Program to End Homelessness Among Veterans Reaches a Milestone in Arizona

[babylonsister]

Program to End Homelessness Among Veterans Reaches a Milestone in Arizona

By FERNANDA SANTOS
JAN. 15, 2014



PHOENIX — Their descent into homelessness began almost as soon as they had closed a dignified chapter in their lives: their military service.

Dexter Mackenstadt, 63, a sailor who spent the Vietnam War tracking submarines along the East Coast, slipped into alcoholism. Robert Stone, 56, who spent three years stationed at naval bases in California, fell to that, too, and to a failing heart. John Hankins, 52, who repaired intercontinental ballistic missiles at an Air Force base in Wyoming, spent years as a drifter, living in a methamphetamine lab in the Arizona desert.

Today they are neighbors and participants in a program that White House officials have said has led Phoenix to become the first community in the country to end homelessness among veterans with long or recurrent histories of living on the streets.

In 2011, by a city count, there were 222 chronically homeless veterans here, a vulnerable, hard-to-reach population of mostly middle-age men, virtually all battling some type of physical or mental ailment along with substance abuse. Federal and city officials acknowledged that was not an exact number, but it is widely regarded as the best measure of the veteran population.

Last month, the last 41 members of that group were placed in temporary housing. Shane Groen, a director at the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness, one of the city’s partners in the program, said the goal was to have them all in permanent housing by Feb. 14.

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These milestones are the first significant achievements by individual communities in the federal government’s plan to end homelessness among veterans by 2015, part of its ambitious and complex push to eliminate homelessness over all by 2020. Although officials have conceded that the plan is behind schedule, they point to the significant decline in the number of homeless veterans — to roughly 58,000, or 9 percent of the homeless population, last January from 76,000, or 12 percent of the nation’s homeless, in 2010 — as a hopeful sign, given that it happened in spite of difficult economic times. (The number of homeless people over all fell by 5 percent during the same period.)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us/program-to-end-homelessness-among-veterans-hits-milestone-in-arizona.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

[ProSense]

1. Kick. Also:

Salt Lake City joins Phoenix in ending veteran homelessness

By Sara Kugler

Salt Lake City, Utah, is the second city in the United States to end chronic homelessness amongst military veterans, Mayor Ralph Becker said on Sunday’s Melissa Harris-Perry. The first was Phoenix, Ariz., which declared an end to the issue on Dec. 18...Salt Lake City now has only eight veterans who remain homeless, but only because they have said those individuals say they do not want homes. Becker pledged the city would continue to work with them.

Calling it “inexcusable” and “unacceptable” for homelessness to be a persistent problem “in a society like ours,” the mayor praised the collaboration between all levels of government and the private sector in achieving the goal. “This is a decision that was made by the whole community, and we’ve been dedicated to it for many years,” Becker explained. “The resources, while never enough, have come forward from every part of the community.”

Becker also credited the Obama administration, saying their focus on homeless veterans has made it easier to access resources and support for the initiative. “The federal government is a critical partner in providing resources in many ways – some of it financial, some of it expertise, some of it sharing ideas that come from other areas,” he said.

The federal government unveiled a ten-year plan to prevent and end homelessnessm in 2010...More than 600,000 people experience homelessness on any given night. About 9% of them are veterans...Salt Lake City has focused first on homeless veterans, but is committed to working to reduce the greater homeless population in the city. The December 2013 United States Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey reported that the number homeless families in Salt Lake City decreased by 20% and homeless individuals by 10% last year.

- more -

http://www.msnbc.com/melissa-harris-perry/mayor-declares-end-vet-homelessness

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2. Great! This is worth spreading! nt