Thousands of low-income Veterans and their eligible family members will continue to have access to crucial homelessness services as a result of $426 million in grants to be awarded under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program.
This funding includes $62 million in new SSVF awards that support outreach, case management and other flexible assistance to rapidly re-house Veterans who become homeless or prevent Veterans from becoming homeless.
The grants will be awarded to 271 nonprofit organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Among the recipients are a number of Georgia organizations, including:
- Central Savannah River Area Economic Opportunity Authority, Inc. (CSRA EOA)
- United Way of Greater Atlanta, Inc.
- Volunteers of America Southeast, Inc.
- Traveler’s Aid
- Project Community Connections, Inc.
- Changing Homelessness, Inc.
- Northwest Florida Comprehensive Services For Children Inc
“Ending Veteran homelessness remains a high priority and the SSVF program has proven to be remarkably effective in helping low-income Veterans and their families overcome housing crises,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “By offering temporary assistance to eligible Veterans through these important grants, we will continue to help Veterans exit homelessness and remain in stable housing.”
In addition to conducting outreach and case management, grantees will assist eligible Veterans and their families with obtaining VA and other benefits, such as health care, fiduciary payee, financial planning, child care, legal, transportation, housing counseling and other services. Grantees are expected to leverage SSVF grants to enhance the housing stability of very low-income Veterans and their families. In doing so, grantees are required to establish relationships with local community resources.
In fiscal year 2018, SSVF grantees served 125,878 participants, including 82,664 Veterans and 25,942 children. As a result of these and other efforts, the number of homeless Veterans has been cut in half since the launch of the Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in 2010. Since 2010, hundreds of thousands of Veterans and their family members have been placed into permanent housing or avoided becoming homeless through VA’s homelessness programs and targeted housing vouchers provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
