
homelessness generically, generally. And that needs to include
working on the population that is potentially going to be
homeless and not having to require that they be homeless to
receive service, like the example of the fifth wheel. It
doesn't mean that they need to accomplish homelessness in order
to be eligible for service. I don't think that that is
necessary.
Also, the production of affordable housing units and not
shelter beds is very important. There is a large population of
working poor, veteran and otherwise, and as the economy turns
and as people move from a single-family home into an apartment
complex, it just trickles down, and eventually, it creates a
homeless population that wasn't there before.
And I do think that providing services that provide for job
training, education, all of those services that could lead to
eventual success in not just housing, but just in the quality
of life, as our esteemed student mentioned. I think that that
is valuable and we should pursue all of those things. And all
of those are for the benefit of the quality of life of the
family, and I think that that is what we should pursue.
Mr. Wenstrup. And I think another thing, too, that was
brought up is how do we prevent someone who is in a home to
becoming homeless. And I have seen it in my district where
sometimes it is older veterans and their house is deteriorating
and they can't take care of it, and there are agencies that
want to come in, even volunteer to help --they could use a
little more funding. And if they can just fix up the house
before it is condemned, then the veteran doesn't become
homeless. And I think that is what you were referring to, Mr.
Nguyen, as well.
Does anyone else care to comment? Please.
Ms. Harmon. Yes, one of our departments, our county
departments, is Workforce Development Services. And what we
have long asked for is just give us a list of the veterans that
are coming home into our community that recently separated
because we always expect the veteran to find us, but hey, we
can find the veteran. And, you know, maybe we just need to call
them--we have veterans that are on staff--and reach out to
them.
The other thing is, in general, we need to welcome back
veterans to our community. We need to create campaigns that say
we are proud to have a veteran as a neighbor. We need to offer
discounts in our local businesses. In our workforce centers we
have priority of service.
But we also need to realize that I think our idea of a
veteran is an older person at times or, you know, the guy or
girl who did a lot of time. And it might be a very young
veteran who went in at 18 and said, you know, I am going to do
one stint and then I am going to go on. We need to catch that
veteran and make sure that we have a pathway to middle class.
Because oftentimes, those younger veterans came from families
where there weren't a lot of opportunities. They might come
from low-income families.
So help us reach out to them so we don't expect veterans to
find us because we are more than happy to reach out to them.
Mr. Wenstrup. Yes. I think that is important, too. And I
think, like you said, there are many young people that get in,
and it is not in their family history necessarily, serving or
doing something else afterwards and so they are not aware of
what their opportunities are.
Yes?
Mr. Peck. I think there is an issue that might be a
legislative fix. When a veteran moves from the military to
civilian life, it is a little bit like moving to a foreign
country speaking a different language. They simply are not
prepared beforehand. We would not send a Peace Corps volunteer
to a foreign country without teaching him the language. So the
TAP program obviously has its limitations. As you said, they
are just ready to get out of there. You know, they are just
holding their ears for a couple of days before they get out.
So if we could do an assessment on them beforehand,
especially those who have been in combat, you do the E-5s and
below who have been in combat who have a lack of job skills,
may have mental health issues which might be identified by that
assessment, and all those other predictors to homelessness,
then we would begin to follow them.
The problem is the privacy laws don't allow us to follow
them. We can't get those names from the State, from DoD. So
there needs to be a connect from the information that we can
gather if we choose to before they are discharged that we can
then use as an essential tool to help them afterward in some
mechanism, some incentive for them to come back.
We all know that there is a lot of reluctance to admit that
they have any problems. They think if they say they have a
problem, they are somehow going to get held back, won't be
released. So we need to fix some of those either through
legislation or through incentives to get them to come and see
us.
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you. Mr. Nguyen, anything to add?
Mr. Nguyen. Yes, I would like to add. We are talking about
preventative. I just remember me going through the service and
definitely boot camp they didn't teach us anything but to get
us ready, right, and then when you go to your first duty
station, I truly believe that part of the--if we could mandate
and make it part of the curriculum in preventative education,
whether it is financial literacy, whether it is career skills,
much more mandated prior to the TAP transitioning out.
And I believe if you start earlier in the process, you are
going to instill, whether it is money-management skills or what
have you, the skills early and often. The TAP should just be a
refresher course, not a course to say I have never been really
taught that before.
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you. Mr. Rivera?
Mr. Rivera. Yes, well, from my personal experience, what I
learned in the military didn't translate into the civilian
life. I wasn't prepared. So that was a major setback where
there was a--I was uneducated. I was not ready to take head on
the civilian life. So that was a major setback that I was--I
didn't receive a--although they do train you, right before you
get out, they offer classes, it still didn't--it wasn't enough
to prepare me for the real world of not only the job aspect of
it, but of just incorporating yourself back into society of how
to function as a civilian again because you are in the military
for so long, you get accustomed to that lifestyle. When you get
out, you are really not prepared.
As for myself, that was a major thing, that what I had
learned in the military did not translate over. Although I was
an infantryman, obviously it is not. It is more of a, you know,
law enforcement or security type, since I didn't pursue those,
I was relegated to mainly labor type of jobs, which although
there is pride in that, you should be proud if you are working
in that industry, that is not what I envisioned myself coming
out of the military, digging, working with the shovel, or
working a $9 job. So that was my major experience when I first
got out.
Mr. Wenstrup. Sure. You know, President Bush, I met him in
Washington about 6 months ago, and he was in town because he
was working with veterans on how to prepare their resume. And
he was saying that when they ask you what skill you have, you
don't just write ``sniper,'' you know? You say the skills I
have are I show up for work on time, I am dependable, people
can count on me, and things like that. And that is to your
point, I think.
But listen, thank you all very much. And, Mr. Takano, you
are now recognized.
Mr. Takano. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the wonderful line
of inquiry.
Mr. Rivera, can you tell me, what community did you come
from? Are you from the Inland Empire? Did you grow up here?
Mr. Rivera. No, no. Originally, I grew up in Orange County.
Mr. Takano. Okay. Well, that is in the neighborhood.
Mr. Rivera. Well, yes, it is southern California, right. It
is in the neighborhood. And I have been living in Riverside
County from, I believe, 2010, 2009.
Mr. Takano. So where did you grow up in Orange County?
Mr. Rivera. In Orange County? Well, I graduated from Garden
Grove High School in Rancho Alamitos. So I went to school in
the Santa Ana School District up to 8th grade, and my high
school was in Garden Grove at Rancho Alamitos High School.
Mr. Takano. Wonderful. Wonderful. Did you come from--what
was your kind of economic background?
Mr. Rivera. It was a lower economic background. My parents
worked in the catering business. They had a lunch truck, tried
to make ends meet, worked at the swap meet. So that is part of
my decision to go into the military was that I was limited in
my opportunities. College wasn't in the future at all.
Mr. Takano. Were those educational opportunities that were
held out by the recruiter or whoever you went to see, was that
a huge part of why you joined?
Mr. Rivera. The incentive to get money for college was a
major reason why I wanted to join the military because I needed
a way to advance my education somehow, so I realized that the
GI Bill, at least for myself, amongst wanting to serve my
country, was a determining factor for me wanting to enlist.
Mr. Takano. Okay. Now, tell me where you were serving. I
mean, tell me a little bit about your military history.
Mr. Rivera. Okay. I was stationed 2 years in Georgia, Fort
Benning, and I went to South Korea for 1 year, and that is
where I left the military, from South Korea in 2002.
Mr. Takano. So you exited the military--
Mr. Rivera. I exited the military--
Mr. Takano [continued]. After how many years you were in?
Mr. Rivera Three years.
Mr. Takano. Three years?
Mr. Rivera. Yes.
Mr. Takano. It did get you out of your neighborhood in
Orange County? I am not saying it was a bad place, but the
military--
Mr. Rivera. Well--
Mr. Takano [continued].--did allow you to see--
Mr. Rivera. Right.
Mr. Takano [continued].--you know, a different part of the
world and--
Mr. Rivera. Oh, definitely, yes, because thanks to the
military, I got to travel to South Korea. That was a learning
experience, learned the culture. Everything that I have learned
in the military has stayed with me. Even when I was in Fort
Benning, Georgia, there was a training and--
Mr. Takano. Okay. Here is where I am going with this. Mr.
Nguyen has said some things that I have often thought, and I
have heard the Chairman kind of mutter things here at the dais
as well about--
Mr. Wenstrup. Mutter.
Mr. Takano. Mutter. Well, I didn't mean it that way.
Mr. Wenstrup. I know.
Mr. Takano. Mention or discuss the notion that somehow in
the lifecycle of a military servicemember, cramming everything
into the TAP program at the end doesn't seem to be enough to
prepare our military folks for that transition. So you came in
the military with an expectation of being able to improve your
situation, to get the educational benefits, but Mr. Nguyen is--
how do you respond to Mr. Nguyen's assertion that somehow there
needs to be earlier preparation? What might have helped you--
Mr. Rivera. Right.
Mr. Takano.--looking back?
Mr. Rivera. Well, see, the main training that I received
was right before you got out. It was all these courses or these
lessons on resume-building, on interview skills. Now, there
would have been a little bit more resources available to--just
like we focus on combat training or on weapons training, there
should probably be a transition training, I mean, for all those
people that are definitely planning to get out of the military.
Mr. Takano. I see. I see. Tell me, you mentioned how
critical those HUD-VASH vouchers were for you. Were you at the
point of being homeless at that point or were you homeless at
that point?
Mr. Rivera. No, I was homeless already at--
Mr. Takano. You were already homeless?
Mr. Rivera. Yes. Yes.
Mr. Takano. And can you just kind of give us some insight
into how you got to that state of homelessness, kind of tell
the story, please.
Mr. Rivera. It was in 2008 when--okay. So it goes back.
2008 I went through a divorce, okay, so I split up from my
family. I was left--from that point on I was left--I wasn't
directly homeless because I could go to my parents, but I could
only do that for so long. So from 2008, I had been struggling
up to the point where I learned about the HUD-VASH program that
I could--I did even the couch-surfing. I lived in my car. But
you can only sleep on somebody's couch for so long before you
become a nuisance or you are infringing on their lifestyle. So
I was already homeless up to the point where it was--actually,
I got housed last March. I am about to hit the year mark when I
got the HUD voucher.
Mr. Takano. And employment was also a challenge for you--
Mr. Rivera. The employment--
Mr. Takano [continued].--during this economy, right?
Mr. Rivera. Right. I had been working at temporary
agencies, and because those particular job industries aren't--I
worked at temp agencies and I would be laid off. I worked at a
construction company, and I was laid off.
Mr. Takano. So it was the lack of stability and--
Mr. Rivera. Yes.
Mr. Takano [continued].--duration of employment?
Mr. Rivera. Right. It was the lack of stability of having a
job of steady income coming in to be able to sustain a place to
live or--
Mr. Takano. My time has run out, but I want to just ask you
this--can I--thank you, Mr. Chairman.
How critical was this HUD voucher for you? If it didn't
exist, what would that have been like?
Mr. Rivera. Yes. I don't want to think like in that frame,
because it probably wouldn't be good. I would probably be
living in my car. I am sure that I would not be in school. But
I really am thankful because at the same time when I got the
Section 8, I had assumed full responsibility of my daughter
because her mother became sick. And it happened just--I don't
know. It just happened to happen at the same time where I had
my daughter before I had the voucher, so we were sleeping on my
mom's couch. I could no longer sleep in my car because I had my
daughter, so that is when I went back to my mom's. And we were
sleeping in her living room up to the point where we got the--
it was only about 3 months up to when we got the voucher. But
if I didn't have the voucher, I know that I would probably be
living in my car. I guarantee that I would not be in school.
Mr. Takano. I know we have chatted before and you told me
about--how much longer do you have until you graduate?
Mr. Rivera. I am going to graduate in this spring.
Mr. Takano. Wow.
Ms. Harmon. Good for you.
Mr. Rivera. Yes.
Mr. Takano. Well, I want to just say how proud I am of you.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. Takano. I told you I was going to check up on you, and
you are graduating. We are just all very proud of you.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you.
Mr. Takano. So thank you for serving our country and, you
know, thank you for using--you know, Secretary Shinseki once
said that the Congress and the United States have approved a
very generous package of post-9/11 education benefits, and that
is why you entered the military, and the one obligation you
have as a veteran is to complete and to finish and to use them
well. And I am just so proud of you. You are out of U.C. and
University of California, and you are using your benefits well
and you are getting a good degree from a good university. And I
have all the hope in the world for you and your daughter.
Mr. Rivera. Thank you so much.
Mr. Takano. So thank you very much.
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you. Dr. Ruiz.
Mr. Ruiz. Mr. Rivera, I have to echo Congressman Takano's
statement that we are all very proud of you. And actually your
story touches me deeply. I have had family members who lived in
cars as well because they were homeless working up and down,
picking the grapes and citrus in the State of California. So I
really admire the struggle, your perseverance, your dedication,
your hope. And you are very blessed, my friend--
Mr. Rivera. Yes.
Mr. Ruiz [continued].--that you are at this point now. So I
want to thank you for never giving up hope, man. You have a
bright future--
Mr. Rivera. Thank you so much.
Mr. Ruiz [continued].--and we appreciate you.
My question is going towards the whole panel, but I want to
know, what are the unique dynamics for women veterans either
that they are on the verge of being homeless or women veteran
homeless population or women homeless veterans getting job
training and job placement? I know that in the general
population many women oftentimes face barriers in getting
shelter because they don't accept their kids or, you know, they
don't want to risk saying that they are in a shelter because
then they will lose their kids in case they are in a divorce.
So can anyone speak to those unique dynamics for women
veterans? Mr. Peck?
Mr. Peck. Thank you. At our Long Beach program we have a
female veterans program and have had for 10 years or so. We
have about 40 women, 9 of those are women with their children.
And what we discovered early on when we first opened that
program in the early 2000s, we couldn't fill the beds and we
were wondering what was wrong. At that point it was only 30
beds. We came to find out that most of the women that were
coming to us had sexual trauma of some sort, and that
disturbance was preventing them from living a life like you
would want to live. Many of them had lost their children.
And then as a result of this war, female veterans are in
the combat zone. The prevalence of military sexual trauma is
much greater than anyone would wish to know about. And an
article recently in the L.A. Times said that the incident of
suicide among female veterans is as high as the male
population. It is six times higher than the female population
of that age group.
