Psychiatric News June 18, 2004
Volume 39 Number 12
© 2004 American Psychiatric Association
p. 12
VA Provides Largest, Integrated Network for Homeless Veterans
Frances Murphy, M.D., M.P.H., deputy undersecretary for health policy
coordination at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), testified before a
congressional committee in March 2000 that the VA is "the only federal
agency that provides substantial hands-on assistance directly to homeless
persons.... [Its] major homeless programs constitute the largest integrated
network of homeless assistance programs in the country." These are among
its programs:
- Health Care for Homeless Veterans, which provides outreach, physical and
psychiatric examinations, treatment, and case management to veterans with
psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. Veterans can receive residential
treatment in community-based treatment facilities.
- Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans Program, which provides psychiatric
and other medical care to veterans in residential settings at VA medical
centers. Staff also provide vocational counseling and postdischarge supportive
services.
- HUD-VA Supported Housing Program, a joint program between the Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the VA in which HUD provides vouchers
for use by "harder-to-serve" homeless veterans in the private
housing market, and the VA provides outreach, clinical care, and
case-management services.
- Grant and Per Diem Program, which offers funds to community-based
organizations for construction, acquisition, or renovation of facilities that
can provide supportive transitional housing and for operational costs.
- Stand Downs, which are run by local organizations and offer homeless
veterans one to three days in which they can obtain food, shelter, clothing,
benefits certification, and referral to other kinds of services.
- Veterans Industries, in which disadvantaged, at-risk, and homeless veterans
live in supervised group homes while working for pay in VA-supported positions
in the public and private sectors.
- Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education, and Networking Groups,
in which VA staff work with other federal, state, and local agencies and
nonprofit organizations to assess the needs of homeless veterans and develop
plans to meet them;
Taken as a whole, the VA's programs are designed to provide a continuum of
care for homeless veterans. That care includes outreach and clinical
assessment, rehabilitation in community-based contracted residential
treatment, and case management that supports independent living.
Through the Northeast Program Evaluation Center, the VA conducts the
country's most extensive and long-standing program of monitoring and
evaluating data concerning homeless individuals and the programs that serve
them, according to Murphy.
Related Article:
-
VA Excels in Reaching Homeless Mentally Ill Vets
- Kate Mulligan
Psychiatr News 2004 39: 12-44.
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