Homes for Our Heroes

Published November 11, 2008 @ 08:36PM PT

With an incoming Obama Administration, homeless advocates across the country are hopeful that real change is imminent for homeless veterans.

Nan Roman, a leading advocate on the national scene and president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, wrote a piece in the Houston Chronicle today that outlines a comprehensive plan to end homelessness for service men and women.

The strategies she offers are practical, proven to be effective, and enjoy strong bipartisan support. She's hopeful that we will put an end to veteran homelessness with Obama in the oval office. I hope she's right.

Here's what she had to say:

To avoid homelessness, everyone leaving active duty should be assessed as to their housing status, including their risk of homelessness.

All should receive basic information about available housing resources, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs should provide housing relocation assistance to any veteran who needs it.

For those veterans who are assessed to be at risk of homelessness, more extensive discharge planning should be provided.

This should include linking veterans to housing subsidy programs, procuring placements in supportive housing, and/or linking them to local VA offices and nonprofit organizations with the capacity to provide the services necessary to keep them housed.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans will be leaving the military over the next few years.

We must ensure that they do not become homeless.

The second part of the solution is to get those veterans who do become homeless back into housing without delay.

For about two-thirds of homeless veterans, this means short-term services to address the immediate crisis (including treatment, employment and modest housing assistance).

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Author

Shannon has worked in homeless shelters and service organizations in San Francisco, the Triangle region of North Carolina, and currently in the greater Boston area. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.