So there is a major mental health problem out there. There
are way too few programs for women. And of all the women who
come through our program in Long Beach, the vast majority need
counseling and a significant time of stability before they are
ready to go back to work. And only about half of them are going
back to work. Some of the women that are coming through our
program, their incident happened 20, even 30 years before, and
as a result, they have a lot of physiological problems as a
result of that.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you. I can imagine that a single mother
with two, three children wants to get a job, and they want to
participate in the job training rehabilitation program. How do
they get childcare? Does the program provide stipend for
childcare so that they can undergo the job training program?
Mr. Peck. A number of the women today, young women with
families, are availing themselves of the SSVF programs,
Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, and that is
not only the Rapid Re-Housing or Homeless Prevention. There is
childcare dollars, there is transportation dollars. So all of
that is available if they use it.
The challenge with the SSVF program is it is time-limited,
and if they are suffering from any mental health issues, it is
difficult for them to complete--
Mr. Ruiz. Is that time adequate to cover the job training
programs, rehabilitation, or does it cover that entire time
that they would need?
Mr. Peck. I think it is up to 9 months now. It used to be 5
months. I think it is up to 9 months. Is that right? So if
they, for instance, had a 6-month training program, that would
be adequate. But as I said, if they have--
Mr. Ruiz. How often are the training programs longer than 9
months?
Mr. Peck. Sorry?
Mr. Ruiz. How often are the training programs longer than 9
months?
Mr. Peck. Well, for instance, if they want to go back to
community college, that would not work. So if we get them on
the GI Bill, if that would be sufficient to handle their
housing and here they can get an education, then that would be
adequate. But many of them are having trouble putting all of
those pieces together, and so as Mr. Nguyen said, it is a
matter of education.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you, Mr. Peck. I am out of time. I yield
back my time.
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you, Doctor.
Mrs. Torres, thank you for joining us today. And you are
now recognized.
OPENING STATEMENT OF NORMA TORRES
Mrs. Torres. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member Takano. And although I am not on your Committee,
I very much appreciate the opportunity to participate in this
hearing with you and with Dr. Ruiz.
I am no stranger to housing issues. In the State House, I
served as the chairwoman for the Housing and Community
Development Committee. And I am not a stranger to the
homelessness issues. And I must say, I recommit to all of you
there is absolutely no shame in being homeless. Circumstances
beyond our control sometimes puts us in situations where we
find ourselves in that position.
Myself in 2005, I lost my home to a fire. And although I
did not meet, you know, the regular, I guess, measurements of
being homeless, thankfully, I had a credit card and I was able
to charge myself, you know, into a hotel room with my three
kids. I know the challenges that you have in trying to find a
place to live, especially when you have liabilities like
children and cats and a dog. Those all of a sudden become
liabilities because there isn't a landlord that I know that is
willing to accept, you know, a couple with three teenage boys,
a dog, and a cat. They absolutely think that you are going to
destroy their home.
So I found myself being the mayor of my home city of Pomona
living in a hotel, and ultimately, you know, being able to move
back into my home 14 months later.
So there is no shame in that. And from that perspective,
Mr. Chairman, I feel like deja vu all over again in trying to
address the issues of veterans and homelessness and job
placements around this category that we hold so dear.
Part of the problem is that, as veterans, you are warriors.
You are the defenders of the homeland. You are trained to
protect us. Therefore, it is very difficult in many ways for
you to say I need help. I need somebody to give me a hand
because I need assistance getting my benefits, I am not getting
anywhere with this bureaucracy, the red tape that is often
very, very difficult to maneuver.
So I find that in my office now, as a Member of Congress,
being able to help veterans but only after maybe 6 months to a
year of them trying to get benefits.
There are some areas that we can work as Members of
Congress working with our State Legislatures and our local
governments, and that is matching that training that you
receive in the military. For example, if you are part of
security forces or, you know, a police officer, MP, you know
how to drive a bus, you come out with a bus driver's license
most often, you know how to guard a building. Or if you are a
paramedic, you know, you are the best person to serve in an
emergency room side by side with an emergency doctor. You have
already worked through that and treated some of those injuries
in the field.
One of the frustrations that I have had is getting the
military to provide that training material to our community
colleges so they are able to translate those learned tactical--
that tactical experience that you have had into a certificate
program where you can receive a certificate and you are able to
get a job within that type of job classification that you had
been trained in the military. That is one area that I think we
can try to twist some arms with the military and help them
share that information with our community colleges.
The issue of not having identifications, I am a little bit
concerned about that. Getting the DD-214 form sometimes takes 3
to 6 months after the veteran has left the military. A lot can
happen during that short period of time, and a lot of times, I
think that that is where we are losing them.
To the city and county inspectors, housing inspectors, I
would like to ask how are you dealing with VASH vouchers
because my understanding is a different type of inspection that
maybe your city or county may have then, the Section 8
vouchers.
Ms. Harmon. We actually use the same standards as the
Section 8 program. VASH gives us the flexibility of pre-
inspecting units, and that inspection is good for a period of
time so that we have a unit ready for a veteran. The biggest
problem, even in the Inland Empire where we kind of, are billed
as the cheaper place versus Orange County and L.A., is our
rental rates are going up, and the voucher doesn't pay the same
as a private person. And everybody is competing for rental
units, you know, young people who have just graduated from
college who are starting their careers, our homeless veterans,
even professionals like myself are in the rental market, and
all of that puts a lot of pressure.
Unfortunately, the HUD-set payments standards are not
competitive with the market rates in high-cost areas, and so we
are asking landlords to really take a loss on a unit. Some are
very financially well off and can do that, but it would be nice
if they could get a tax incentive or some type of break for
what they are--I mean, we could not run Section 8 or VASH
without our private landlords, and they are very recognized. It
truly is a private-public partnership. And I think in the Bay
area, Chicago, parts of Chicago, New York, even Sacramento now,
the vouchers just cannot get you in the door.
Mrs. Torres. Right.
Ms. Harmon. And I think the city can also speak to that.
Mrs. Torres. Thank you. I think my time is out.
In closing, I want to say that part of the solution with
affordable housing in general, you know, lies within our
communities. And addressing the issues of NIBY-ism, ``not in my
backyard,'' a lot of people feel that affordable housing is
substandard housing that doesn't belong in our neighborhoods.
And I would challenge them to say, you know, affordable housing
are housing units where we house police officers, teachers,
your nurses, and your local veterans.
So thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chairman, to be here
and to ask those questions.
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you. And I appreciate it. We will
do another round of questions.
There are a couple of things crossing my mind. It has been
addressed; it is being addressed to try and parlay military
experience and military education. And you know, Mr. Rivera,
you spent time in a classroom with your job, and most everyone
in the military does to various levels, and translating that
into college credit or some type of credentialing for a State
license, et cetera. So, you know, we sit at the Federal level.
We are talking about things that require State licenses, and so
working in that realm to try to get some cooperation with
States and get them to have some buy-in on taking this
experience and to allow it to parlay.
And you bring up a good point, Ms. Harmon, of recognition
of the landlords that do this, that in essence take that risk.
And I equate it similar to the recognition that employers get
when they hire someone who is in the Guard and Reserve. You
know, basically that business is serving their country, you
know, because they are hiring someone who may have to leave for
a while and come back. And so I think there are ways that we
can recognize and in some way provide incentives for people to
want to take that chance and make it better.
As a doctor, and Dr. Ruiz will weigh in on this, we always
look at prevention and cure. You know, you get your symptoms in
front of you and you think, well, how can I prevent it from
happening again or for the next person, and then, how do we
cure the one that is in front of us. And I think that is a lot
about what we are talking about here today.
And, Mr. Peck, I want to talk to you a little bit about
your mental health services that you provide to non-homeless
veterans through the Outside the Wire program if you could
comment on that and how that works because to me that is
another opportunity to reach out and prevent the veteran from
becoming homeless.
Mr. Peck. It is. So you can largely--I mean, no two stories
are the same, but there is some kind of disturbance in their
lives and that is around employment or mental health or
substance abuse, and sometimes that is lack of skills. So if
you really provide robust mental health and employment
services, you can prevent a lot of homelessness.
Our Outside the Wire program was started in Long Beach
about 5 years ago when we started a residential program for
post-9/11 veterans, all of whom were homeless, all of whom had
post-traumatic stress. And in reaching out to them, we found
many of them at their local community colleges and realized
that there were many many post-9/11 veterans at the community
colleges. And they were the veterans by and large who were
experiencing some kind of challenge. They weren't fully ready
to go to a 4-year college. They thought they would try the
community colleges to try to get some skills.
And in talking to them, we realized that a lot of them had
mental health issues, and largely, it was around post-traumatic
stress. So we began raising money to provide mental health
services at the veteran resource centers in the community
colleges, and now we are at 13 community colleges in L.A. and
Orange County providing free confidential mental health
counseling.
A number of the young veterans also don't want to go to the
VA. They think they are a bunch of old guys there like me. And
they think, well, you know, that is not my place. That is an
older veterans' place and I don't want to go there. And we all
know there is a lot of stigma associated with mental health,
and as you said, they don't want to admit the fact that they
can't handle their problems.
So part of the challenge with the Outside the Wire program,
although we are seeing a lot of veterans at those colleges, it
is simply getting them to walk in the door. And we are
continually trying to find new ways to make it easier for them
to come in. The fact that we are right there at the Veteran's
Resource Center, you know, and we have fliers there, it means
that they can come in and talk. They don't have to talk about
their mental health; they can talk about anything.
But, you know, through that process of communication, we
hope that if they have mental health issues around post-
traumatic stress that they will begin to talk to the
psychologists. So we are constantly learning with that program.
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you very much.
Mr. Takano?
Mr. Takano. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Ramirez, Ms. Harmon, you might want to weigh in on
this. You mentioned something about Housing First and the
necessity for--we still need transitional housing, that we
can't throw that out. And I seem to recall this emphasis on
Housing First has maybe reduced our resources in terms of
temporary and transitional housing. But do you have a comment?
Mr. Ramirez. Well, at least I am not suggesting that
Housing First is a bad policy.
Mr. Takano. No, I am not saying you are. I mean, I think it
is a good policy, but I think I have heard from some of our
members of the community that have told me that Housing First
is great in a lot of ways but we can't eliminate the--we still
have a need for--
Mr. Ramirez. Right.
Mr. Takano [continued].--the transition and temporary.
Mr. Ramirez. Right. Correct. And what I think my point is
that Housing First, you know, it should focus, I think,
rightfully so on ultimately reaching housing, but housing alone
does not mean success. And it cannot just mean here, here is a
house, here is a key and move in. It has to include all of the
services leading up from the first time that we meet the
homeless person, the homeless veteran, until after they move
in. And along the way that means job training, job
introduction, job navigation, housing training, and maybe some
transitional housing, and eventually, production of actual
units.
And that is why I think both Carrie and I were suggesting
that we needed to improve and increase those affordable housing
resources, and, as part of those affordable housing resources,
that there be mandated an inclusion of funding for case
management and for housing navigation and for employment
training, and that you don't say because we are focusing on
Housing First, we are not going to do transitional housing
because then it leaves a person that has to go find that
affordable unit.
Mr. Takano. Real quickly because I want to get to some
other--do we need more resources for transitional housing?
Mr. Ramirez. Yes.
Ms. Harmon. Yes.
Mr. Takano. Is that one of the missing pieces?
Mr. Ramirez. Yes.
Ms. Harmon. Yes. HUD is moving away from defunding it, and
it has caused a lot of disruption in continuum of care, which
does do a good job. I started at U.S.VETS as an AmeriCorps
member. It is how I got into servicing homeless veterans. And
the VIP program is basically designed to be a 90-day to 6-month
program where you get a job, get some support around you, and
then take off from there. It is a very effective program, and
it really helps guys exiting substance abuse, inpatient
substance abuse because, you know, outreach workers will tell
you, you can't get your pockets right until you get your mind
right. So they dealt with the substance abuse disorder, and
they just need a little more structure to make it on their own
and to protect that sobriety.
Mr. Ramirez. They are defunding it because it is not deemed
housing, and so in the move to Housing First, then the things
that cause us to take housing is not deemed housing.
Mr. Takano. I just want to make sure my Committee staff
connect with this issue. I would love to spend more time on it,
but I want to get to some other issues. But thank you for
highlighting. Ms. Harmon, before I move on, though, you listed
a list of programs that you said needed more help, and they
weren't necessarily veterans' programs, but they somehow seem
to be interconnected with our ability to address veterans'
homelessness. You mentioned the HOME program, CDBG, Section 8.
Those aren't, strictly speaking, veterans-specific programs,
but you seem to be--you know, you were in a hurry to sort of
mention these things. Can you give a little more time to kind
of explain what you were talking about?
Ms. Harmon. So I firmly believe we already have the right
tools and we don't need to reinvent the wheel so to speak to
serve veterans. We need to make veterans a priority in our
community and use existing Federal programs. And so we need
them funded, and we need to be told you need to have a plan
because you have to have a plan to spend CDBG funds, HOME, that
includes top priority for veterans' housing units, top priority
for--like CDBG can fund employment programs for low-income
veterans. So fully fund that program, but tell us veterans have
to have a priority when you disburse the funds locally. And
then you don't have to create a new program. It forces us not
just at the VA or nonprofits to deal exclusively with veterans,
to integrate veterans' services more seamlessly into our
existing community so they don't have to go to these standalone
agencies like the VA hospital, which is 40 miles away from some
parts of Riverside County, to go in the door as a veteran.
Mr. Takano. Well, thank you.
Mr. Ramirez. Congressman, if I can add just a piece--
Mr. Takano. Sure.
Mr. Ramirez [continued].--to it if you don't mind. I agree
with Carrie, first of all, that we do have the tools, and HOME,
CDBG, Section 8, low-income housing tax credits, all those
things help to produce units. And who goes into those units
ultimately, it could be a veteran or it could be just a low-
income person. So we already have figured out how to make those
things work.
What I think is needed is that, number one, we need
additional funding to make that happen. And, for example, in
the HOME program, the HOME program allows for production of the
units, but then it does not allow for the subsequent case
management to go and operate that unit. So it is--go building a
unit and then you are done building the unit.
And in the Section 8 program, for example, the Section 8
program does not allow for the operation of a housing
navigation in order to successfully introduce the person to the
units and just because it is focused on a different thing. And
I believe that it should allow for eligibility of use in a
broader way, in a more flexible way.
