Blog post

House Passes the “End Veteran Homelessness Act"
Posted by Tim Embree on March 24 2010

With Monday’s vote in the House, we are one step closer to bringing all of our veterans in from the cold and off the streets. Endorsed by IAVA, H.R. 4810, the End Veteran Homelessness Act, passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously today.

H.R. 4810 supports the Departmen to Veterans Affairs bold five year plan to end veterans’ homelessness and will dramatically increase funding to expand these much needed VA programs. Provisions range from providing vouchers for temporary housing to assisting a formerly homeless vet to pay the deposit for an apartment. Programs like these are extremely important to help homeless veterans of all generations get back on their feet. H.R. 4810 will:

• Increase the VA’s annual spending on homeless service programs from $150 million to $200 million.
• Simplify the VA's payment process for service providers who furnish services to homeless veterans.
• Require each VA medical center to provide housing specialists to conduct landlord outreach. These housing specialists may include peer specialists, who were formerly homeless veterans, and they will be responsible for establishing and maintaining a list of available rental units.
• Direct the VA to reach out to homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children to inform them of the different housing programs they qualify for.

Click here to read IAVA's recent Issue Report Coming Home: The Housing Crisis and Homelessness Threaten New Veterans.

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