FOR RELEASE: December 5, 2001

Evans Gathers National Leaders To Meet Challenge of Housing for Homeless Veterans
Calls for New Partnerships and Renewed Efforts to End 
Chronic Homelessness Among Veterans in Ten Years

Washington, DC – Congressman Lane Evans (D-IL), the Democratic Leader of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, yesterday convened a meeting of many of the nation’s top experts in housing and services to homeless veterans.   

For the first time ever, housing providers, housing financing sources, historic preservationists, veterans service organizations, and representatives of the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA); Housing and Urban Development; and, Department of Labor met together to consider ways to convert unused and underused VA buildings, many historic, and property into housing with supportive services for homeless veterans. 

Evans encouraged the national leaders to “join me in creating new partnerships that can make real progress in meeting the goal to end homelessness among veterans in ten years.”  Evans urged the meeting participants to pool their expertise and creative energy and work with the Congress and the Administration to suggest creative ways to return these underused VA structures to the purposes for which they were originally built – serving our nation’s veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has many important programs and resources that can and are being used to end homelessness.  One of its most important resources is the hundreds of vacant or nearly vacant historic VA properties across the country that could be renovated to house homeless veterans. The VA has 1600 structures with historical significance.  This is nearly one-third of VA’s total properties.  More than 200 of these structures are vacant or partially vacant. 

Many of the VA’s historic properties were originally built to provide housing for veterans after they served our country.  The forerunners for today’s VA domiciliaries can be traced to the U.S. Naval Home built in Philadelphia in 1833 and the U.S. Soldiers home built in 1851.  After the Civil War the first four national veterans homes opened between 1866 and 1870.  Many of the VA’s buildings have fallen into disrepair.  “It’s time to get these buildings back in service.”

The VA has tools to help convert unused building and property into housing for homeless veterans.  These tools include long-term leases of up to 75 years and funding programs to be used to complete the renovations and deliver services to veterans once they are living in the housing.  Many of these VA programs are not well known and are complicated to use.  Evans asked the experts to recommend ways to streamline the process of using the programs, suggest creative funding streams, and develop the partnerships necessary to complete these projects.

Representatives from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, Fannie Mae, Local Initiatives Support Council (LISC), Corporation for Supportive Housing, Enterprise Foundation, Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation, Swords-to-Plowshares, U.S. Veterans Initiative, Volunteers of America, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and many national Veteran Service Organizations joined Evans. 

Evans encouraged meeting participants to continue to work together to meet the challenge of ending homelessness among veterans.  “Ending homelessness among veterans in the next ten years is doable.  To meet this challenge we need to pool our brainpower, our resources, and our advocacy strength.  We need to build new partnerships with those who can contribute their talents and resources to achieving the goal of ending chronic homelessness among veterans within a decade.  We need to put together deals and get this done.”

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