Mr. Takano. So we need to connect these themes that go with
veterans' homelessness and generic homelessness. There is a lot
of ways in which these programs can be structured to be more
flexible so we really are able to serve veterans more fully
with the broad array of even programs that aren't strictly
funded. And I hear we need more funding.
If I may, I want to turn to Mr. Peck. I think what bears a
little more explanation or what I would like to hear more about
is this HVRP, this conundrum that you focused on in your
testimony, the conundrum of the HVRP and the fear of losing the
voucher and then not being able to fully do the training that
we need.
Mr. Peck. Yes.
Mr. Takano. And if you could just sort of tease that out
some more for us.
Mr. Peck. So the issue that I mentioned, which is that it
acts as a disincentive to some veterans. And this is not just
us; I have talked to many agencies across the country and this
is always the case. And the veterans who are struggling are
very vulnerable. They are afraid of what their future is going
to look like.
So if you say to them ``I am going to work with you over
the next 3 months, it is going to be really, really hard, but
at the end of that you are going to get a job,'' or, ``would
you like a voucher next week?'' Right? It is acting as a
disincentive for them to go through that difficult period where
they are going to have to really work hard, really overcome
some of the habits that they have picked up when they were
homeless to complete that course and give up the freebie
basically.
The vouchers are incredibly important for those people who
cannot return to employment for families, for people who,
really, that don't have any options. Those who are using that
voucher short term for education, for instance, it is an
incredibly good use of that voucher.
For some who are marginal, who are not sure whether they
can go back to work or not, they are opting for a life of
dependence as opposed to going out, getting the skills, and
finding a job. And I think that really is a disservice to them,
and we try to--to me, it is not working to the veteran's
skills. It is working to their weaknesses, and I think we have
to be very careful about that.
Mr. Wenstrup. Can I--
Mr. Takano. Go ahead, please.
Mr. Wenstrup. You know, we in the House side, we passed
H.R. 474, and I would love it if you would take a look at that,
Mr. Peck. We are hoping the Senate will respond in kind because
it expands the eligibility for HVRP to veterans in the HUD-VASH
housing.
Mr. Peck. That would be terrific.
Mr. Wenstrup. And that is really what we are after. If
you--
Mr. Peck. Yes.
Mr. Wenstrup [continued].--think there is something more we
need along those lines, we would love to hear from you. So take
a look at how it is constructed. It has passed out of the
House. We are hoping the Senate follows and that we can move
that forward.
Mr. Peck. I think that would be brilliant. Then they
wouldn't have to make that choice, right? Then they could use
the voucher--
Mr. Wenstrup. Right.
Mr. Peck [continued].--or what it is meant to be to help
them to the next level, and then that voucher, in turn, would
rotate to another veteran who needed it so it would be the best
of both worlds.
Mr. Ramirez. I am sorry. May I make a comment?
Mr. Wenstrup. Yes.
Mr. Ramirez. I think Mr. Peck makes a good point. However,
what I find to be the problem in what he is describing is the
extremity of the scenario. And so if you move to the other
extreme, you are going to end up with another problem. And I
believe that if you say you can only have the voucher for 6
months and after that you have to move on or you have to have a
plan, there is going to end up another collateral consequence
that we don't want to have to end up. And maybe the flexibility
needs to be given at the local level to the case manager that
is working with the person instead of setting these limits,
this line in the sand because then you end up with something
else that you weren't foreseeing.
Mr. Wenstrup. And I don't think this bill does that. The
flexibility is on the HVRP side and not so much with the
voucher side. So I appreciate--go ahead--
Mr. Takano. If I could get one more--yes.
Mr. Wenstrup. Mr. Takano.
Mr. Takano. I appreciate your generosity.
Mr. Nguyen, I think we have had this conversation. I recall
this conversation at some point, but you mentioned about the
real estate agents often not being willing or able to work with
veterans on the VA loan issue. And you gave the example of
Dennis. Did Dennis ever find a real estate agent that he could
work with for the VA loan? Or how did Dennis get--did he use a
VA--but anyway, I just want you to kind of elaborate a little
more on this issue and--
Mr. Nguyen. Simply put, the VA loan in the past has a PR
problem or it had a PR problem that never was overcome. The VA
loan established in 1944 as an entitlement has never had--
essentially, you have a VA loan without the wraparound support
services for outreach education. So you have a benefit that you
are relying on real estate professionals and lending
professionals who are not educated on the changes, or they are,
or through lack of education, they are biased against it. And I
can cite thousands of cases like Dennis's where we have been
approached and even a study from the VA in 2010 when veterans
who got a housing loan, why didn't they use the VA loan? And
they said that 8 percent of 10 percent of the real estate
professionals and lenders discouraged them from using it. They
said they weren't discussed about their benefit when they self-
identify.
So I think the situation is lack of education to the
industry. I believe that the VA is relying on lenders and
realtors without providing them the education to doing it, to
the supportive services to educate the veterans.
Mr. Takano. Did Dennis ultimately get a VA loan or was that
not part of his solution?
Mr. Nguyen. Dennis actually worked--we assigned him a
Marine who also was a realtor, and--hold on. Dennis, did you
get a VA loan?
Dennis. Yes, sir.
Mr. Nguyen. He got a VA loan. He got a VA loan.
Mr. Takano. So the Marine got it done.
Mr. Nguyen. The Marine got it done. The Marine got it done.
But the key, I think, with our program that he was running
into and a lot of veterans, the veteran culture, as you know,
it is a separate culture and it has not been recognized such as
other minority cultures that can be tied to ethnicity or race.
And so I think that when a veteran works with another veteran,
the guard goes down and you are not seeing a lot of that. And
so what Dennis was running into were civilians without any
experience. Thus, he did not get the help he needed from vet to
vet.
Mr. Takano. Well, I am heartened to learn that the Chairman
said we actually are going to engage this very topic next
week--
Mr. Wenstrup. Yes.
Mr. Takano [continued].--in our hearings back on Capitol
Hill. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your indulgence, and I
appreciate the extra time. And thank you so much. I yield back.
Mr. Wenstrup. Thank you. If I could share a story, I know a
Congressman who is a veteran, and he applied for a VA home
loan, and he was told you better do it before the end of the
year because you are in a job that is not guaranteed for the
next 2 years. And that veteran is me, and I appreciate the
reality of that. We got it done. So I understand the
frustration.
Dr. Ruiz?
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you. Thank you.
You know, I think there are some important themes that we
need to highlight here, and I know that we are ending up, so I
would like to mention those because I don't know if we are
going to have another round. But one of the early themes that
we all talked about is the lack of education outreach to our
veterans. There are a lot of veterans out there that don't know
these services exist. They are not being approached in a manner
that will help empower them to make life decisions, choose
wisely, and take advantage of the resources.
That is something that I found when I did a health care
initiative back in 2010, talking about health care access
barriers. And many of the residents didn't know that the
resources existed in the community. And when I did my veterans'
initiative in 2013 where we went around and asked veterans
about their life and the barriers and the issues and solutions,
a lot of them also said that they didn't know that, hey, this
organization existed that was present at these events.
So I think that community collaborations and work is very
important. I am going to start a veterans' university which
will do just that, work on educating, and I invite all of you
to participate and share the information, the resources, and
the benchmark programs that some of you have successfully
completed.
The other theme that I want to really highlight is--and it
goes along with the lack of education in terms of what the
resources are is that they are fragmented, right? They all work
independently. And I like the idea of a continuum of holistic
care to our veterans.
There has been talk about the continuum of health care of a
person in uniform serving to when they are discharged and
continue with their care with the VA health care systems. There
is the idea of continuum holistic care when somebody is looking
for their benefits, for example, and then once they apply or
they have been denied and they want to appeal them, it goes to
a whole different system with a whole new set of structures,
but see it as a continuum of services for that veteran. And I
think that we need to really address that as well for our
purposes in the homeless care.
And in saying that, the main categories that we all need to
work together with the homeless population, something Mr. Peck
alluded to is of course housing is very important, but that
will not be as successful if we don't include mental health
services and health care. We know that there are certain
elements that veterans face in higher proportion than non-
veterans, PTSD, for example, of those who have been in combat.
However, they are not immune to the mental health illnesses
that the non-veteran community faces as well, like the
biological incidences of clinical depression, psychosis,
schizophrenia, et cetera, that also puts an individual at
higher risk of being homeless.
The other thing that we need to address within the mental
health world is the addictions, addiction to drugs, addiction
to alcohol that is also a confounding factor in a veteran's
ability not only to get housing but also to get employment,
right? And then of course the third and the fourth, which is
employment and the job training and education. And it seems
like there is a lot of spokes but we have to figure out a way
where there is that hub, that one location, much like what we
have in the nonprofit world that can act as caseworker or case
managers that will tie all of those ends to better manage, to
better have success with a veteran.
So in saying that, and going along with health care, I am
very interested in the notion of street medicine. Have you guys
heard of street medicine? Do you know if--are you tied in with
a street medicine program with your organization, doctors and
nurse practitioners and health care providers that actually go
find the veteran homeless person and take care of them?
Mr. Ramirez. Yes. In fact, at the Hulen Place campus that
exists in Riverside, the homeless shelter that we operate,
there is a medical clinic in the campus itself. Health to Hope
operates a center there, and it is specifically focused on the
population that would go to the Hulen Place campus. And they go
out into the community, along with our homeless outreach team
that goes into the community, into the streets and identifies
and engages the person that is in need. So they are actively
working on not only identifying the person that needs the needs
and then curing or identifying what might be the solution to
that need. And then they have full-time medical attention at
the campus as well, so something that we are working on
expanding as well.
Mr. Ruiz. Excellent. And I think U.C. Riverside, their
family medicine program in Palm Springs, initiated that. I was
supportive of their program and really encouraged them from the
ground level, along with a collaborative that we are trying to
form in the area because there is a redundancy of programs from
different agencies that serve the homeless. And if we can
collaborate with all the different agencies to maximize the
value that we provide the homeless person and also connect them
because, let's face it, street medicine is not the ideal method
of providing medical care, but it is good temporarily. But the
best thing that street medicine can do is bring them back in to
a case management scenario where then we can fully integrate a
veteran back into our society and being healthy and productive.
So I would definitely love to hear more about how we can
take those practices and start them throughout the entire
Riverside County, especially in my district.
I have an idea I wanted to test with you in terms of the
need for more affordable housing. Just hearing you today, you
know, I am working with the foster system and trying to recruit
more foster parents because there is a lack of foster parents
and housing for our foster kids. And so trying to find syzygy
and synergy with that program, what about creating a program
where we would train veterans to house homeless veterans in
their personal home and have those individual veterans have
incentives like whether it is tax breaks or stipends or a
certain payment and having like a home--
Mr. Takano. It is a like a foster--
Mr. Ruiz [continued]. Like a foster, yes, like something
like that where that veteran's home now becomes like a health
home that is integrated within a network of services for a
veteran.
Mr. Ramirez. I think that is a great idea. I think it does
a lot of different services to not only the veteran that is
coming into the home but also the veteran that is receiving the
veteran. There are some supportive services, there is some case
management available, there is some ability to interact between
the two people that have the same experience, there is some
housing that gets provided. I think there is a lot of merit and
we should really pursue it.
Mr. Ruiz. Okay.
Ms. Harmon. I also agree that that model could be very
effective. You know, a house is not just an apartment. You
know, so many times I have handed a veteran a key, and that is
not the end of the road because really a house is feeling
connected, it is having visitors, it is a sense of belonging
somewhere. And I think that that can help a veteran feel that
they are back part of something. And you can always use another
person on your team.
I just wanted to sneak in with your idea of a street
medicine program, and I think a lot of times people don't want
to talk about their homeless issue but they will talk about the
sore on their leg. It would be great if those type of mobile
clinics could have a substance abuse counselor on there,
somebody who is an expert, because while we sent outreach
workers out in the homeless realm to identify people who don't
have housing, we need substance abuse counselors out in the
streets in encampments to bring people in and to help recovery
happen in the streets, not when they walk in the door as well.
Mr. Ruiz. Any comments on this side?
Mr. Peck. If I could, I think it is an interesting idea
that you bring up. Homelessness to us, the solution for
homelessness is all about rehabilitation. It is about recovery
from a variety of things. There are a number of things that
happen to these veterans that made them homeless. And I would
be reluctant to put someone with a mental health and a
substance abuse issue into someone's house, right, who wasn't
equipped to take care of it. So we would have to be very
careful there--
Mr. Ruiz. Of course.
Mr. Peck [continued].--into who we placed where, that they
were adequately prepared--
Mr. Ruiz. Trained--
Mr. Peck [continued].--to handle the issues that would come
up. Not all of our veterans are likeable guys--
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. Peck [continued].--but, you know, we don't judge that.
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. Peck. They have been through a lot. A lot of them have
every right to be angry with the way their lives have gone, and
that takes a professional to really march them through that,
help them, walk by their side until such a point as they can
accept the fact that they are where there are and they are
ready to move forward. So it has--
Mr. Ruiz. Well, one model that works really well is the AA
model, the Alcoholics Anonymous model, where you have a coach--
Mr. Peck. Right.
Mr. Ruiz [continued].--and somebody who has been through it
but somebody who understands and somehow has the training to
intervene during crisis situations--
Mr. Peck. Right.
Mr. Ruiz [continued].--in case somebody wants to take a
drink and--
Mr. Peck. Right.
Mr. Ruiz [continued].--have somebody to talk to. So I think
that there are ways that there could be specific intelligent,
smart training and placement to match the right homeless
veteran with the right coach, for example.
Mr. Peck. Right.
Mr. Ruiz. Before I give up my time, anybody want to comment
on that?
Mr. Nguyen. I would echo Mr. Peck's statement. I think with
the proper vetting of the right foster family so to speak--
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. Nguyen [continued].--I think the byproduct that you are
going to get is peer-to-peer counseling.
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. Nguyen. You shared the same thing, as you said, with
the AA.
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. Nguyen. So I think it is a great idea. When is that
happening?
Mr. Ruiz. Thanks for asking. I think that is a good
question. Anyway, I yield back my time.
Mr. Wenstrup. Well, thank you. You know, this really has
been great. You know, I came from the snow in Ohio today, so
for a lot of reasons, it was well worth the trip. And I thank
you all for taking time. I thank you for what you are doing
each and every day.
