INTRO

Good Morning: I am Pamela Angell, the Executive Director of the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, a non-profit agency in Las Cruces that helps homeless people with outreach services, a daytime drop-in center, and several HUD housing programs.

I am here to address chronic homelessness among the veteran population of our citizens of the United States.

President Obama and the Department of Veterans Affairs have made ending homelessness among veterans a top priority with a five-year goal. If indeed the VA and Obama Administration wish to meet this goal they must shift their policies so they can address the needs of all homeless veterans, including those we characterize as chronically homeless – men and women who have had repeated episodes or lengthy periods of homelessness, some lasting a decade or more.

I will explain why I think the Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs current homeless programs and policies fall short in addressing the needs of a large segment of the homeless veteran population – those who are defined as chronically homeless. I will also attempt to explain how a slight shift in policy can help the VA come closer to its goal of ending veteran homelessness.

Nationwide, it is estimated that 1/3rd of our adult homeless population are veterans with as many of those defined as chronically homeless. While many of the VA’s current programs will help reduce homelessness among veterans, a large segment of the population will remain homeless if new programs are not established to meet their needs.

This week I went out to three homeless camps along Interstate 10 that have recently drawn the attention of the City Code’s Enforcement, the NM Department of Transportation and the NM State Police. Plans are in effect to clear a three-mile swath of trees and brush from along the highway right-of-way from the river to the City Solid Waste facility. The intention is to drive out nearly a dozen homeless people who have set up camps along this property and discourage their return by clearing the area of undergrowth and trees.

I visited the area with the Homeless Outreach Coordinator for the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs in El Paso, Jo-el Arrigucci, and my case manager, Sue Campbell. We let those living there know that they have a May 1st deadline to move out before the bulldozers and law enforcement come in. Many of them will leave with no resistance, only to find someplace else, likely equally as illegal, to set up camp if we cannot come up with an alternative for them.

Among those we spoke with is an honorably discharged veteran and his girlfriend of 15 years. When we offered him various services from the VA – including the HUD-VASH voucher program his reply was, “I don’t like living in a dadgum prison.” He also doesn’t like crawling out of his tent in the morning when it is 20-degrees, or chasing off teen-agers who are throwing stones at his camp and spraying silly string, as they did last week. This veteran and his partner have lived along this stretch of highway off and on for six years, sometimes moving to Colorado to camp out near Colorado Springs and to Florida to look for work.

Another fellow we spoke with was already intoxicated by 10 am and said he saw no hope and no alternative to where he is currently living. Alcohol ism is a big problem among homeless veterans. Nearly 60% of homeless veterans report problems with alcohol and 40% with other substance abuse. It is estimated that at least another 10% have mental health issues, and in many cases include combat-related Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. A large part are just plain fed up with a system that didn’t meet their needs, or left them hanging for years denying them benefits for which they are eligible, or offer services that try to fit a square peg into a round hole.

While the VA has a very good Transitional Housing Program and a new HUD-VASH (VA Supported Housing) voucher program to help get veterans off the streets, the VA has not yet bought into what is one of HUD’s most successful systems for ending chronic homelessness. The concept of Housing First. Housing First is housing without the hurdles, without the judgments, and without the restrictions that come with many other programs. The focus of Housing First is to help chronically homeless people get housed and stay housed. Many other programs, including the VA’s enforced sober transitional housing program make housing contingent upon sobriety or adherence to strict treatment guidelines. As a result, many chronically homeless veterans, whether they have substance abuse or mental health issues or not, are not going to come in from the extreme heat or cold for housing with strict rules.

Housing First uses adherence to a lease as the main rule that tenants have to follow, and provides assistance in helping them adhere to that lease. Treatment and service options are client driven and not mandated. Participation in programs is not a condition of having a home. Housing First works in many big and small cities throughout our nation and can work to help end veteran homelessness as well. Google Housing First and you will find numerous successful programs all across the country, including our own program here in Las Cruces. Google Harm Reduction and you also will find many modalities that support giving people the free will to come up with their own strategies to meet life on their own terms rather than a prescribed plan of requirements that will not fit all people. Many of these folks have followed rules and orders throughout their combat and military careers. We can give them an option to homelessness that does not require that they comply with numerous more restrictions. We all march to different drummers, and if we want to end homelessness among veterans, maybe we need to let them march to their own as well.