street roots
Aug. 3, 2012
The Veterans Community Resource and Referral Center in Portland
is one o f many established the country by the Department o f Veterans
Affairs to better connect VA services with housing for homeless
veterans
STR EET R O O T S P H O T O
work with his case manager, Townsend was
living in Vancouver, Wash., in an apartment
paid for with a VASH voucher. As of last
month, Townsend has been clean and sober
for a year and is one of more than the
33,000 veterans provided with permanent
housing because of the VASH program.
he Department of Housing and Urban
Development estimates that about
67,000 veterans were homeless during a
one-night count in 2011, and as many as one
in six adults staying in homeless shelters
are veterans. Those who have worn a
military uniform are nearly twice as likely as
civilians to become homeless.
According to the Portland Housing
Bureau, it’s estimated that more than 1,400
veterans experienced homelessness at some
point last year. On any given night, 220
people living unsheltered in the Portland
area self-identified as veterans and an
additional 240 are in shelters or transitional
housing. In all, veterans account for an
estimated 12.4 percent of Portland’s
homeless population.
The application of the VASH program
begins at HUD, which distributes the
vouchers to local public housing authorities,
who then issue them. But according to HUD
spokesman Leland Jones, the VA handles
the majority of the legwork.
“We provide the housing resource,” Jones
says. “The actual identification and referral
of a veteran for the program is essentially
done by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
They are essentially doing the intake and
referring (qualified veterans) to the housing
authorities, which have the vouchers.
T
Locally, H o m e F o rw ard , P o rtla n d ’s public
The homecoming
Despite renewed
support for
voucher system
to house
veterans, local
numbers fall
short
BY ROBERT BRITT
allocation of 10,000 additional vouchers.
The program has increased to about 50,000
hen Army veteran Mark Townsend
vouchers As a result, veteran homelessness
left the military service in the early
was reduced by 12 percent from 2010 to
’70s, a decades-long battle with
2011, according to the Department of
substance abuse and homelessness was Housing
just
and Urban Development and the
beginning.
VA.
Addiction marred Townsend’s transition
Within four months, Townsend was
to civilian life and reduced him to living
assigned a case manager to help him
what he calls a “life of drinking and using.”
through the steps needed to obtain housing.
That life led to legal troubles, mental health
But his transition: into housing was not
without difficulty, and some city officials and
issues and a lack of stable housing.
Townsend, now 54, says he repeatedly
social service workers say the same
problems Townsend faced are keeping the
tried to get help. “I’ve been in and out of
the VA several times, trying to get clean and VASH program from being fully utilized —
more than 25 percent of the vouchers now
sober, and couldn’t.”
Last August, he entered a residential
issued to Portland are unused.
Townsend’s history with drug abuse left
substance abuse treatment program and
him with a police record, including felonies,
was soon told of a federal program that
which he says caused two potential
could get him into subsidized housing while
providing counseling and treatment for his
landlords to deny his application. Also,
though the voucher covers the monthly
addiction.
rent, it doesn’t address the other expenses
The Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing
required to get into housing. For Townsend,
program (VASH) is a two-pronged approach
this meant he had to come up with a $600
to reduce homelessness among veterans. It
couples government-subsidized rental
deposit for his apartment.
According to Dr. Chris Anderson,
vouchers from local, public housing
program manager for the Portland VA’s
authorities with case-managed assistance
mental health clinics in Vancouver, the
and clinical care provided by VA medical
biggest barrier to getting homeless veterans
centers. When created, the program tasked
a VA system already strained from the rising into housing, even with the support of the
VASH program, is finding landlords willing
number of returning veterans from the wars
to rent to them.
in Iraq and Afghanistan — with the new
Additional barriers preventing more
responsibility of managing a supportive
veterans from getting into housing are found
housing program.
in the program’s design. Ultimately,
Although the VASH initiative began in
Townsend was able to overcome the
1992 with a small allotment of vouchers,
obstacles. Two months after starting to
significant funding started in 2008 with the
S T A F F W R IT E R
W
housing agency, has been given a total of
305 vouchers to date, and 200 veterans are
currently living in housing paid for by VASH
vouchers. Another 22 veterans have been
assigned vouchers and are currently looking
for apartments. The remaining 83 vouchers
are left unused.
Unlike other housing vouchers, VASH
removes nearly all of the restrictions that
would otherwise disqualify a person from
tradition supportive housing, says Jill
Riddle, rental assistance coordinator at
Home Forward.
“A normal voucher couldn’t be issued to
someone who had maybe recent drug or
violent criminal activity on their record, and
there are no screening requirements for us
to conduct except for registered sex
offenders,” Riddle says.
Additionally, VASH vouchers are funded
separately from other subsidized housing
programs, which allow homeless veterans to
bypass the waitlists at most public housing
authorities.
Anderson says that although the VASH
program is subsidized housing, it’s not really
a housing program. “It’s really a case-
management program,” he says. “It’s for
those individuals who, without the help of
case management and a social worker
helping them and walking them through the
steps, would not be able, most likely, to get
housing on their own.”
City Commissioner Nick Fish, who
oversees the Portland Housing Bureau, says
that the VASH program is effective because
it combines the need for housing with the
need for other care and services. With this
housing first model, the veterans can
become stabilized to receive employment
counseling, clinical care, and mental health
or substance abuse treatment.
Targeting the homeless veteran
population is warranted. Veterans generally
have higher rates of PTSD, traumatic brain
injury and sexual trauma, all of which
increase individuals’ risk of homelessness,
according to the U.S. Interagency Council
on Homelessness. About half of homeless
See HOMECOMING, page 7