subcommittee on health and subcommittee on economic opportunity on veteran homelessness. i want to apologize for being late. i had another obligation in my responsibility on the budget committee. my colleague, chair of the health subcommittee won't be able to make it so i'm going to preside. we have subcommittee brownlee and her capable leadership and my friend from texas and ranking member on the subcommittee for economic opportunity is joining me as well. we have our chairman joining us so thank you, dr. rowe, for coming. i want to begin by asking for unanimous consent for congressman mike kaufman, congressman scott peters and -- i guess that's it, to sit in on the dais and participate in today's hearing. i don't hear any objection. so ordered. i'm going to cut through my remarks here and break from my customary reading of script and just say that this is a subject that is heartbreaking. and when you look at the statistics on veterans homelessness and the underlying issues that our veterans struggle with many and maybe mostly on account of the board that they bore for us and for our country and for our freedom it's just get wrenching. and we -- there's not an issue, i don't believe, that's more important than to find ways to help and serve this segment of the veteran population. as i read and stud dead up and prepared on background, i noticed that there's been an exponential increase in funding in this area and there's some 20 plus programs across the various agencies with respect to the v. v.a., most of this is at the vha, but that's a lot of programs and that is a tremendous increase in funding. here's my deal. is it working? what's working? what's not working? how do we measure the success of these programs because it is only because of the generosity of the taxpayer that we have this opportunity. and so i have a number of questions. i think it's encouraging to see a significant decline in homesness ov-- homelessness ove the course of the last several years on account of, i think, the commitment from the secretary and administration in the past and as somebody once told me, if you throw enough money at something, you're going to see the needle move. but are we spending it wisely, effectively and then how do we focus these resources where they can have the greatest return. a to help the veteran, b to assure our taxpayers to make sure their money is going -- is being productively spent. with that i think we just -- let's get this hearing started and again i apologize because i was not going to open this up but let's go ahead and introduce our panelist. i'm going defer to you. i'm going to refer to you, ranking member brownlee, and ask you provide any opening comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i would just like to say that i concur with everything that you've said in your remarks and i would add that in 2009 former secretary shinseki pledged a commitment to ending homelessness among veterans, in 2014, former secretary mcdonald also committed to this pledge to end homelessness among veterans. between 2009 and 2016 veteran homelessness was reduced by 47% and 2017 secretary shulkin shared his top five priorities for the v.a. and as many may be aware, ending veterans homelessness was not included in that list of priorities. i fear, based on the actions of this administration thus far, that in the coming years we will continue to lose ground in our fight against veteran homelessness. in 2017 hud's annual survey found that veteran homelessness increased by 1.5%. however, when you drill down into these numbers and look at specific communities the picture is much more alarming. los angeles county which i represent a part of saw a 57% increase in the number of homeless veterans just in the past year. i'd like that enter into the record a letter from the l.a. county board of supervisors, the mayor, united way, and the los angeles homeless service authority that outlines the challenges ahead to end veteran homelessness. >> thank you very much. >> these local partners are committed to working together two the v.a. and other federal agencies to ensure all veterans have access to safe and affordable housing. there is no doubt combatting veteran homesness must be an interagency effort. in 2014 when we last held a hearing on this issue and is why i wanted to hold this hearing because it's been several years since we've gotten an update john downing ceo of soldier on said based on his experience that 100% of female veterans have experienced sexual trauma. without hud, the v.a. would not have the housing assistance expertise necessary to ensure they receive permanent housing as part of their treatment and finally without the department of labor, that veteran would be hard pressed to overcome the barriers faced by many if not all transitioning veterans seeking employment in the civilian market. this is the same for many veterans, whether they are survivors of sexual assault struggling with addiction or managing mental health conditions, these veterans are complex, their issues are complex, the solution is complex, but we working together we can build on the gains we made over the last seven years which saw three states and 57 communities eliminate veteran homelessness all together. the progress made during those seven years was, quite frankly, incredible and it was in large part due to the hard work of the case managers, social workers, health care personnel, counselors, volunteers and veterans themselves. i commend the hard work of our boots on the ground organizations and the commitment of agency officials during this time, some of whom are testifying today. and i question why this administration would backtrack on that solution and risk the lives of homeless veterans nationwide. i hope the president's budget this year reflects a newfound commitment to ending veteran homelessness through an allocation of funding that supports both the housing and wrap around services necessary to heal and house these veterans. mr. chairman, i thank you and i thank you for your commitment to this issue and i look forward to our discussion ahead. >> thank