[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 122 (Thursday, July 30, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6182-S6183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
VETERAN HOUSING STABILITY ACT OF 2015
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, yesterday, as ranking member of the
Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I introduced S. 1885, the
Veteran Housing Stability Act of 2015. I would like to thank Senators
Sanders, Brown, and Hirono for joining me to introduce this bill, and
the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans and the National Alliance
to End Homelessness for their support of this legislation. At a time
when the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA, has taken on an aggressive
initiative to end homelessness among veterans by the end of 2015, much
progress has been made yet there is still more progress needed.
The VA initiative has led to a 33 percent decrease in the homeless
veteran population since 2010. These declining numbers are a reflection
of the combined efforts of VA and its Federal, State, local, tribal,
and community partners as they continue aggressive efforts to decrease
veteran homelessness and implement a system through which veterans who
become homeless can be rapidly placed in appropriate housing situations
that meet their needs. The statistics are staggering--49,000 veterans
are homeless in America today, 1 in 10 of all homeless men and women--a
searing failure in the greatest, strongest Nation in the world's
history. It reflects a failure to keep faith that this legislation will
help correct. We cannot allow another veteran to slip through the
cracks. We must give communities the flexibility and tools they need to
create housing systems that can maximize existing resources
collaboratively in order to identify and sustain appropriate housing
placements for vulnerable veterans.
The legislation would reaffirm this Nation's commitment to safe and
affordable housing for veterans by improving and expanding upon VA's
programs to prevent and end homelessness among veterans. VA's housing
programs for homeless and at-risk veterans must modernize to ensure
that they are meeting the needs of the very veterans they are intended
to serve. One of the challenges many identify as causing difficulty is
one that mainstream housing programs also struggle with--insufficient
availability of safe, affordable, permanent housing options.
This measure will address the egregious, abhorrent problem of veteran
homelessness with several common-sense, effective steps to increase
housing for homeless and at-risk veterans. The Homeless Veterans
Prevention Act of 2015 would expand access to housing by requiring VA
to collaborate with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
and other entities to conduct more robust landlord outreach and
encourage more landlords to rent to veterans.
Further, this bill would modify a VA program that provides critical
savings to transitional housing providers, allowing these groups to
spend limited funding to provide high-quality services rather than to
retire the debt they would take on to acquire a facility in which to
operate. VBA's Acquired Property Sales for Homeless Providers Program
sells homes from VA's foreclosure inventory at a discount to nonprofit
organizations for use as transitional housing for homeless veterans. As
VA continues to shift its homeless programs into an approach that meets
veterans at their point of need, rather than choosing a one-size-fits-
all solution, more services are being provided under the housing-first
model, which pairs housing with appropriate levels of case management.
This pairing allows veterans to deal with the underlying issues that
caused homelessness, rather than attempting to work through them while
simultaneously looking for housing. It is critical that programs that
offer more than transitional housing be
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allowed to benefit from this discount as well.
As VA focuses on resolving homelessness, instead of just managing it,
housing stability is increasingly a focus across the continuum of
programs VA offers to eligible veterans. This bill will also modify
VA's Grant and Per Diem Program, its largest transitional housing
program, to allow VA to incentivize grantees to increase their focus on
permanent housing and housing stability in support of the transitional
housing program. More specifically, this bill provides VA with much
needed authority to allow transitional housing providers to utilize
their facility for permanent housing, and to receive a reduced per diem
payment to provide case management for participating veterans. This
would allow communities that are reaching critical junctures in the
fight to end homelessness to repurpose existing transitional housing
capacity for more pressing needs, such as permanent housing
opportunities for veterans.
As many initiatives across VA have faced performance challenges, it
is paramount that we continue to examine all VA initiatives and
identify metrics that can be tracked to keep the Department
accountable. This legislation includes a provision that would require
VA to set national performance targets for entities that receive per
diem funding for transitional housing and examine them to determine
whether the grantee's performance merits continued funding. Further,
this bill also contains a provision that would prompt VA to utilize the
data it collects to better target interventions offered by its
assertive community teams engaging homeless veterans on the street.
Requiring a more targeted effort focused on homeless veterans who are
health care ``super-utilizers'' will reduce unnecessary utilization of
health care and, subsequently the costs for care.
Research has indicated that housing can be an effective health care
intervention when paired with appropriate services and resources. At
its very simplest, homelessness among veterans is preventable when
there is coordination among the many services and resources available
to lift a veteran up. We cannot sit by idly and allow another veteran
to slip through the cracks. We must reach out and let them know when,
where, and how to get the help that they need and that they have
earned.
This is not a full recitation of all the provisions within this
legislation. However, I hope that I have provided an appropriate
overview of the major benefits this legislation would provide.
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