Collaboration

With the recent VA scandals, several groups have called for the dismantling of the medical system. The media has called it but dysfunctional. A lot of people might attribute this to a lack of funding. For of my PAF 400 course I researched the barriers to properly implementing veterans homeless programs. I found that the federal level of government spends a significant amount of money on grants and housing vouchers to aid in the housing of homeless veterans. The federal government partners with non-profits to provide programs like Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) and U.S. Department of Housing and Development- Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH). The goal of SSVF is to promote housing stability for veterans and their families by providing housing assistance and services if they are homeless or are at risk of becoming homeless, while the VASH program provides vouchers that allow a veteran to pay 30% of their income towards rent with the VA and HUD covering the rest.

What it comes down to is not a lack of funding but the need for further collaboration between the VA and community partners. The programs that were most successful were the ones that featured VA responsiveness to the needs of the community partners operating the SSVF and VASH programs through grant money.