You know, I think the things we come away with are--and we
have all known this--there is no one answer for every veteran
that we face. There are a lot of different circumstances. But
it would be nice if we were better coordinated with the things
that we have to offer and more flexible with the things that we
have to offer to match an individual's needs. And I think that
is something that is difficult when you are talking about, you
know, broad spectrum across the country, but we need to keep
embracing that and trying to drive that so that more people can
be taken care of for what their needs are.
And before we adjourn, I want to just extend my thanks to
the students and the staff and the administration at Riverside
City College for hosting us and our witnesses, obviously for
you taking the time to be here with us. But I am also impressed
with the number of people that are here, whether you are
veterans or just concerned. We appreciate you being here to
take the time to take an interest in taking care of our
veterans. Without them, we have nothing.
So finally, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include any extraneous material on today's hearing. Hearing
no objection, so ordered.
[The attachment appears in the Appendix]
Mr. Wenstrup. And the hearing is adjourned. Thanks.
[Whereupon, at 4:22 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Prepared Statement of Emilio Ramirez
Introduction
Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano and members of the
Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, I am grateful to be invited to
testify before you today on behalf of the City of Riverside regarding
our collaborative efforts to combat chronic homelessness and our work
to end homelessness amongst our honored veterans. We appreciate your
attention to continuing this good fight and for your effort in
``Finding Solutions for Veteran Homelessness in Southern California.''
This hearing is both significant and timely for the region because
accepting and succeeding in the Mayor's Challenge to End Veteran
Homelessness required real collaboration among many different partners,
including federal, state and local jurisdictions, as well as many
private partners. If we are going to have a chance at a permanent
solution for veteran and chronic homelessness, we need that
collaboration to strengthen, grow and continue. The City of Riverside
is encouraged by the success in the Mayor's Challenge to End Veteran's
Homelessness, and by the prospect of developing a regional plan in
partnership with our neighboring jurisdictions to address homelessness
across the region. We have not yet formally engaged our federal
partners but I see no better time to invite you to this effort than
now.
The City of Riverside Homeless Services Program was established to
connect homeless individuals with social services and housing. The City
has taken a pro-active approach to addressing homelessness in our
community by cultivating partnerships with the County of Riverside, a
wide-range of non-profit organizations, social service agencies and
faith-based institutions.
Partnerships
Riverside has created a centralized environment to provide short-
term emergency shelter, coupled with a range of complimentary
supportive services that are necessary to assist homeless individuals
and families achieve housing stability.
The City has found success with the Housing-First model and
evidence-based case management to help individuals exit life on the
streets and transition to self-sufficiency. The Housing First Model
emphasizes moving homeless individuals into housing as quickly as
possible and provide the appropriate level of services to support
housing stabilization and retention.
The Riverside Homeless Services Campus on Hulen Place includes the
Path of Life Riverside Community Shelter, ``The Place'' Safe Haven
Supportive Housing and Drop-In Center and the City operated Multi-
Service Access Center. Together, this partnership provides short-term
emergency shelter, meals, case management, a pet kennel, medical
services and permanent supportive housing for those with mental health
concerns. Collaboration is the key to our success. Our on the ground
partners include:
1. Health to Hope Medical Clinic
2. Social Security Administration
3. California Department of Motor Vehicles
4. Path of Life Ministries Community Shelter
5. Path of Life Ministries Family Shelter
6. Set Free Ministries
7. U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs
8. Riverside County Housing Authority
9. Riverside County Department of Mental Health
10. Riverside County Department of Public Social Services
11. U.S. Vets
12. Lighthouse Social Services
13. Foothill Aids Project
14. Roy's Desert Resource Center
15. MFI Recovery Center
16. Cedar House
17. Riverside Treatment Center
18. Riverside Police Department
19. Riverside Probation Department
20. Riverside Sheriff's Office
21. Riverside Parole Office
22. Coachella Valley Rescue Mission
23. Operation Safe House
24. Riverside Unified School District
25. Alvord Unified School District
26. Riverside County Animal Services
27. Arlington Temporary Assistance
28. Salvation Army
29. Catholic Charities
30. Community Connect
31. Community Settlement Association
32. Family Service Association
33. YMCA Riverside
34. Goodwill Resource Center
35. Department of Rehabilitation
36. Riverside Transit Agency
37. Riverside Community College
38. California Baptist University
39. University of California, Riverside
40. California State University San Bernardino
41. Intercoast College
42. Harvest Christian Fellowship
43. Kansas Seventh Day Church
44. Our Lady of Perpetual Help
45. Calvary Presbyterian Church
46. First Congregational Church
In addition to overseeing operation of the entire campus, the City
operates a Multi-Service Access Center. The City's Access Center
provides an entry point and service hub to the City's Continuum of
Care. The Access Center provides a wide-range of services under a
single-roof: homeless prevention resources, homeless street outreach,
basic needs emergency assistance, transportation assistance, housing
navigator services, employment development, benefits enrollment, health
care, mental health services, substance abuse recovery, veteran's
services, life skills training, financial counseling, legal services,
access to a telephone and computers, and a permanent mailing address.
Programs
The City's homeless services staff operate a menu of programs
designed to provide holistic supportive services.
Homeless Outreach Program
The Homeless Outreach Team is comprised of four service providers
who conduct daily mobile outreach and client service engagement for
homeless individuals and families on the street, in service venues, and
around town. The Outreach Team responds to people in need of
assistance, as well as local residents and businesses in the community.
The Outreach Team focuses on those ``hardest to reach'' and ``service
resistant'' homeless individuals. The Outreach Team partners with other
city staff, local services providers, health professionals, law
enforcement and the community at-large to help people get off of the
streets and connect to services they need to gain stable housing and
achieve self-sufficiency. Local service providers and community
volunteers participate in ``ride-alongs'' to help engage people in
need.
Navigating Back Home
Once the Homeless Outreach Team is able to identify and build a
rapport with homeless individuals living on the streets, vehicles and
places not meant for human habitation; the team transports the homeless
individual to the Riverside Access Center to begin the housing process.
At the Riverside Access Center, there are two full-time housing
navigators assigned to assist individuals and families break the cycle
of homelessness by moving them from the street to interim housing,
accessing necessary social services, and rapidly obtaining permanent
housing. The housing navigators provide individualized client support
throughout this entire journey by assisting each client develop a plan
to address their barriers, increase their income, and maintain and
sustain permanent housing. As part of the client's case management
plan, the housing navigator will identify each area in which clients
will need assistance to accomplish the outlined goals and objectives
such as scheduling appointments, applying for mainstream benefits and
identifying subsidized housing. The housing navigator's level of case
management is intensive and requires extensive time and commitment to
each individual client. The housing navigator's overall goal is to
assume full responsibility for their clients' success in securing and
maintaining permanent housing utilizing a housing first approach.
Tenant-Based Rental Assistance
This program provides eligible homeless individuals and families as
well as those at-risk of becoming homeless in the City with short-term
rental subsidies coupled with home-based case management. This effort
currently includes HUD funded Permanent Supportive Housing Program; the
Veteran's Administration Supportive Housing initiative administered by
U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Housing Authority of the
County of Riverside, the City's HOME-funded Tenant Based Rental
Assistance program and the Shelter Plus Care ``Street to Home''
Project.
Permanent Supportive Housing Program
The City operates a Permanent Supportive Housing Program, funded
with an annual allocation through the HUD Continuum of Care Supportive
Housing Program to support development and operation of two permanent
supportive housing communities for sixteen households. One of the
communities provides supportive housing specifically to chronically
homeless individuals and the second community provides supportive
housing to homeless with disabling conditions. On-going case management
and supportive services are provided to participants to help ensure
housing stability.
Veterans' Affairs Supportive Housing Initiative
The Obama Administration has set a goal of ending homelessness
among veterans over the next five-years. The Department of Veterans'
Affairs is working in collaboration with the Housing and Urban
Development Department to provide targeted housing choice vouchers to
homeless veterans throughout the country. Locally, the VA Loma Linda is
working in collaboration with Housing Authority of the County of
Riverside, the Homeless Outreach Team and other continuum of care
partners to assist homeless veterans with moving off the streets and
into permanent supportive housing. The Veterans' Affairs Supportive
Housing Initiative provides a veteran the ability to choose where they
live and ensure that their housing choice is affordable.
Housing First Initiative
The City is working with community partners to implement the best
practice ``Housing First'' approach which emphasizes moving people into
housing as quickly as possible and provide the appropriate level of
services to support housing stabilization and retention, into all
aspects of our local continuum of care. The Housing First approach
represents a significant shift away from the traditional homeless
service delivery system to one focused on homeless prevention, rapid
re-housing and home-based case management to facilitate client
stabilization leading to self-sufficiency.
Mayor's Challenge to End Veteran's Homelessness
The Mayor's Challenge is a nationwide effort to end veteran
homelessness in the United States. In June 2015, Mayor Rusty Bailey
eagerly accepted the challenge. Our identified goal was to permanently
house 86 homeless veterans in City by December 31, 2015. Through
dedicated and diligent outreach efforts, 86 homeless veterans were
identified in the City of Riverside. These veterans were living on the
streets, parks, shelters, vehicles and other places not meant for human
habitation. Many of these individuals were suffering from physical
disabilities, mental illnesses, substance abuse disorders, and lack of
social infrastructure. Through collaborative efforts with community
partners such as the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Housing
Authority of the County of Riverside, Department of Mental Health,
Department of Public Social Service, U.S. Vets and Lighthouse, we were
able to provide permanent housing interventions for 89 homeless
veterans by December 31, 2015. We exceeded our goal by using a housing-
first approach, through coordinated outreach efforts, by creating a
prioritized by-name list of all of Veterans, and with weekly case
conferencing with our service partners. The team's dedication and
efforts were wide-ranging and included activities such as physically
assisting with the move-in, providing security deposits and utility
assistance, and obtaining various donations from businesses and faith-
based organizations within the community to ease in the transition.
Through community collaboration, each of us can find a way to show our
gratitude and give back to those men and women who proudly served us.
In doing so, we can help ensure that veterans have a safe place to
permanently call home.
25 Cities Initiative
The 25 Cities Initiative is a key Federal strategy through which 25
cities are receiving technical assistance and are mobilizing local
planning efforts and partnerships to create effective systems for
aligning housing and services interventions through coordinated systems
to end homelessness. Led by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, in
partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and
the Interagency Council on Homelessness, the goal is to assist 25
cities in accelerating and aligning existing efforts to create
coordinated assessment and entry systems, laying the foundation for
ending all homelessness (including homelessness among veterans) in
these communities. Riverside County is one of 25 cities across the
nation selected to participate. This initiative recognizes that ending
veteran and chronic homelessness requires strong coordination between
all partners and stakeholders who are working together in our
community. During regular case conferencing city partners and service
providers meet to match homeless individuals and families with
available housing resources and rapidly place homeless individuals and
families into housing.
Many of our housing programs offer special incentives including
paying security deposits, guaranteed rent payments, pre-screening of
clients, and intensive case management services. Riverside has created
and implemented a coordinated entry system which includes a common
assessment tool known as the Vulnerability Index & Service
Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool, coordinated outreach efforts,
the creation of a by-name list of individuals and families experiencing
homelessness throughout the County of Riverside, and weekly case
conferencing. Riverside County continues to cultivate partnerships with
community members, with service providers, businesses, faith-based
organizations, and educational institutions, inviting them to join this
ongoing effort to end homelessness in our nation.
Riverside Ending Homelessness
A collaborative effort between Community Connect, Today's Urban
Renewal Network, Riverside Downtown Partnership, Arlington Business
Partnership, Path of Life Ministries, the Housing Authority of the
County of Riverside, and the City, has produced the Riverside Homeless
Reduction and Prevention Strategy Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year plan
sets forth focused strategies to help individuals and families move
toward self-sufficiency. The Riverside City Council formally adopted
the Five-Year plan in late 2012. This Five Year Plan is attached for
your reference. Additional information can also be found at the
Riverside Ending Homelessness website (www.endhomeless.info)
This Five Year plan launched the Riverside Ending Homelessness
effort, calling for the provision of a comprehensive menu of services
from basic needs to employment, education and housing. We are making
progress toward this goal, but still have a long way to go. We have
created the Riverside Ending Homelessness non-profit and established
its governing board of directors from the spectrum of the community. We
have seeded the Riverside Ending Homelessness Fund and continue to help
it grow. We have a plan for expansion of basic services at the Hulen
Campus and are now undertaking a fund raising effort for the $3,000,000
needed for expansion.
My verbal testimony will focus on the Riverside Ending Homelessness
effort.
Regional Effort
Building upon the positive momentum created through the City's work
to end veteran homelessness, the City is actively reaching out to all
neighboring jurisdictions in Western Riverside County to encourage the
development of a regional plan that more broadly addresses
homelessness.
Recognizing that homelessness is not a condition unique to any one
jurisdiction, the City will invite representatives from each
jurisdiction in Spring 2016 to help craft a plan through a
collaborative development process that not only identifies the
challenges faced but builds upon the efforts currently being undertaken
by each jurisdiction. It is the City's hope that the resulting plan
will strengthen working relationships and serve as a foundation for
improved cooperation throughout the region.
Into the Future
All of the partners and service providers are dedicated, passionate
and committed to ending homelessness. Staff from the Department of
Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veterans' Affairs
are always helpful and responsive. There is always so much opportunity
for improvement. A few items that we suggest that would assist current
efforts to help to end chronic homelessness include:
1. Mandate implementation of Evidence Based Case Management in any
programreceiving federal funds and provide the necessary funding to
allow for its effectiveinclusion. It is difficult for many clients to
acclimate to indoor living. The Critical TimeIntervention model, which
has 3 phases of case management, has demonstrated tohave a 90 percent
housing retention rate.
2. Incentivize a regional approach and coordination of homeless
services to encouragelocal governments to work together.
3. Incentivize landlords and hotels/motel establishments to
provide 30-90 dayemergency housing vouchers. There's a shortage of
landlords due to the stigmaattached to housing programs including the
Housing Choice Voucher Program. It isimportant for our community
leaders to reach out to rental and realtor associations,property
management companies and private owners to educate them on howservice
providers have restructured their housing process. Five years ago,
we(meaning housing providers) were placing clients in inappropriate
housingprograms. It's important to recognize our flaws and most
importantly identify whatwe have done, collaboratively, to restructure
our program requirements and developa coordinated system that better
serves our clients and landlords.
