Veterans Affairs has awarded homeless prevention grants, totaling more than $2 million, to all 33 counties in New Mexico.
As a part of the Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF), these grants will aid veterans living on the streets and those at risk of homelessness.
“Any time that we get awarded grants here in New Mexico it’s an awesome thing,” said Eliberto Calderon, president of the Student Veterans Association at UNM. “It helps out veterans, particularly when it comes to housing, because housing is one of the major obstacles to veterans rebuilding their life.”
Calderon said UNM SVA represents 1,200 veterans on Main Campus alone.
“When veterans come to me we have a lot of issues, from transitioning to just feeling that we don’t have support on campus,” he said. “(Issues like housing and daycare) get taken care of by grants like this one. That makes the job of helping other veterans out that much easier. It’s a good thing to be a part of that solution, having that extra resource.”
Private, nonprofit, consumer cooperative and tribally designated housing entities are eligible to apply for the grant money and partner with SSVF. Goodwill, New Mexico Veterans Integration Centers and Mesilla Valley Community of Hope are just three of the 275 community agencies around the country to receive the grant.
Bill Armstrong, public affairs specialist at the New Mexico VA Health Care System, said the awards came about because of a Notice of Funding Availability, published in the Federal Register, at the beginning of this year.
The program has yielded high results, he said. In Fiscal Year 2015 alone, VA’s SSVF Program helped more than 157,000 people. Approximately 99,000 veterans and 34,000 children receive services from a grantee to remain stably housed or quickly exit homelessness, Armstrong said.
Services can be catered to specific needs of veteran families, including resources pertaining to childhood development, he said.
“Grantees will provide eligible veteran families with outreach, case management and assistance obtaining VA and other benefits, which may include health care, fiduciary, payee, financial planning, child care, legal, transportation, housing counseling and other services,” Armstrong said.
According to Armstrong, partnerships and team efforts with Congress, governors, mayors, private sector and philanthropic partners and countless others, are all to thank for the substantial progress that has been made in diminishing Veteran homelessness nationwide.
“Many communities of varying sizes ended veteran homelessness — based on criteria established by VA, HUD and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness — demonstrating that the goal can be achieved with strong local leadership, close collaboration with the federal government, and strategies that work,” Armstrong said.
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Armstrong said that in addition to helping homeless vets, SSVF can also prevent families and individuals from ending up on the streets.
“The SSVF Program is important because it prevents Veterans and their families from becoming homeless and rapidly rehouses those who are homeless,” he said, adding nationwide numbers have moved in a positive direction.
In 2015, 73 percent of homeless veterans and their families who enrolled in the program were rapidly rehoused, Armstrong said, while 85 percent of veterans and their families who enrolled while facing imminent homelessness were able to remain stably housed.
Gerald Ortiz y Pino — a social worker by trade who has been a Democratic member of the New Mexico Senate since 2005 — has worked with the homeless for a long time. According to Ortiz y Pino, the majority of homeless people in New Mexico are in the more heavily populated cities, like Albuquerque and Las Cruces.
Ortiz y Pino said that the high amounts of stress, physical danger and injuries common on the front lines can sometimes lead to dangerous habits in returning vets.
“They sometimes have difficulty readjusting to civilian life and so their marriages break up, their families have difficulty with it,” he said. “They’re suffering from post traumatic stress.”
These problems, according to Ortiz y Pino, have the potential to spread outside family relationships and may affect job security.
“It’s difficult for employers to either hire them in the first place or keep them on the job after they’ve begun working and exhibit some problems,” he said. “It’s just that they’ve been through experiences that leave them much more likely to lose their family connections or their homes or their employment, or their mental health.”
According to a study released in July by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the number of veterans without homes has dropped by 36 percent since 2010, and in 2015, services were provided to over 365,000 veterans in need.
“Not all veterans required an intensive homeless program intervention,” the report states. “But for those that did, nearly 107,500 veterans and their families were either placed in permanent housing or prevented from becoming homeless.”
The VA also teams with nonprofits as a part of the Homeless Shelter Program and, as stated by the study, program participation increased from 2014 to 2015, the number of housing properties within the program rose by 22 percent.
In fact, there has been a nationwide decrease in veteran homelessness. 21 U.S. cities, along with The Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of Connecticut, have officially taken upon themselves to help bring an end to veteran homelessness.
According to Ortiz y Pino, there are more homeless people in Albuquerque because the population is so dense.
“It’s possible to be anonymous in downtown Albuquerque,” he said. “(You can) disappear and be by yourself, even though you’re surrounded by thousands of others.”
Ortiz y Pino said that despite the services offered by the VA, there are deeper issues that prevent some from getting help.
“The VA does provide pretty extensive resources, but the veteran has to reach out and know how to access them. Sometimes, they are hesitant to do so,” he said. “Sometimes the mental health problem itself causes them to avoid finding help. So that’s one of the dilemmas that people who work with the homeless face. The ones that need help aren’t the ones coming in.”