you, ranking member brownlee. i now yield five minutes for opening remarks for ranking member o'rorke from the great state of texas. >> that's right. mr. chairman, ranking member brownlee, i want to thank you and the staffs that work on the economic opportunity subcommittee for the work that's gone in to preparing for this hearing, this is why i love serving on this committee, the fact that members not even in jurisdiction have asked to sit here and be helpful as we try to address the issue of veterans homelessness, it isn't provocative, it isn't sensati sensational, it's not one of the things people are on late night tv screaming at each other about but it couldn't be more important. the fact that we're able to work across party lines, much the way we've addressed access to mental health and meeting the crisis of veterans suicide head head on, making progress in that important underserved area, we'll do the same here. the only thing that i could add to your comments you say that it because of the generosity of the tax pay that we have the opportunity to do this work, but it's also the service of the veterans that we are honoring to make sure none of them are homeless, that we get that down to zero in every one of our communities, whether that's functional zero or real zero. we need to make sure it's both the resources and to your point the accountability to make sure these part of the programs are working. and i'm pleased we have an important panel before us. they're going to inform the policy we make here and improve our level of oversight and the accountability have the v.a. and federal government and i want to thank mr. john martin from the opportunities center in el paso as someone who makes this flight every week. i know how hard it is to get from el paso to washington, d.c. and i know you almost didn't make it due to problems with those connections and so the fact that you'd take time out of what you're doing, important work in serving veterans to be here, know we're grateful and i extend that gratitude to everyone on this panel. >> now we'll get to our first panel. i'd like to well come you. thank you for making time for this very important issue and we're honored to have you here. let's start with john f. clancey, the president and chief executive officer of the tri-state veterans community alliance which is located in cincinnati, ohio. mr. clancey, thanks for being here today and representing the ohioans you serve, angela f. williams next. she's president and chief executive officer of easter seals incorporated. steven peck, the president and chief executive officer of u.s. vets, john. with. john martin and catherine monet, the for chief executive officer of the national coalition for homeless veterans. mr. clancey, let's start with you. we now recognize you for five minutes. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen, my name is john clancey, i'm an air force veteran, i serve as president and ceo of the tri-state veteran community alliance, or tvca. thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing regarding support for our veterans in need. as an independent veteran-led nonprofit organization focused on improving the access to and the quality of services offered to veterans and their families, we appreciate the opportunity to share our perspective and provide recommendations to address the needs of veterans in distress. the tvca was created four years ago to serve as a backbone organization responsible for aligning veteran support in our region. we partner with over 150 local organizations and operate a veteran in processing center that is meaningfully service and met the needs of more than 150 veterans since opening 28 months ago. in addition, we have piloted programs that fill gaps in our community not currently filled by our partner organizations such as an accelerated career training and placement program for mid-level noncommissioned officers and an educational story telling event for veterans to share their journey with local citizens. to ensure success within our work group and pilots programs we leverage our united way 201 call center and facilitate data sharing efforts inside and outside our region. we are proactive, seeking to engage veterans and their families before a crisis happens. we seek collaboration wherever possible. we work across sectors, we have many businesses involved in our efforts but also include social services, veteran organizations and major educational institutions and finally we look for systemic solutions in addition to program improvement. that said, it's important for the community to assess how the resources provided by the v.a., hud, and dol impact the lives of all veterans but more urgently our distress and/or homeless veteran population. the tbca recommends resources be considered for downstream programming related to behavioral health, wellness and social support, addressing what are often the root causes of homelessness and upstream support for collaborative transitional systems like the tvca that can intercept veterans and resolve issues before they become a crisis. over the last decade, the efforts of all three federal agencies have been commendable. they designed housing first to address the problem, especially for those veterans who experienced chronic homelessness. this strategy involved a co-sponsored initiative with hud to invest resources and stable permanent housing for chronically homeless veterans and case management services to prevent them from experiencing further homeless episodes. other programs including the dol's homeless veteran reintegration program served to facilitate the successful transition of veterans from homelessness. with the current strategy at its ten-year mark, the v.a. and hud housing first programs have successfully reduced veteran hud homelessness by 50%. we believe that client needs are beginning to show signs from moving from homeless individuals to those transitioning and at risk. to serve the customer base, not only focus on homeless veterans and successful life transition for at risk veterans. to accomplish this a broader set of outcomes need