4. Create a mitigation fund for landlords willing to take a chance
on renting to ourveterans.
5. Provide motel vouchers so desperately needed for those veterans
that absolutely refuse to enter the shelter. We will continue to lose
veterans if we cannot temporarily provide them with a place to stay.
6. Provide incentives to large and small businesses to hire
formerly homeless veterans.
7. Provide funding for housing navigator positions.
8. Provide a method of recognizing organizations that partner with
local governments/regional partnerships to end veteran homelessness.
9. Provide funding dedicated for capital improvements and
operational expenses for facilities that provide coordinated services
and meet basic needs.
10. Maintain and expand existing program, as they are valuable and
needed.
If we are dreaming about truly being able to end homelessness for
any person or the homeless population, then we propose the creation of
a new program with an added value.
Following the life of a person suffering from homelessness from the
street to housing success can give us a guide to a new potential
effort. Would it be possible for Housing and Urban Development to join
efforts with Veterans' Affairs to create a holistic program aimed at
ending homelessness?
Can we expand the Supportive Housing Program to include allowing
for actual production of affordable housing units appropriate for the
formerly chronically homeless along with a mandated case management
system and partnered with housing and employment navigation? Can
Veterans Affairs also take on that expanded Supportive Housing Program
example and create a similar program dedicated for the homeless
veterans? Can we create a Housing First Supportive Homeless Program?
Success in the Mayor's Challenge and the 25 Cities Initiative
effort proved that a housing first model is effective but also
demonstrated the efficiency required of the holistic menu of supportive
services. While permanent supportive housing with case management is
effective and HOME program production of affordable housing is
valuable, they are not enough. We cannot sacrifice the delivery of
housing navigation and supportive services. Housing navigation and
supportive services are key because they are able to introduce the
person in need to the opportunity available.
We have seen firsthand what is possible when regional coordinated
efforts and a full spectrum of resources are aligned and focused on a
specific need. We can engage a team of dedicated and qualified
professionals to help guide individuals and families through every
stage, from the street to a home. This represents a genuine effort to
effectively implement the Housing First model and is not a band aide
approach dependent on overnight shelter beds.
The new program needs to address tangible barriers to housing by
focusing on the individual's immediate and basic needs and offer
multiple opportunities for contact with caring housing navigators, case
managers, medical providers, education consultants, employment trainers
and mental health professionals while consistently increasing the
availability of affordable housing units to increase the chances for
success.
To aid the transition into long-term housing stability, we could
provide funding for an employment program aimed at empowering
individuals to obtain the necessary skillset to successfully reenter
the workforce and sustain gainful employment.
To be successful, the Housing First Supportive Homeless Program
would fund the team described above who would be fully dedicated to
achieving housing success, where a shelter bed is not the objective.
The Housing First Supportive Homeless Program would add funding for
development of housing units specifically available to the formerly
chronically homeless. The program would fund opportunities to acquire
and rehabilitate existing homes within established neighborhoods where
community reintegration can thrive. The employment program will inspire
the community stakeholders to participate, promote, and stimulate
program growth while contributing to the success of the individual.
A partnership between HUD and the VA could launch a new initiative
based on the lessons learned in the Mayor's Challenge and pursue a
similar success on a larger scale.
We thank the Chairman, Ranking Member, and the Subcommittee Members
for your time, attention, and devotion to this cause. As always, we
welcome your feedback and questions, and we look forward to continuing
to work with this subcommittee, the House Committee on Veterans'
Affairs, to ensure the success of all generations of veterans.
Prepared Statement of Carrie Harmon
Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee
today. On behalf of our County, I would like to thank you for your
leadership and support which has been instrumental in providing local
communities with the resources needed to serve the nation's most
vulnerable veterans. As the representative from Riverside County, I
have the opportunity to speak on behalf of the county departments and
the partnering agencies that are actively engaged in our local fight
against veterans' homelessness. I also have the humble opportunity to
represent the homeless veterans in our county, many of which are now
housed, that have been assisted through this united national effort.
I am proud to report that our county has made significant progress
in ending veterans' homelessness and we are very close to reaching the
finish line. Over the course of the last two and half years we have
housed over 1,000 veterans but most importantly we have also learned a
great deal about what systems need to be changed and what more is
needed to assist our veterans. The purpose of my testimony is to share
this information with you and to provide some recommendations on how we
can further refine our strategies to end not just veterans'
homelessness but all homelessness within our communities.
I am also honored to appear before you with my colleagues and in
effort to not duplicate information my testimony will be focused on the
following areas:
Riverside County's progress, programs and initiatives;
and
Recommendations for the Committee's consideration
Riverside County's Programs and Progress
Counties play a unique role in the fight against homelessness as
the primary provider of public social services at the local level.
While the Mayor's Challenge focuses on the efforts of cities to end
homelessness, counties have substantial resources that can and should
be marshaled for this effort. Additionally, counties have the ability
to establish local policies and practices that have a major impact on
the way veterans, homeless and low-income residents are serviced and
prioritized within our communities. Riverside County has long
recognized this fact and has assumed a leadership role in ensuring that
veterans and affordable housing are top priorities for our
jurisdiction. This leadership can be found most notably in the passage
of the Veterans Assistance Legislation of Riverside County (VALOR)
initiative in 2013 and throughout the County's numerous departments.
Veterans Assistance Legislation of Riverside County (VALOR)
The Riverside County Board of Supervisors assumed the lead role in
ending veterans' homelessness through the unanimous approval of the
Veterans Assistance Legislation of Riverside County commonly known as
the VALOR initiative in April, 2013.
The purpose of VALOR is threefold:
1. The Board's public commitment to end homelessness among
veterans ahead of the federal deadline;
2. A commitment to enact local policies that will assist homeless
veterans with accessing the services and housing they so desperately
need; and
3. The creation of the VALOR subcommittee which was tasked with
implementing systems changes, enhancing services and most importantly
identifying and housing homeless and at-risk veterans.
Although spearheaded by the Board of Supervisors, VALOR was
implemented as a public-private effort to rapidly house homeless
veterans with an emphasis on engaging partners with the greatest
resources to impact homelessness. Housing is always the first the
priority using a ``housing first'' model of care. Secondary to the
housing effort is the systems and service change that is necessary to
move the entire homeless continuum of care into new mode of
functionality which prioritizes permanent housing and the systematic
matching of homeless individuals with an open housing unit. All of this
is designed to move the county to ``functional zero'' for homeless
veterans and the chronically homeless within the next year.
2014 Veterans Point in Time Count (PIT)
To begin the VALOR initiative, we needed an accurate baseline count
of homeless veterans to monitor our impact and progress. This baseline
began with data from the 2011 Riverside County Point In Time Count
(PIT) which determined that there were 890 homeless veterans in our
communities. This count was followed by the 2013 count which found 179
homeless veterans a significant decrease that drove a local debate on
the reliability of the PIT to accurately gage need and demand for
homeless veterans' services. In response to this debate, the County's
Department of Public Social who serves as lead agent for the Riverside
County Continuum of Care obtained grant funds to conduct a veterans-
only PIT count in 2014. This count determined that there were 290
homeless veterans of which 173 were unsheltered and included a survey
of encountered veterans which was used to drive supportive service
programming. The results of this PIT and survey, the 2014 Veterans
Homeless County and Survey can be found online at http://
dpss.co.riverside.ca.us/homeless-programs. The 2014 number became the
initial number used to drive our strategy to eliminate veterans'
homelessness in our area. Our next PIT is scheduled for January 27th
and will include special efforts to reach veterans.
County Programs and Services
As noted previously, counties have an array of tools that can be
utilized to combat homelessness and to provide veteran-centric
services. I would like to highlight the following departments and/or
programs which play a primary role in Riverside County's response to
veterans' homelessness.
c The Housing Authority of the County of Riverside
Riverside County is home to one of the highest performing and
progressive public housing agencies in the nation. The County's Housing
Authority has achieved the ``High Performer'' designation from HUD for
high quality management of its Section 8 program for fourteen
consecutive years which puts it in an elite group of less than 10% of
all housing authorities across the country. Moreover, the Housing
Authority has implemented programs and services targeted to homeless
and other special needs populations who require additional supports to
obtain and maintain housing. In fact, our local housing authority is
one of the very few that has its own homeless programs team complete
with outreach workers and case managers. We believe fundamentally that
a local public housing agency should be a one stop for all residents
with housing needs especially those that are homeless. The Housing
Authority operates daily on the principle that its primary mission is
to restore lives, strengthen families and revitalize communities
through the provision high quality affordable housing. The agency also
offers a true public-private approach to housing through our
partnership with Section 8 landlords who are instrumental in addressing
homelessness. For this reason, the Housing Authority was tapped as lead
for the VALOR initiative's housing efforts and brings to the fight
against veterans' homelessness: existing partnerships with over 3,000
local landlords and affordable housing developers; funding for
affordable housing development; over 8,500 Section 8 vouchers; 469
units of public housing; 539 VASH vouchers; 120 units of supportive
permanent housing; 90 units of HIV housing; and 5 full time employees
dedicated to homeless housing programs.
c The Department of Public Social Services
The Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) serves as the
administrative agent for the Riverside County and City Continuum of
Care and receives approximately $7 million in funding annually from the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development to provide housing and
services to homeless individuals and families. The Riverside Continuum
of Care was selected to participate in the 25 Cities Initiative and
this project is being coordinated by DPSS. Under the 25 Cities, the
County is aggressively moving all homeless services to a coordinated
entry system that aligns the most vulnerable homeless veterans and
chronically homeless with the first available housing unit. The system
also includes a universal assessment system that is used to compile a
master list of veterans in need of housing and a master list of
veterans housed. These lists have fundamentally changed the way in
which homeless veterans are identified and housed within our County.
c Veterans Services
As noted earlier, counties provide a unique range of public
services that must be coordinated to address the needs of veterans
regardless of housing status. One such department is the Riverside
County Office of Veterans Services which is specifically tasked with
honoring and enhancing the quality of life for veterans in Riverside
County through claims assistance, education, advocacy, and special
projects such as the Homeless Veterans Stand Down. The Veterans
Services department is an important entry point for many veterans who
are seeking assistance through the County's various departments and/or
seeking social service assistance through community agencies
c Workforce Development Services
Riverside County serves the administrator and operator of the
Riverside County public workforce system. Employment is critical to
ending and preventing homelessness. Riverside County offers priority of
service to all veterans seeking services within our center and has
implemented the HIRE VALOR program which focuses on the employment
needs of homeless veterans participating in the VASH program. We are
also working in partnership with the City of Riverside to implement an
on-the-job training program for residents of the Riverside Emergency
Shelter in an effort to provide work based learning experience, recent
work experience and opportunities to earn income while receiving
training.
Riverside County Progress
VALOR combined with the 25 Cities initiative has yielded the
following results over the course of the last two and half years:
1. 1,007 homeless veterans are now housed;
2. We have funded three new housing developments earmarked for
veterans - March Veterans Village, Camp Anza, and Habitat for
Humanity's Veterans Enriched Housing;
3. We have implemented a standardized assessment tool and piloted
a coordinated entry system for the Continuum of Care; and
4. We have established an active list of all homeless veterans
within our county who are still in need of housing and this list is
reviewed weekly during a standing call with housing navigators and case
managers.
Recommendations
Although we have accomplished much, we have also learned that there
are adjustments that can be made to further enhance homeless services
for veterans at the community and national level. I would like to share
these recommendations with you for your consideration.
1. There is an urgent need for additional units of affordable
housing in the Southern California region for low income residents.
Affordable housing is one of our best weapons in the fight against
homelessness. We need to increase funding for the HOME program, Section
8, and other similar programs that can provide opportunities for
communities to further expand the local supply of affordable housing
units. These new communities must include units earmarked for homeless
individuals and families. Veterans should receive top priority on
waiting lists for these units.
2. Identification documents should not be a major barrier to
housing but they continue to be a significant barrier for homeless
individuals and veterans. We have allocated millions of dollars to
housing programs only to have a homeless veteran with a VASH voucher in
hand sit homeless awaiting a state issued ID or birth certificate which
is almost always required to rent an apartment. This is unacceptable.
We need to implement policy changes at the federal and state level that
can provide these necessary identity documents free of charge for
homeless veterans.
3. We have achieved significant systems change in the local system
of care. We owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the National Alliance to
End Homelessness (NAEH) and Community Solutions for providing the
leadership and technical assistance to guide us through this process.
More is still needed. We need groups such as the National Alliance of
Homelessness to set standards for professional training, education, and
experience in the homeless service profession. This will facilitate a
much higher level of care within the local Continuum of Care's
throughout the country.
4. Employment is a critical to ending and preventing homelessness.
We must move to the model of ``housing first, employment second'' and
this must be a very close second priority. Employment is not just about
income - a job is an important mechanism for connecting to the
community and to an individual's self-identity. Funding for workforce
programs which focus on successfully reconnecting homeless individuals
to the workplace are much needed and would make create significant
impact.
5. Finally, we need leverage the expertise and resources of long
standing community agencies in our fight against homelessness. Housing
Authorities are a prime example of this expertise. Housing Authorities
already have long standing relationships with landlords and extensive
knowledge of the local rental market. Please consider allowing Housing
Authorities to use this skill in housing navigation rather than
building this capacity in agencies that are better suited to addressing
the clinical needs or emergency shelter needs of homeless veterans.
In closing, I want to thank you for time and support. I began my
work with homeless veterans over 13 years ago as an AmeriCorps outreach
worker stationed at the VA Loma Linda. Never in my wildest dreams did I
believe that in 13 years I would see an end to homelessness among
veterans. I think it is only fitting that veterans, even in their time
of greatest need, led us on this path and showed us what can be
accomplished when we imagine an end to one of our most challenging
community issues.
Prepared Statement of Stephen Peck
Good afternoon. My name is Stephen Peck and I'm the President and
CEO of U.S.VETS. I'm also a Vietnam veteran. I served with the First
Marine Division near Danang in '69-`70, and I've been doing this work
since 1991. U.S.VETS has been in the fight against veterans'
homelessness since 1993 when we started our first program in Inglewood,
California. Since then we have grown into the largest veteran-specific
non-profit housing and service provider in the country, providing
services at 21 residential sites and 9 service centers in 14 cities
across 6 states, and the District of Columbia.
