Can Obama End Veteran Homelessness?

If you think homelessness among veterans is unacceptable, you're not alone. Obama has pledged to establish a national "zero tolerance policy" for homelessness among veterans. In his proposed budget, he took a bold step towards that goal by proposing a 10 percent increase for Veterans Affairs. But will increasing government spending to match our "support our troops" rhetoric ultimately end veteran homelessness?

It's no mystery that veterans are disproportionately represented among the homeless population. During good economic times, one in four people without a roof wore the uniform (thanks to the recession, that number is probably a bit lower today). While many of these homeless vets served in Vietnam, a growing number of vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are winding up in shelters and on the streets.

Why, you ask? The answer, of course, is where our government chooses to direct funding (or not direct funding, as is the case here). During the Bush years, Veterans Affairs (VA) was wholly undersupported by the Bush administration. Suffering through astronomical budget shortfalls and lowball estimates that failed to take into account the costs of treating vets returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

While many have argued for other preventative steps to help re-acclimate vets into society following war, the services that are in place now have been abysmal. I've been covering the backlog of VA claims under Bush since the start of this blog. While waiting for the VA to render a decision on a disability claim, too many vets are unable to work or hold down housing... and end up on the streets. Others face a much more tragic fate. Here's an excerpt from an older post on this topic that'll really get you steaming:

Veterans Affairs operates at a snail's pace. It takes between six months and two years for a returning war vet to learn if they qualify for disability benefits. If they wish to appeal the decision, they must wait an average of four-and-a-half years for a decision, according to a recent Miller-McCune article. The backlog of unanswered VA disability claims has grown from 325,000 to more than 600,000 since the start of the Iraq war. And In the six months ending March 31, 2008, a total of 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved [outraged emphasis is mine].

Luckily, Obama is starting to make good on his pledge to end homelessness among veterans for good. (See here? He even puts it in print on the White House website.) According to the Public Record, Obama's administration has started to repair the damage:

In his fiscal year 2010 budget unveiled Thursday, Obama proposed a 15 percent increase to VA's budget, from $97.7 billion this fiscal year to $112.8 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2009 on top of the $1.4 billion already set aside for VA projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

His proposal for the agency would fund a radical overhaul of VA's technological infrastructure and aims to eliminate an average six-month wait to have disability claims processed. As of September 2008, 330,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed disability claims to the VA, according to the agency. Yet, 54,000 are still waiting for the VA to confirm their claims were received. The average wait for a disability claim is more than six months.

I should also point out this part of the article:

Secretary of the VA and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also announced they would convene a meeting to try and determine if the epidemic of military suicides is the result of deficiencies in the VA's screening process or problems in the diagnosis or treatment of active duty service members who suffer from psychological problems.

[Thank goodness someone is finally paying attention to veteran suicides. But I digress.]

Obama's proposed budget also expands medical coverage for veterans, including the all-important mental health screenings (with an emphasis on reaching out to vets in rural areas). And last but certainly not least, the proposed budget funds housing and job training to veterans who are homeless and at risk of becoming homeless.

Finally, an administration willing to put their money where their mouth is.

But would this injection of funding have its desired effect? If you ask me, it's a big step in the right direction. This proposed budget prioritizes several things that will make a significant impact in improving services for vets that will likely reduce homelessness. Here are the priorities it gets right:

• Reducing the wait time for VA disability claims
• Expanding healthcare for vets
• Expanding mental health screening for vets
• Providing housing for vets who are already homeless
• Safeguarding vulnerable veterans from becoming homeless

Sure, nobody can predict the future. But I join the many veterans advocacy groups who are lauding this proposed budget.

That said, I'm curious to know what veterans think about Obama's funding priorities. Are his funding priorities appropriate? More importantly, do you think these changes will put us on a path towards ending veteran homelessness for good?

[Read the budget in its entirety here.]