Does your PHA administer the VASH program, serve homeless veterans through other programs, or have relevant best practices to share?
The national HUD-VASH team is looking for descriptions of any effective strategies that you are using, especially if they are new:
The descriptions should be no longer than a few paragraphs or a single-page document. If possible, please include data that supports the awesomeness of the practice you recommend (e.g., This improvement helped us to reduce the average housing search time to 30 days!). We are particularly interested in strategies related to the following:
- Outreach and targeting—quickly and effectively engaging for HUD-VASH the veterans in your communities with the highest needs and barriers to permanent housing
- Retention—ensuring that HUD-VASH participants receive the support they need to remain stably housed and/or to successfully graduate from the program
- Streamlining—practices that expedite the outreach and leasing processes to place veterans in permanent housing more quickly
In your submission email to vash@hud.gov, please include a phone number at which we can reach you. We’d like to receive all submissions by Friday, October 4, 2013. After reviewing the descriptions, we may follow up with you via phone or email to get more details about the best practice and your community’s program.
Read more on the OneCPD web page. (And by the way, did you ever expect to see HUD use the word "awesomeness"?)
In related news, if the prospect of yet another battle over appropriations has you wondering if it’s time to start looking for another line of work, a blog post published on “The HUDdle” earlier this week might lift your spirits. The centerpiece of the post, entitled “The Why of What We Do,” is the following letter written by an Iraq war veteran. We think it’s worth reprinting in full:
I have been a beneficiary of the Spokane Housing Authority’s housing choice voucher program for almost six years now. I am an Iraq war veteran and a single father of three children. When I was first accepted into the Section 8 program, I had just gained custody of my three young boys and our financial situation was pretty bleak. Over the last six years we have struggled as I put myself through school while also providing basic needs for myself and my children. It has not always been easy, but I am happy to report that I graduated this last summer from Eastern Washington University with two bachelor of science degrees. Shortly thereafter I accepted a position with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Because of this I will be withdrawing from the housing choice voucher program.
The reason I am writing this letter is to thank you and all the staff at the Spokane Housing Authority. Without your support and the support of other social programs, I would never have been able to further my education and move up into the middle class. It is programs like yours that help struggling families survive and give them the opportunity for upward social mobility. Unfortunately, this is becoming more difficult in our society today.
I thank you again from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my entire family for the work that you do and all the assistance you gave to my family over the last several years. I am not sure where my family would be now without all of you. Our future looks bright for the first time in a long while and I wanted you to know that it is because of these social programs and the work that you do. I hope this letter conveys in some small way the gratitude that my family and I have for you and your organization.
