Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced Tuesday $100 million in grants to assist 42,000 homeless veterans and their families in 151 community agencies in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
This is the program’s second year. Starting in 2011, VA provided $60 million to help 22,000 veterans and families in response to the 61,011 homeless veterans counted in 2010. In partnership with the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, VA is awarding grants to consumer cooperatives and private nonprofit organizations that provide case management, assistance in obtaining VA benefits and other public benefits to low-income veteran families.
These grants are intended to meet President Obama and Shinseki’s goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2012. VA provides a variety of services such as health care, housing, job training and education.
“We are committed to ending veteran homelessness in America,” said Shinseki. “These grants will help VA and community organizations reach out and prevent at-risk veterans from losing their homes.”
The VA is being sued by the ACLU Foundation of Southern California which claims the agency has not done enough to provide permanent supportive housing and services for thousands of mentally impaired veterans.