Last year, U.S.VETS, touched the lives of over 17,000 veterans and
family members; provided housing to more than 4,500; provided
preventive and rapid rehousing services to 4,600 veterans and family
members in the community, and placed more than 1,200 veterans into
living wage employment.
Locally, U.S.VETS - Inland Empire, our project headquartered at
March Air Reserve Base, is the largest veteran housing provider in San
Bernardino and Riverside Counties. This year in these two counties,
about 2,000 veterans will experience homelessness. But 26,000 veteran
households are living in poverty, on the brink of homelessness. The
Inland Empire unemployment rate among veterans 9.5%, about double the
national average.
Despite the fact that many of our veterans have legal issues such
as DUI, Domestic Violence, and Child Support as a direct result of
dealing with Traumatic Brain Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress, and/or
Combat Trauma, we were able to help about 90 veterans return to full
time employment.
With over two hundred units of housing, from permanent supportive
to Bridge Housing and Safe Haven, we've been able to help more than 800
veterans and their family members find housing in 2014-15, and we are
on track this year to help more than a thousand.
Our services are comprehensive. To us there is no one answer to
homelessness, so we co-locate housing, counseling and employment
assistance at each of our sites, helping to create an environment that
is responsive to the many challenges veterans face as they transition
from military to civilian life. Our services include rapid re-housing
beds, transitional and permanent supportive housing, and support
services to homeless and at-risk veterans in the community, helping
each veteran, male or female achieve self-sufficiency.
We want to prevent veterans from becoming homeless if we can, so
along with the VA Supportive Services for Veterans Families program, we
provide preventative mental health counseling to veterans in the
community through our Outside the Wire program; and employment
assistance to veterans who are not yet homeless, and are ready to
return to work through our Career Development Initiative (CDI). Last
year through this program we helped 450 veterans return to work at an
average wage of $45,000 a year. Both of these programs are completely
privately funded.
Back in 1993, we started with the idea that every veteran should be
empowered to live at their highest level of independence, which means
that we want every veteran who is capable of full time employment to
have the dignity of finding a job. Every site has a career center and
our workforce teams are critical to the success of our veterans.
We have six HVRP programs across the country, including one in Los
Angeles County, which helped us place 618 vets into full time
employment this past year at an average wage of $12.00 an hour. We've
developed other state and private workforce funding to make up for the
limitations of the HVRP program.
Let me make a few observations if I may:
First: One of the limitations of operating HVRP is its inability to
assist those veterans that may be at-risk of homelessness, such as the
veterans we are serving through our SSVF program. They are not yet
homeless and therefore do not qualify for HVRP services. We do not
always have other workforce funding to help these veterans but if we
could help them prior to the on-set of homelessness we may be able to
prevent them from losing their housing.
This is where our Career Development Initiative comes into play.
Fully one-third of our job placements last year were made through the
CDI program because of lack of sufficient and flexible funding from
DOL.
Nationally, the HVRP funding has been flat lined for the past three
years, while increasing numbers of vets return from deployment, all
them needing jobs. The program is authorized at $50M, but it has never
reached this funding level and is stuck at $38M, leaving thousands of
veterans without the employment assistance they need. Currently, there
is no HVRP funding in Riverside County.
Secondly: The ultimate goal of the HVRP program is to place
veterans into long lasting employment. If there were additional funds
available to expand follow-up services to include more than just
counseling and placement, services such as additional training if
necessary, grantees could be more supportive to those veterans, help
them secure higher paying jobs, and ensure that they keep their jobs.
And finally: The VA and HUD emphasis on quickly moving vets out of
service intensive transitional housing, into permanent housing does
have some unintended consequences. Once they are in permanent housing,
they are ineligible for HVRP. Making them eligible for 90 days after
they move would alleviate this problem. But the ready availability of
HUD-VASH vouchers, marketed heavily by the VA and others in the
community, can create a disincentive for some veterans to seek
employment. Crawling out of homelessness and building the skills to
become self-sufficient is difficult. We and other providers, have had
many veterans who have been in our workforce programs, readying
themselves for employment, who suddenly drop out of the job search
because they heard of the possibility of receiving a VASH voucher. What
they say to us is ``I don't want to endanger my possibility of getting
my voucher by getting a job. The income may disqualify me.'' That is a
terrible disservice to that veteran - trading a productive career for a
lifetime of dependence.
We have more resources than ever before to help veterans who are
homeless, and it is up to all of us to use them wisely, empowering the
veterans we are pledged to serve, and making sure we are providing them
the skills that will help them, as one of our vets said, ``to bring
back the man who once wore the military uniform with pride and honor.''
Prepared Statement of Son Nguyen
Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano and members of the
Subcommittee:
Thank you for inviting the Veterans Association of Real Estate
Professionals (VAREP) to submit our testimony on ``Finding Solutions
for Veteran Homelessness in Southern California''. With 24 plus
chapters and growing across the country, we are pleased to share the
perspective of those most directly impacted by the subject this
committee addresses.
Established in 2011, VAREP has quickly grown to be a voice for the
interests of veterans in financial-literacy, homeownership and VA loan
education and counselling; additionally, we have become the educational
resource to the real estate, lending, and housing professionals. We
teach them on how to better serve our veterans achieve the American
Dream of homeownership. Our Capitol Hill visits have advocated for
multi-agency collaboration including specific legislative and
administrative changes in removing barriers to veteran homeownership.
National Outreach Results:
1,500 veterans were educated about the importance of good
credit, benefits of Homeownership, the home buying process, the VA loan
benefit, down payment assistance programs, HUD VASH, and SSVF programs
through our ``Veterans Housing Summits (VHS)'' across the country.
As a direct result of these Veterans Housing Summits, 500
veteran families realized homeownership and counting.
5,000 real estate professionals and lenders educated
about the VA loan and how to work with the military and veteran
communities.
1,500 veteran families have been help by VAREP local
chapters through toy, blanket, and food drives. VAREP has paid for
utilities, rent, and mortgage payments for veteran families who
experience a temporary hardship through our VAREP Cares program.
10 Mortgage-Free Home Donations across the United States
to qualified veterans through our ``House-A-Vet - Homes for Heroes''
program
$40,000 in a form of grants were given to veteran
families for down-payment, closing costs, and adaptive housing
assistance.
70 homes remodeled and sold to low-to-moderate (LMI)
income veterans families through our ``House-A-Vet - Veteran First''
resale program.
Southern California Outreach Results:
200 veterans attended Veterans Housing Summits in
Riverside, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties.
As a direct result of these Veterans Housing Summits, 50
Southern California veteran families realized homeownership.
500 plus veteran families have been help by VAREP local
chapters through toy, blanket, and food drives for the holiday season.
In this testimony, we will address homelessness and low-income
veterans as relates to transitionary housing, overcoming barriers to
homeownership and transitioning into a sustainable life in Southern
California. We look forward to working with the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) and this committee on these issues.
Overview of California Veterans and Homeless Population
California has approximately 1.9 million veterans. Of these, about
185,000 (or 9.7 percent are women) Almost one million are currently
over the age of 60 (52.3 percent). Most live in Southern California
counties, and are heavily clustered in Los Angeles (281,961 in 2015),
San Diego (221,076 in 2015), Orange County (112,449 in 2015), San
Bernardino (108,497), and Riverside (128,767 in 2015).
California expects to receive an additional 30,000 discharged
members of the armed services each year for the next several years -
more than any other state. Nearly 15,000 California veterans experience
homelessness nightly, representing 26 percent of the nation's homeless
veterans.
Compared to the general adult population, male veterans are less
likely to progress from stability into homelessness. But male veterans
living in poverty are about 1.2 time more likely to progress to
homelessness when compared to civilians living in poverty. Women
veterans, however, are twice as likely as other adults to move into
homelessness, and women veterans in poverty are 2.7 times as likely to
move into homelessness as other adults living in poverty. For all
veterans, youth is now associated with a higher risk of moving into
homelessness. For 18-30 year old veterans living in poverty, when
compared to nonveteran adults living in poverty, veterans are 3.4 times
as likely to become homeless.
This young cohort is made up of veterans who have served in both
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) and
has a higher proportion of women veterans that older cohorts do.
Women in their 30s to 50s experienced the greatest problems with
housing destabilization and homelessness. However, we also found that
women serving in the most recent conflict experience problems
maintaining stable housing once they become a veteran.
Homeless and Marginal Low-income Veteran Transitional Housing
Southern California has made great strides to ending veteran
homelessness through a collaboration of local, state, and federal
programs including the HUD VASH and SSVF.
The HUD VASH is a great program, however, the definition of
homeless only covers veterans who are actually on the streets or
housing shelters. A couch-surfing, low-income veteran cannot afford a
permanent dwelling is essentially homeless, currently, this veteran
would not qualify for the HUD VASH Voucher program. The propensity for
this type of veteran to be street homeless is inevitable. HUD VASH
should re-consider and expand its definition of homeless to be more
inclusive of the low-income veteran.
SSVF is another great program, however, the challenge is that a lot
veterans are unaware that this program exists. The SSVF Continuum of
Care grant recipients need to do a better job of outreach to educate
veterans within the communities they serve.
The transitional period is a critical time in a veteran's life.
They are brought off the street and into transitional housing to
receive treatment for a variety of physiological and physical ailments.
They are also encouraged to apply for entitlement benefits such as
disability and find suitable employment for sustainability. However,
financial fitness education and housing counseling needs are not being
addressed. Financial literacy education and housing counseling services
needs to be part of the supportive services provided and overseen by
case management as a requirement of daily living activities.
Studies: Lack of Financial Literacy May Trigger Veteran Homelessness
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury
(TBI), depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol and drug abuse, younger
age, and contact with the criminal justice system have each been
identified as risk factors for homelessness among veterans. However, an
overlooked contributor to veterans' homelessness is not achieving
financial stability after military service. Financial factors,
including lack of stable employment, inability to budget and make ends
meet, limited financial knowledge, poor judgment in making financial
decisions, and lack of material security, can exist independently of
mental health diagnoses and the other risk factors mentioned according
to a report in the American Journal of Public Health in 2013.
The study found that military members in general are less familiar
with household budgets, more likely to be targets for predatory lenders
and ``may not have the opportunity to learn the skills necessary for
being financially independent and managing money.''
Researchers from the University of North Carolina and Duke
University said the study of 1,000-plus veterans from the Iraq and
Afghanistan era found nearly one-third had gone over their credit
limit, written a bad check or been contacted by a collection agency.
About 5 percent of those surveyed spent some time homeless.
A 2014 University of Southern California Los Angeles County Veteran
Study showed:
30% of veterans reported financial troubles, many of
which began during military service.
A 2014 Blue Star Families Military Family Lifestyle Survey
revealed:
65% surveyed experienced stress related to their family's
current financial condition.
84% agreed that greater focus should be placed on
preventive financial education as a whole.
Financial Fitness Education Solution
A ``Financial Literacy'' education and coaching program needs to be
established as a benefit under the new GI Bill so veterans can apply,
participate, and graduate financially fit ensuring sustainability.
The program can be implemented in all phases including active-duty,
transitioning, and reintegration:
Active-Duty--Start early and make a financial literacy
curriculum mandatory for all service members to be completed within 60
days after reporting to their duty station. Follow up with peer-to-peer
financial fitness coaching to include annual credit review and savings
plan. Starting early in the service member's career creates good money
habits and the annual credit reviews will enable sufficient time, if
needed, to restore financial health prior to military separation.
Transitioning--During TAP/Transition GPS, have trained
financial counselor conduct final detailed financial analyses of
separating service members' financial health.
Reintegration and Sustainable Life--The Veterans
Administration (VA) in partnership with veteran housing nonprofits to
provide continued financial literacy education, support, and coaching.
Barriers to Homeownership
Mental Disorders, PTSD, TBI, substance abuse, unemployment, lack of
income, poor money management, bad credit, are all barriers to
homeownership. However the biggest barrier to homeownership is lack of
home buyer outreach, education, and counseling. This lack of these
services have caused confusion, frustration, and in some cases housing
discrimination.
A 2015 Veterans Association of Real Estate Professionals (VAREP)
Veteran Housing Survey Revealed:
95% said they did not receive housing training and
counseling while in service.
90% said they did not receive VA Loan benefit training
during service, transitioning out, or post separation.
45% said they did not ever think they could own a home.
65% said they did not know where to go and get help with
their credit.
70% said they could not find affordable housing on a
limited income.
90% said VAREP was the first group that actually focused
on educating veterans on homeownership.
95% said they wanted follow up and home buying counseling
services.
50% said they had a foreclosure or short sale and thought
they could not buy again.
70% said they had a hard time finding a realtor or lender
to work with them if they were using the VA loan.
Home Buyer Pre-purchase and Post-purchase Housing Education and
Counseling Solution
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has proven
that providing home buyer pre-purchase, post-purchase, and default
housing education and counseling through NeighborWorks America's
network of counseling agencies works.
HUD's data shows:
Pre-purchase homeownership counseling had positive long-
term effects on credit score, debit levels, and delinquencies on debt.
Counseling clients are one-third less likely to become
90+ days delinquent in the two years since obtaining their loan.
Telephone quarterly free financial coaching for one year
post-purchase found an 11.1 reduction in mortgage default rates for
first-time home buyers with subprime credit histories (credit scores
below 680).
HUD-approved housing counseling agencies are ill equipped to
provide veteran housing education and counseling services because the
VA loan and veteran demographic is not in their wheelhouse. The
responsibility of these services rests with the VA.
Despite HUD's lack of catering to the veterans, the homeownership
education and counseling model works. A veteran housing education and
counseling program should be established under the GI Bill as part of
the VA loan program. This seems to be a natural fit.
Fair Housing Law Veteran Inclusion
Veterans are members of a protected class. Laws have been passed to
increase hiring of veterans, increase contracting opportunities for
veteran-owned businesses, suspend civil proceedings against service
members while deployed, provide foreclosure-prevention help for veteran
homeowners, and penalize companies who prey on service members through
high-interest loans and investments scams. It is long overdue to make
veterans a protected class as part of the Fair Housing Act.
Allow Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) credit for financial
institutions who purposefully reach out to the Low-to-moderate (LMI)
veteran community to give them the credit access they need.
