In 2014, the Obama Administration signed the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) to transform the public workforce system, and the process of implementation of the Act has begun. States are currently in the process of creating and revising their required WIOA State Plans and the Alliance has recommends that providers, local governments and other interested stakeholders take this opportunity to ensure that State Plans include strategic language for serving high-need or high-barrier individuals, specifically those who are at risk for or currently experiencing homelessness.
Category: Veterans
SSVF Grant Funding Brings New Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently announced that it will make $300 million in competitive grant funding available for nonprofits renewing their SSVF grants to work with homeless and at-risk Veterans and their families. Several pieces of the announcement highlight opportunities for providers to improve the services they offer to program participants, and ways to enhance their program's effectiveness and reach.
Here’s How You End Veteran Homelessness: Employment, Housing, and Health Care
In 2009, Congress authorized a three-year demonstration program to explore ways to increase the housing stability of homeless and at-risk veterans and their families.
Now, here we are at the tail end of 2015, and a lot has changed in the years since. The nation has reduced veteran homelessness by 35 percent using many of the same methods first employed in that program, known as the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD). It was one of the first steps in the Obama administration’s initiative to end veteran homelessness by 2016.
As Rental Costs Rise, Incomes Fall, and Low-Income Renters Are Left Behind
Here at the Alliance, we believe the solution to homelessness is housing. Connecting homeless people to housing ends their homelessness, but finding the resources to help people access housing isn’t always easy. And unfortunately, economic trends are making this task even harder.
In many places across America, there is simply not enough affordable housing available to move people out of homelessness and into permanent housing. Without this housing stock, many homeless Americans are likely to remain stuck in the homeless assistance system. Sadly, it doesn’t look like this problem is about to get better any time soon.
15 Percent of Homeless Vets in VA Programs Could Lose Services
On a given night in 2015, nearly 50,000 veterans experienced homelessness across the country, a staggering number, yet a number that represents a 36 percent decline since 2010. We’re making progress. But now administrative changes brewing at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) could threaten that progress.
The changes have to do with several VA transitional housing and rapid rehousing programs that have been largely responsible for the progress we have made in recent years. In short, these changes would make certain veterans ineligible for these programs. Senior leaders at VA estimate such changes would affect approximately 15 percent of the current population served by these programs.