to be developed, housing attain meant and boosting veteran, self efficacy, development of clear personal goals and to succeed in the world. veterans in distress several strategies correspond to the level we engage. for the individual level, we need to ensure the right clinical levels of care are available. we need to ensure existing organizations are communicating and strike that jazzing across sectors, medical center and other veteran wellness and support groups. finally we need to ensure that the transition system from military to civilian life is resourced. this included a greater level of information sharing, new and improved programming focussing on proactive strength building approaches. we believe that up stream like the tvc and cincinnati and combines arms in houston are a key part of the solution. this approach allows the community to mainstream best practices, decrease competition and scaling of the efforts to support transitioning efforts. bringing together diverse sets of resources and identifies new opportunities. we applaud your review assessing the correct mix of needs and opportunities. in closing, we would like to stress the importance of a relevant, trusted community organization that can sustain the conversation for transition support, employment and wellness. thank you. >> thank you mr. clancey we yield five minutes to ms. williams. >> members of the subcommittee, good morning i'm angela williams president and ceo of easter sales. >> committed to helping veterans and others to reach their full potential. i'm a proud veteran. thank you for inviting me to testify this morning on this hearing to assess the various programs designed to reduced veteran homelessness. we have been serving veterans for more than seven decades. our experience in responding to the needs of homeless and at risk veterans through employment and other supports needed for their successful community reintegration. 2010 our krountry homelessness population grew to over 74,000 now dropped 46% due to strong collaboration threwer through federal, state and local partners and programs across federal agencies. in my written testimony, i share this story of paula, a veteran who moved to new york city to find work and turn her life around. her job search was complicated by employer barriers that proved difficult to over come. defeated and homeless she turned to a women's shelter where she was referred to easter sales for employment and assistance we leveraged our community partners to help her with housing, resume development, interview preparation and wardrobe and subway cards. she is living independently, working full time and contributing to her community, thanks to the national veteran homeless strategy developed by congress and implemented by federal agencies. her story highlights the e if he can tiff collaboration and alignment for the department of affairs supportive services veterans program ps, the department of housing and urban development and v.a. supportive housing program and the department of labors homeless veterans reintegration programs, it takes the strength resources and collaboration of many to help veterans succeed. to help homeless veterans find jobs. our expertise serving most in need job seekers made us a partner with the department of labor on the program which is employment focussed and a perfect compliment to the housing focus of hud and v.a. supportive services for veterans family program. the reintegration program taps into the existing community network by providing grants to local organizations. operating 11 grants nationwide. we provided hprp employment services to nearly 1,200 veterans last year and are proud to shoir that 61% found jobs during that year. with wagings averaging from $10 to $21 per hour. once unemployed and homeless, these veterans are working, paying taxes and contributing to their communities. their success represent as strong return for the federal investment which averages $2,100 per veteran. we're honored to be part of the solution in reducing veteran homelessness. our work is not finished. i include recommendations in my written testimony to build on the strong foundation congress set for addressing federal homelessness. congress should support full funding and long-term extension for the homeless veteran reintegration program, we support the bipartisan efforts. additional funding is necessary to meet the growing needs of the chronically homeless and hardest to serve veterans who will require more support and time to find employment and housing success. two, congress should expand early access to community based support services. the first step is to approve chairman and the bill hr 4451 that expands veteran eligibility to services. congress should consider ways to expand federally funded community case management to proactively meet the challenges of veterans well before they meet the homeless and unemployed eligibility criteria of programs like hvrp, thank you for your time today and pleased to answer any questions. >> thank you, mr. peck, five minutes. >> good morning, i'm the president and ceo, i'm a vietnam veteran serving with the first marine division and working for homeless veterans. u.s. vets the largest nonprofit and service provider in the country providing housing and services and providing homelessness prevention, employment to 5,000 veterans. i'm the president of the california association of veterans service agencies comprised of nonprofits that collectively provide housing and care to more than 25,000 veterans each year. despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent and the best efforts of hundreds of communities, there are still more than 40,000 veterans living on the streets and that number is ridesing across the nation. in california the number of homeless veterans rose 20% in 2017 and los angeles, 57%. despite this upward trend it seems there's no longer an emphasis in determination to get every veteran off the streets. this shift and focus is evident in two ways, the proposal by the v.a. out of the special projects category where it is protected and placing the dollars in the