Conclusion
The benefits of this proposal are clear: financial literacy
education and homeownership education with counseling services are
proactive and preventive measures to ending virtual homelessness in
Southern California while enabling reintegration sustainability. A
pilot programs should be established within Southern California by the
VA to develop and implement these services. Once success is proven,
these programs can be scalable for the entire United States. It is our
hope that we can work with the VA to bring this concept from
possibility to reality.
To properly demonstrate the veteran requests that VAREP receives on
a daily basis, please see exhibit 1. We have done the best that we can,
however, there no grants that support us in our endeavor, thus almost
1,000 affordable housing options, financial literacy, and housing
counseling requests are backed-logged waiting for processing.
Exhibit 1. Affordable Housing, Financial Literacy, and
Homeownership Counseling Request Samples.
We thank the Chairman, Ranking Member, and the Subcommittee Members
for your time, attention, and devotion to the cause of veterans. We
welcome your feedback and questions, and we look forward to continuing
to work with this subcommittee, the House Committee on Veterans'
Affairs, and the entire Congress to ensure the success and empowerment
of all generations of veterans in the areas of financial and
homeownership sustainability.
Information Required by Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives
Pursuant to Rule XI2(g)(4) of the House of Representatives, VAREP
has not received any federal grants in Fiscal Year 2015, nor has it
received any federal grants in the two previous Fiscal Years.
Son Nguyen,
Founder and President
Son Nguyen is the Founder and President of the Veterans Association
of Real Estate Professionals (VAREP). Mr. Nguyen creates, implements,
and overseas the programs within VAREP including working with
government agencies and policy makers to create and reform veteran
housing policy to remove barriers to homeownership.
He is frequently called upon as a subject matter expert by
government agencies, the real estate industry, the lending industry,
and real estate trade organizations to provide consultation on a
variety of veteran housing issues.
Mr. Nguyen has 19 plus years of experience in real estate, public
speaking, supplier diversity, curriculum development, and non-profit
management. His record speaks of innovation and leadership at the
highest level.
Mr. Nguyen established VAREP as a housing non-profit for vets, by
vets. He believes VAREP's proactive stance--providing financial-
literacy education and advocating homeownership--may not end the
epidemic of homelessness among the veteran community, but can prevent
it from happening in the future, one veteran at a time.
Mr. Nguyen entered the Navy in 1996 and served as a Radioman on the
USS Vincennes (GC-49) and USS Constellation (CV-64). A proud service-
connected disabled veteran, Mr. Nguyen holds a Bachelor's degree in
Public Relations from of the University of Florida and a Master's in
Organizational Management. He currently resides in Corona, CA with his
wife, son, and Labrador.
Exhibit 1. Affordable Housing, Financial Literacy, and Homeownership
Counseling Request Samples.
Credit Counseling Requests
1. I want to learn more about fixing my credit, to apply to home
loan. I am a war veteran, I did 3 years active and one deployment. I am
currently in the process of finishing my last year of my eight year
contract.
-J. Jacquez
2. Hello. My husband and I had a short sale a few years ago and it
shows up on our credit as a foreclosure. Since then we have been moved
from house to house (We have moved 10 times since 2007) and we are
getting ready to move into a temporary house this weekend AGAIN! My
husband and I both served in Iraq (Me-2 years, my husband 1 year). I am
a 50% disabled veteran and was hoping you could help us with some
credit repair advice, or any assistance that is possible. We just want
our own stable house to raise our family in.
-C. Morris
3. My husband and I are both veterans. I am 50% disabled and we are
working on his. We need some serious help in credit repair and
counseling as we wish to purchase a home for our Golden years. We are
putting into place this year a 2 year plan, we would appreciate any
help.
-A. Mallette-Robinson
Home Buyer Counseling Requests
4. Looking into using VA home loan to get first home questionable
credit because of bad divorce.
-A. Garcia
5. I was medically retired from the Army in late 2013, and
purchased a house around June of 2013. I filed for divorce in 2014, and
bankruptcy shortly afterward. I wasn't able to make mortgage payments/
utilities and keep the house in order while being only supported by my
VA disability compensation after my ex-wife left. The house was
included in the the Ch 7 that was discharged Feb 2015. I understand
that I am not allowed to be on any mortgage application for an FHA loan
for at least 2 years following discharge. My questions involve the
future, what is the status of another VA homeland guaranty or FHA
application?
-R. Smith
6. Sick of throwing away money to rent! I am a disabled combat vet
of the Iraq war. Served with the 101st airborne division as a combat
infantryman. Am diagnosed with severe PTSD. Would be honored to receive
credit counselling and home buying classes.
-J. Sokel
7. My wife and I have poor credit and our working towards improving
our credit and paying off our debt. My wife works full time at the San
Diego Zoo, and I recently finished school and am a Pharmacy Technician.
Our monthly income is 3195. I didn't want to use my VA home loan until
our credit was better and obviously until both of us were where we
needed to be career wise. I have worked my entire adult life in
healthcare and aviation and have no doubt that I will be employed soon.
With rent being so high here in San Diego I wanted to see what my
options were as far as purchasing our first home. Condo or house.
-R. Alvarez
8. I would like to buy my own home in 2017. I have bad credit and
need help saving a down payment or closing costs.
-N. Cook
9. Getting ready to buy a home and need some home buyer counseling.
-M. Rutledge
10. Looking to own our own home. Need to stop paying the insane
amount of rent in the apartment we are in currently, move into
something more affordable and start to repair our debt and credit. We
want a house that we can fix up, something we can flip and call our
own. our current situation is that we pay more for our apartment than
we would a mortgage for have that cost, allowing us to live more
comfortably...right now we can't, we struggle to pay everything with
such a high rent payment. Please help in any way that you can.
-H. Atkinson
Renting and Relocation Requests
11. I'm a 14 year Army veteran with multiple disabilities, still
awaiting approval of my claim from the VA. I currently reside in
Section 8 Housing in Riverside, CA but will likely be on the street
shortly. I was working as an electrician's apprentice until I was laid
off in April of this year, and have since been living off of
unemployment benefits while I have been taking care of my health,
including surgery on my left wrist, multiple epidural injections in my
back, etc. My landlord has presented me with a three-day notice and
will be forwarding me to her eviction attorney for rents that she
claims I have not paid. I can prove that I have in fact paid, but I do
not have every receipt from every month. My interaction with my
landlord began very informally, and I did not think to request receipts
from her or her son (who also collected rent) every month.
Unfortunately they are now claiming that I haven't paid. Either way,
because I don't have all of the receipts I stand in very real danger of
losing my section 8 status and being homeless with my wife and two
daughters. I don't know where to turn, SSVF will not help because I am
in Section 8, and none of the other local charities have funding for
rental assistance at this time. I need help finding affordable housing,
looking to the future and eventual home ownership.
-J. Pelletier
12. I got out of the army in March of 2013 and moved to New Mexico
where my dad was stationed. I just so happened to meet my now wife
there while going to school at Eastern New Mexico university. She had
two kids already from a previous abusive marriage and now she and I
have a son together. We won custody of both of my step son and daughter
and moved to Oregon to make a better future for ourselves with better
opportunities for my kids and wife. Our living situation is where our
problem lies. We currently live in a 25x25 room at my parents
consisting of my wife and I, our 7, 4, and 1 years old kids and our
dog. We don't have a shower that works in our room so we have to go
into my parents house to use theirs. We cannot afford a house of our
own because I'm the only one working. My wife would work but we cannot
afford daycare for our kids. I'm going to school full time and working
as well to be able to get a house for my family. With our bills, the
money I make from school and work covers them and leavesee us with a
little bit of money for the necessity things like gas and what not.
-R. Peel
13. I was honorably released from service at on December 19, 2014.
I tried to attend school but was forced to drop out due to missing too
many days because of my PTSD and depression. I was unemployed until I
found a job at the county human services in June 2015 where I am still
currently employed. During my 6 months of unemployment, I missed paying
my rent a few times and still owe that back rent to my landlord. I have
been struggling to get caught up on past bills as well as trying to
stay current. However, I received a vacate letter from my landlord
stating that if I do not pay the arrears then me and my two kids must
vacate the house which will leave us homeless. I don't know what else
to do, please help.
-L. Bell
14. Worried about my transition from military. Credit score is very
low, hard to find anyone to rent to me. Finishing twenty years of
active naval service. Really need help in finding a place to live when
out of military, no family here in San Diego.
-D. Pearson
15. Hello, I am a single 32 male USMC Veteran. I just finished my
goals of 2015 which was connecting with family and friends. I am ready
for myself. I will be re-locating as P&T TDIU veteran. Due to my low
credit, and low savings I will have to wait until February to think
about continuing my goal to be independent and have a place to call
home. I am looking to create a foundation and then excel from this
foundation. First I need to take care of personal health goals and
mindset. If you have any advice or opportunities to rent in the San
Diego area, or that works with veterans please advise. Due to my income
from the VA I do not qualify for some assistance programs like SSVF, I
declined earlier this year to fix some personal relationships and take
care that. I would like to get a head start in 2016, as I look to build
my foundation for the future.
-C. Forero
VA Loan Specialist Requests
16. I am a 61 year old veteran. MY 34 year old son is also a
veteran, serving in both Afghanistan and Iraq. In the past, we have
both had problems with homelessness due to economics more than
anything. In 2014, I lost my home to foreclosure. I was 59 at the time,
and had not been able to find a job that would support me. I now live
in a trailer that should be condemned, (leaking roof, rotting floor,
and not a functioning kitchen, to name a few of the problems). At least
I am financially stable with a good job that I just started. My son and
his family were evicted from his apartment in Bradenton in August. The
company he worked for went out of business. He and his wife lived with
me for a few months and he got a good job here in Clearwater. The 55+
MHP forced him to move out, so they moved to a 1 bedroom apartment. The
rent takes nearly half his monthly income. Their three children are
currently living in Spring Hill with their other grandparents. His wife
has almost no job experience and has health issues, so she has been
unable to contribute in the past. She is currently seeking employment,
though. My son and I want to pool our incomes and purchase a 3 or 4
bedroom home that has an additional 1 bedroom apartment where I can
live. This would be our ideal situation, but with a foreclosure and
eviction, neither of us has the credit rating that would secure a
mortgage. All we need is an understanding lender.
-A. Younger
17. I am an honorably discharged vet of the navy. I only did 4
years so I am not retired. I do know I am entitled to a VA loan. I am
trying to buy a house. Basically though my credit score is so low no
one will touch me and I don't have a lot of money at all to put down
for a house. My monthly payments couldn't be over $900.00 my credit
score is bouncing between 450 I think and 515. I don't really have time
to go see anyone (track down VA loan Specialists) I can't use a
cosigner either. So I need to know what are my options are there any
programs that can help me. I am beginning to lose hope. I don't even
have the money to pay off my debts everything I make is gone the same
day can't save. I need help.
-D. Crump
18. We own our home but want to refinance it and take out a VA
loan. We fell into some hard times beginning in 2005. I developed
health problems that led to the loss of employment. Fortunately we had
taken out a mortgage insurance plan that prevented us from losing our
home when this happened so we didn't have to make payments. But that
meant we accumulated interest and no payments were being made on the
principal of our mortgage. The mortgage lender would not help us at
all. On top of this there were many foreclosures sold on the market in
our area that brought the value of our home down and we were upside
down on our mortgage. We tried to refinance at the current lower
interest rates because our current rate is 7.18. We could not refinance
but were unable to since our home appraised lower than what we owed due
to all the factors mentioned. We had no money to bring to the table to
cover the shortage.
During this period I was approved for disability due to my health
issues and I'm rated by the VA at 80% combined disability and
considered unemployable. Fortunately, I do have an income and we were
able to keep our home during this terrible time.
Last year we got in touch with a mortgage lender in the area who
works with VA loans thinking that the value of our home may have come
back up enough for us to have enough to do a refinance. The appraiser
who was sent out did not do us justice I believe (we had a real estate
agent do a market estimate that was much higher). Again, our home fell
short of what was needed.
Sadly two years ago I lost my father. He left a sizable estate for
his children for which I am thankful. Unfortunately it has been tied up
in litigation for over a year but will now be disbursed, hopefully,
before the end of the year. I just want to know what might be available
for us. Our mortgage is not eligible for HAARP since it was owned by
the bank that we took it out with which is TCF or Twin Cities Federal
Bank.
-N. Nygaard
19. I would like to speak with someone about arranging for a V.A.
home loan. We do have a number of questions. Our current situation is
that for the past 12 years, we have been renting a large loft in
Downtown L.A., which we use for both business and home. It's been a
perfect place for us, but the rent is starting to get so high, $3100
per month, that we really want to start looking for a home. We have
never found a suitable home, especially in Los Angeles that would
provide what we have now. We are willing to consider any area within
Southern California.
This would be a first time home purchase. My ex-wife, Bettie Miner,
and I have been living together now for the past 12 years. We were
divorced in 1992, but worked things out. We just never re-married.
We are self-employed and do quite well ($110,000+ annually), but as
self-employment allows significant write-offs, our tax returns look
like we're low-income. So, we've never really tried to buy a home
before. We would also like to take advantage of the ``no down payment''
option. If you call, you are welcomed to speak with Bettie about any
details or arrangements.
-R. Galling
Foreclosure Prevention Requests
20. I'm currently in a VA mental health facility for PTSD/MST and
addiction recovery. My home situation is somewhat complicated. I'm
divorced, was awarded the family home. I need advice on this. Best way
to contact me is via email due to rules restricting cellphones.
-D. Tumblin
Prepared Statement of Jose Rivera
Good Afternoon,
I would like to share my experiences as a beneficiary of the HUD
VASH program. The program has been life changing. The HUD VASH program
has empowered me to actualize my educational and professional plans.
The staff at the Veterans Affairs in Loma Linda, especially Miss.
Jennifer Sircar, played an important role by mentoring and supporting
my educational and professional goals. Miss. Sircar was a great liaison
and spokesperson by referring me to the US Vets for further assistance
in accessing resources. Furthermore, I was referred to the Warehouse
for Heroes, which furnished my apartment completely. The program has
been full of great opportunities, I am indebted to the Veterans Affairs
and Housing and Urban Development. The services provided by both HUD
and the VA have prepared me to transition into a new phase in my life.
