Social Policy: Ending Veteran Homelessness

Ending Veteran Homelessness

Social Problem

In 2009, President Obama and Secretary Shinseki committed to ending homelessness among Veterans with the Policy H.R. 806 (Bill, 2011). In support of that effort, the Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in 2010 developed by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) established as one of its goals to prevent and end homelessness among Veterans in five years. (Balshem H, Christensen V, Tuepker A, et al, 2011)

Recent studies document the fact that large numbers on veterans are among the homeless and that veterans are homeless because they are poor, gained few job skills in the service, or have not been helped by the Veterans Administration. (Robertson, 1987), not

To expand successful efforts to prevent and end homelessness in communities across the country, the Alliance is devoted to working with the Administration, Congress, and our local, state, and national partners to improve federal policies that will prevent and end homelessness. In order to do this the policy states that the government will cover the cost of renewing and expanding investments in permanent supportive housing.

Benefit The benefit here besides getting homeless veterans on the road to recovery via housing, the benefit stemmed from this policy provides monetary assistance to states and counties where homelessness is prominent. They will support this policy by creating 25,500 new units of permanent supportive housing (PSH) to allow communities to end chronic homelessness by the end of 2017. And also provide the VA with 1.7 billion dollars to go towards housing vouchers, grants, and other housing

also we need to consider who is homeless. Considering the Political context, we view how the government has allocated funds for these veterans to end homelessness in 2015. First, we look at the Veteran considered for VA purpose, any person that has served in active duty. With an honorable or under honorable conditions, also Veterans with other than honorable conditions that have upgraded discharges to honorable for VA purposes. Then we look at the homeless piece is the Veteran chronically homelessness or not. Chronic homelessness is where regulations get a little murky because there are several ideas about who is chronically homeless, the VA uses HUDS definition a chronically homeless individual is someone who has experienced homelessness for a year or longer, or who has experienced at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years, and has a disability. A family with an adult member who meets this description would also be considered chronically