general fund. they have said they will not shift the dollars, and second, the v.a. overall management of the hud program. insufficient data collection and inadequate outcome measures. together these factors can inhibit our ability to get veterans off the street and permanent housing and provide the case management veterans veterans a client case manager ratio of 25-1. additionally it requires access to assistance with a phone call, 24 hours a day. that's not what is happening. we are project veterans five at o sites and. for 75 vouchers the v.a. required to provide three full time case manager, we never have three, rarely two and our staff picks up the slack. if a nonprofit privated that level of coverage we would lose the contract. i attached three letters from communities awarded the hud vouchers. two in california and one in florida. each case the v.a. indicated they don't have the resources to provide coverage for the number of hud vouchers awards. they go unused while veterans are on the streets. the funding that congress appropriated to the v.a. for vast case management positions are not available. veterans still living on the street need every dollar of the funding. if the vast program is turned into a grant program, they would assume full responsibility and spend every dollar appropriately and held to outcome measures we are meeting and exceeding. because our programs are residential we have staff 24/7 and used to responding to issues day and night. case management for 423 beds of supportive housing with a 92% retention rate. by contrast, the study reports a 70% success rate in the program. the study states that the reason the vast majority of the veterans exited the program was unknown, as the hud systems don't have the capacity to track the information. this is just careless. attempted suicide rate is 20 times higher. they are plainly at risk and desperate for our help and we need better data on how federal funding is serving or failing them. we have been at this for a long time and you might ask what is your return on invest mebt. by 25 years of experience tells me if you pull back now, the number of homeless vaeterans wil continue to grow. they will spend time in jail and homeless shelters and continue to die having been abandoned by the country they fought for. this is not a one time fix but on going effort to mitigate the inequality that exists in the system for our veteran, lack of opportunity, education, mental illness, combat trauma end up on the margins of society. we are paying for this tragedy one way or another, we have to make the decision that these veterans lives are worth saving, thank you. >> thank you. mr. martin, you're now recognized for five minutes. >> good morning. my name is john martin i am the development director for the opportunity center of the homeless in texas. that statement is important because my comments will be reflective of the community that is struggling. whether it be veterans, chronically homeless or the families and youth. the other aspect of this as i mentioned to a couple of folks is i felt like a fish out of water from the standpoint i live in the hud world more than the v. a. it is important that we need to understand how the two need to overlap with one another as we work through this. the opportunity center for the homeless existed for over 24 years in el paso. as a development director oi do strategy and thinking. like a professional beggar to give a general description. the truth of the matter is we care for the majority of ft homeless and that includedings chronic homeless. of our population, roughly 15% are veterans and these are individuals that do not qualify based on eligibility requirements associated with the v. a. so we're looking at the other end of the spectrum. as a direct result, we have to rely on hud funding for that purpose and there's an reference during this testimony to the housing first initiative. and initiative that is severely helpered our efforts in el paso. housing first is incredible so don't take the comments the wrong way, in respect all of our founding with within the community is directed toward inkreetsing the housing inventory and the two must go hand in hand. as an example over the last 5 years we lost $1.2 million per year as a community not organization, as it relates to support service. now, that includes employment, legal, transportation, medical care, mental health, street outreach. in turn as a community we lost a little over half a million dollars in regard to all funding. so what we're facing is a struggle at this point to provide the appropriate level of services needed not only for payment within housing under the housing first initiative which is an incredible tool and with regard to sustainability and prevent veterans in my written testimony i gave you numbers, an organization that has 14 programs and ten different houses. those ten houses seven of which are permanent housing. one is transitional which is our veterans transitional living center. the remaining are what you would refer to as emergency shelters and that's where the 15% lie. and these are individuals that are defined as chronically homeless, disability and length of homelessness. so in turn when you look at goals 25-1 on a case management earlier. that is ideal, we are, working with situations that are 250 to 1 rks the absence of what we need for the support service dollars. we as a community, we are a poor community. a little over 50% of the population falls under 200% of the federal poverty level. so you would say that we have a low tax base. so we have no local investment with regard to the city or county. and so for us, the burden is placed on the service provider. and we're being asked to do more with less. and i think my conclusion here if i make that statement is that in some respects as it relates to funding, you have to take a look at the unique krarkt ris sticks of each community, because in many cases, the parameters and metrics imposed on us as an agency that receives fund it is. restricted in a manner that works in other communities. we need to have flexibility to be able toll design the system unite liegz the same metrics but meets the need within the community and the unique krarkt ris stick of those that we serve. with that stated i welcome questions when that time comes and i look further to having further further discussion, thank you. >> thank you. ms. monet. >> ranking numbers and distinguished members of the house committee on veterans affairs i'm catherine monet on behalf of the board of directors and we thank you for the opportunity to share our views with you this morning. resource and technical stansz center for a national network and local veterans to hundreds of thousands homeless, at risk and vet rans across the country. we're committed to working with our partners to end veteran hemlessness. 