I now am on my way to realizing a lifelong goal of attaining my
Bachelor's degree in Anthropology, this summer I will graduate from the
University of California Riverside. I have been able to utilize the
Post 9/11 GI Bill Benefits, which has contributed to the improvement of
quality of life for my daughter and me. The GI Bill has been the
platform which has allowed me to pursue my education. I have benefited
from the book stipend, from the tuition fee payment, and the monthly
living allotment. I have utilized the resources made available and they
have truly changed my life. I hope to be a civil servant for this great
nation.
Respectfully
Jose Rivera
Statements For The Record
MIKE MICHAUD
INTRODUCTION
Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and distinguished Members
of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide a
statement for today's hearing on veterans' homelessness. I commend you
all for your tireless efforts to ensure that America fulfills its
obligations to our current service members, veterans, and their
families. The Department of Labor (DOL, or The Department) also works
hard every day to ensure all veterans are prepared to meet their
employment objectives.
Secretary Perez and I know that one of the most important ways to
prevent and end veteran homelessness is through a good job. However,
employment is not the only factor in overcoming homelessness among
veterans. Long-term stability requires a coordinated level of care
between many federal partners, including the Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
state and local organizations, non-profits, and the private sector to
ensure veterans are successful in overcoming the myriad of barriers
created by homelessness. To that end, the Department is committed to
working on the Administration's aggressive goal of ending homelessness
among veterans, as guided by Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan
to Prevent and End Homelessness. In leading this effort, the U.S.
Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) has generated powerful
national partnerships at every level to work toward ending homelessness
across the nation. While the goal of ending veterans' homelessness in
2015 was not reached nationally, it was reached in many communities,
cities, and even States. The best practices from these successes will
guide efforts in the rest of the country and the momentum generated by
the President's focus will propel all of us towards the national goal.
Through these interagency efforts and many others, the
Administration has achieved historic progress. According to the HUD's
2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, homelessness among
veterans has declined by 36 percent from January 2010 to January 2015.
Yet, on a single night in January 2014, there were still 47,725
homeless veterans. That is why the Department looks forward to working
with the Subcommittee in providing these brave men and women who served
our nation with the employment support, assistance and opportunities
they deserve to succeed in the civilian workforce.
We also note that our partnerships throughout DOL extend Veterans
Employment and Training Service's (VETS') ability to achieve its
mission, and bring all of DOL resources to bear for America's veterans,
separating service members, and their families. VETS' mission is
focused on four key areas: (1) preparing veterans for meaningful
careers; (2) providing them with employment resources and expertise;
(3) protecting their employment rights; and, (4) promoting the
employment of veterans and related training opportunities to employers
across the country.
One important component of these services is the Homeless Veterans'
Reintegration Program (HVRP), which VETS administers to help homeless
veterans reenter the labor force. The agency provides grants to state
and local Workforce Development Boards, tribal governments and
organizations, public agencies, for-profit/commercial entities, and
non-profit organizations to administer the services necessary to assist
in reintegrating homeless veterans into meaningful employment and to
stimulate the development of effective service delivery systems that
will address the complex problems facing homeless veterans. The HVRP
program succeeds not only because of the hard work and local
connections of our grantees, but also because of the collaborative
efforts of our government partners at the Federal and State levels.
These efforts help ensure that homeless veterans receive a robust,
comprehensive network of support.
HVRP PROGRAM PERFORMANCE & ADDITIONAL SERVICES TO ASSIST HOMELESS
VETERANS
HVRP's client-centered, hands-on approach has helped place
thousands of previously-homeless veterans, some of whom were
chronically homeless, on a path to self-sufficiency. Historically, the
Department also has funded two additional types of grants designed to
address difficult-to-serve subpopulations of homeless veterans: the
Homeless Female Veterans and Veterans with Families Program (HFVVWF)
and the Incarcerated Veterans' Transition Program (IVTP). In addition,
the Department supports ``Stand Down'' events (described below) and
technical assistance grants.
HVRP grantees have helped many homeless veterans, including Marcus
Vernardo. Mr. Vernardo was a U.S. Army National Guard Veteran who
served as a Special Electronics Device Specialist. He left The National
Guard with an Honorable Discharge and began attending the United
Education Institute for the Computer Technician Certification Program.
However, his life circumstances changed and Mr. Vernardo found himself
homeless, looking for any type of employment to make ends meet.
On December 1, 2015, Mr. Vernardo attended a recruiting event at
the American Job Center (AJC) of Rancho Cucamonga, CA. There, he met
Mr. Carl Reed, a Disabled Veteran Outreach Program (DVOP) specialist,
and was assigned to the Veterans' Intensive Program (VIP). The DVOP
started an Employment Development Plan for Mr. Vernado and reviewed his
impressive resume, noting his extensive experience with Information
Technology and numerous Information Technology certifications.
Mr. Reed spoke with his colleague, Mr. Darren Cooke, a Workforce
Development Specialist for the County of San Bernardino, and asked him
if he knew of any opportunities for a communication specialist. Mr.
Cook forwarded Mr. Vernardo's resume. Later that day, Mr. Vernardo
received a call from Veterans Communication Company for an interview
for the following day. Mr. Vernardo was offered, and accepted, a
position at the Veterans Communication Company as a Communication
Specialist. He started on December 7, 2015, at $35.00 an hour.
With its $38 million HVRP appropriation for PY 2014, DOL awarded 37
new grants, 119 option-year grant extensions, and 86 Stand Down grants.
This included 18 Homeless Female Veterans and Veterans with families
(HFVVWF) grants. The Incarcerated Veterans' Transition Program (IVTP)
was not authorized in PY 2014 but was reauthorized for PY 2015.
DOL received level funding of $38 million for the PY 2015 cycle,
awarding 38 new HVRP grants and 122 option year HVRP grants, including
12 HFVVWF and 8 IVTP grants. These grantees are expected to provide
services to approximately 17,000 homeless veterans, with an estimated
placement rate of over 60 percent, at an estimated cost per participant
of $2,200. The Department also awarded two technical assistance
Cooperative Agreements to support grantees and disseminate best
practices.
HVRP grant recipients are measured against four performance
outcomes outlined in our policy guidance: (1) number of enrollments;
(2) number of participants placed in unsubsidized employment; (3)
placement rate; and (4) cost per placement. DOL staff members work
closely with grantees to help them achieve their goals for all four
performance outcomes. HVRP grant recipients also report on the average
earnings for individuals who retain employment.
Table 1. HVRP Participant Statistics, PYs 2013-2014
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance Outcomes PY 2013* PY 2014** PY 2015 Targets***
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Participants Enrolled 16,133 17,039 17,000
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Placed Into Employment 10,226 11,699 11,050
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Placement Rate 63.4% 68.6% 65%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average Cost Per Participant $1,903 $1,936 $2,200
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Average Hourly Wage at Placement $11.51 $11.84 $12.00
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* As reported in the FY 2014 VETS Annual Report to Congress.
** As reported in the Veterans' Employment and Training Service Operations and Program Activity Report (VOPAR)
System, HVRP Program Status Report, including HFVVWF but not ITVP data.
*** As reported in the FY 2016 President's Budget
The Homeless Female Veterans and Veterans with Families Program
VETS awarded 12 HFVVWF grants, totaling $2.1 million, in FY 2015.
HFVVWF grants have been competitive grants that specifically target the
subpopulation of homeless female veterans and veterans with children.
As noted in HUD's 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress,
homeless women veterans accounted for nine percent of the overall
homeless veteran population. The program provides direct services
through a case management approach that leverages federal, state, and
local resources. Eligible veterans and their families are connected
with appropriate employment and life skills support to ensure a
successful integration into the workforce.
The Incarcerated Veterans' Transition Program Grants
VETS awarded eight IVTP grants, totaling $1.8 million, in FY 2015;
these grants will continue through March 31, 2017. IVTP grants are
designed to support incarcerated veterans who are at risk of
homelessness by providing referral and career counseling services, job
training, placement assistance and other services. Eligible IVTP
participants include veterans who are incarcerated and are within 18
months of release, or were released less than six months from a
correctional institution or facility. For PY 2012, IVTP grantees
enrolled 1,408 participants and had a placement rate of 63.4 percent
with an average hourly wage of $10.69 at placement.
Stand Down and Technical Assistance Grants
Through HVRP, the Department also supports ``Stand Down'' events.
These events, typically held over one to three days in local
communities, provide an array of social services to homeless veterans.
Stand Down organizers partner with federal and state agencies, local
businesses and social services providers to offer critical services,
including temporary shelter, meals, clothing, hygiene care, medical
examinations, immunizations, state identification cards, veteran
benefit counseling, training program information, employment services,
and referral to other supportive services.
The HVRP grant also provides funding to the National Veterans
Technical Assistance Center (NVTAC). The NVTAC provides a broad range
of technical assistance on veterans' homelessness programs and grant
applications to existing and potential HVRP, HFVVWF, and Stand Down
grantees; interested employers; Veterans Service Organizations; and
federal, state, and local agency partners. Currently, VETS' two NVTAC
grantees are the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans and Advocates
for Human Potential.
Jobs for Veterans State Grants (JVSG)
DOL awards Jobs for Veterans State grants (JVSG) as a formula grant
to each state and territory to support two types of staff positions in
the AJC network: Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists
and Local Veterans' Employment Representatives (LVER). DVOP and LVER
staff support HVRP grantees by helping grantees achieve entered
employment goals through case management, direct employer contact, job
development, and follow-up services.
DVOP specialists provide intensive services targeted at meeting the
employment needs of disabled veterans and other veterans with
significant barriers to employment, including homeless veterans. In
addition, DVOP specialists often refer veterans who experience
homelessness to other AJC services, such as the Workforce Innovation
and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Adult and Dislocated Workers services and
training. AJCs provided JVSG-funded services to 17,734 homeless
veterans in PY 2013. LVER staff conduct outreach to employers and
engage in advocacy efforts with local businesses to increase employment
opportunities for veterans, and encourage the hiring of veterans,
including homeless veterans.
The transition from the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) to
the WIOA provides an extraordinary opportunity to improve job and
career options for our nation's jobseekers and workers, including
veterans, through an integrated, job driven public workforce system
that links diverse talent to businesses. While retaining the network of
DVOP specialists at AJCs, WIOA strengthens accountability and
transparency of outcomes for core programs, including establishing
common performance indicators across these programs. The Department is
considering the adoption of these new common performance indicators for
JVSG and other VETS-administered programs, and strengthening ties
between HVRP grantees and AJCs so that we will know with even greater
detail the outcomes of our investments in veterans' employment and
related programs.
H.R. 474 - ``HOMELESS VETERANS' REINTEGRATION PROGRAMS REAUTHORIZATION
ACT OF 2015"
The Department is pleased that the House passed H.R. 474, the
``Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Programs Reauthorization Act of
2015,'' which would reauthorize HVRP through 2020. Additionally, the
bill would expand the eligibility for services under HVRP to include
not only homeless veterans, but also veterans participating in VA-
supported housing programs for which certain rental assistance is
provided and veterans who are transitioning from being incarcerated.
The Department supports the extension to the HVRP authorization.
HVRP is one of the few nationwide federal programs focusing exclusively
on helping homeless veterans to reintegrate into the workforce. HVRP is
employment-focused; each participant receives customized services to
address his or her specific barriers to employment. Services may
include, but are not limited to, occupational, classroom, and on-the-
job training, as well as job search, placement assistance, and post-
placement follow-up services.
As mentioned, H.R. 474 would expand eligible participants under
HVRP. Veterans currently receiving housing assistance under the HUD-
Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program and Native American
veterans participating in the Native American Housing Assistance
program are not eligible for HVRP services. Under current legislative
authority, approximately 78,000 veterans who participate in the HUD-
VASH program annually are ineligible for HVRP program's services
because they are not, technically, homeless. VETS believes housing
programs such as HUD-VASH are critical to the rehabilitation and
success of homeless veterans because the availability of housing and
health services improves their job readiness and employability.
In addition, under H.R. 474, veterans who are transitioning from
incarceration would also be eligible for HVRP's services. For veterans,
having an arrest record is a major barrier to employment and can lead
to homelessness. VETS believes it is critical to begin delivering
employment support prior to their release in order to better prepare
them to secure civilian employment.
VETS supports the intent of expanding the eligible population for
HVRP. However, to accommodate the proposed changes within existing
funding, VETS would need to establish service priorities to reach those
with the greatest needs and avoid duplication.
CONCLUSION
We at the Department of Labor remain committed to the
Administration's goal of ending veteran homelessness, and we look
forward to working with the Subcommittee to ensure the continued
success of our efforts. Chairman Wenstrup, Ranking Member Takano, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, this concludes my statement.
Thank you again for the opportunity for VETS to provide input on the
work we are conducting to help end veterans' homelessness.
STEPHEN PECK
Additional recommendation: The need for service intensive
transitional housing in our continuums.
It is critical, as we reduce the number of veterans on our streets,
that we retain the variety of interventions available to help veterans
stabilize and reintegrate. There is no one answer or program that will
satisfy the array of deficits we see among homeless veterans. We need
to design a system that incorporates the most therapeutic, and most
economical interventions that will result in the greatest stability and
productivity.
Service intensive transitional housing, characterized by the VA
Grant and Per Diem Program (GPD), is one of these interventions, and
should be available in every community as one weapon in our fight to
reduce homelessness. This intervention complements other interventions
that focus primarily on housing. Transitional housing, as U.S.VETS has
designed it, includes eight different tracks according to the need of
the veteran, ranging from ``Bridge Housing'' to longer term sobriety
support, education and employment tracks. This fits comfortably in the
Housing First model, which emphasizes client choice; and strengthens
the availability of rehabilitation in the continuum.
Transitional Housing is the most effective, and efficient,
intervention for a variety of scenarios:
A shortage of subsidized housing capacity in the
community, i.e. too few housing/VASH vouchers
Insufficient SSVF resources
Client desire for treatment-based transitional housing,
i.e. substance abuse treatment, military sexual trauma treatment, job
training, etc.
Readiness for rapid rehousing
'We have gathered data which indicates that 40% of the clients in
our GPD program are choosing service intensive transitional housing,
most of them to access substance abuse treatment and employment
services.
The VA has indicated that the GPD program is likely to shrink by
20% over the coming years, eliminating underutilized and
underperforming programs. These resources should be reallocated to
communities that have no, or too few, transitional housing beds, and
have a demonstrated need for this resource.
[all]