60 communities including three states achieved the federal benchmarks to end veteran homelessness and it is an achievable goal. this progress is largely a testament. and the abstract this is progress towards this major goal, but in real terms it is life changing. now the bad news as you have heard over and over again this morning is that our hold on this progress is ten would you say at best and the number of veterans between 2016 and 2017, 36 states and dc decreases, other communities with high cost rental markets saw dramatic increases. increase of one veteran is one too many. so this is a really sfark reminder that this is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedestrianal or shift resources, we need to focus on doubling down on the efforts to assure that vet homelessness is rare. for communities doubling down means looking at the community level data and knowing the needs so you can implement strategies. and homeless veterans can access housing quickly and resources like employment and supportive services. we also need to recognize that housing first never means housing only. so you can ses full implementation of housing first includes access to health and mental health care and benefit assistance, employment and training services and all of the other things that a veteran needs. here in d.c. congress needs to ensure that key programs that serve veterans are sufficiently funded and we never advocate for the growth of resources for the sake of expanding program but the slight uptake in conjunction with rising rents, and the series of natural disasters occurring in 2017 demands nothing short of your continued leadership and attention with funding and oversight of the programs. homelessness is a multifaceted and complex problem for every veteran. one of the best ways we can address it is for congress to provide a permanent authorization in the united states for homelessness. the small team of experts convenes federal agencies in order to share veterans objections to actualize this. further more, we are able to identify and prevent duplication of services that would waste every time and resources. we can also encourage further collaboration between v.a., hud and dol and all of the grantees to provide service to veterans. it allows v.a. to focus resources by pairing case management with the hud section 8 vouchers for the more vulnerable veterans we see. as the case mangers truly must be located where the vouchers are distributed. as you know, last september, va sent guidance regarding the immediate yat conversion of the funding from special to general purpose. va backed away from the decision for the time being. it could reduce case management and let me be clear here, we object in the strongest of terms to this conversion or any action that would reduce case manager availability. in the 60 communities that ended homelessness, the vouchers are critical resources that make housing affordable and allows communities to end homelessness. any reductions will lead to veterans not receiving the care they rely on and these case mangers are already stretched thin. to remove these would be catastrophic to the veterans using the vouchers. they must be used for the intended purpose. thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. it's a privilege to work you and this staff. so that everyone has access to this. >> thank you and thank you all of the panelists for your remarks. i want to yield to our chairman, dr. phil row, five minutes for comments and questions. >> thank you mr. chairman. i have another committee hearing i have to go to. i want to hear this testimony today because to me, if i recall, all of you here, thank you for what you do and the service to our country. those who served in the military. i very much appreciate that. one of the frustrations i think you have to take a step back is and i'd like to hear any of you. what is the primary cause not for just homelessness in general, i think i have a good understanding. but for veterans homelessness. these are capable people who were in the military and had responsible jobs and now they are skpout homeless. there are three of us we were here nine years ago when he sat there and said we are going to end veterans homelessness by 2016, i thought that was honorable, so number one in veterans what is the primary cause? is it relationships? mental health? is it substance abuse? what is it? anybody can take a whack at that. >> i'll jump in. it's all of the above. while a combat trauma is the cause in some veterans, military sexual trauma among the females who are committing suicide at an alarming rate and a societal issues. they go into the military perhaps to escape from a disruptive family life, perhaps to escape from gangs and in the military for two or three years and they come out with knowing how to shoot a gun or drive the tank so the transition is challenging among those groups who are coming out. >> i disagree, they come out with more skills than that. they learn leadership skills and get up early, there is no clock in the military. you understand that and i do, it's 24/7 they bring out some very good skills in the military. >> absolutely, they also have when in the military we were doing 24 hours a day, and determine what happens next or a year from now. so some of them don't transfer the skills well into the civilian workforce. >> a couple of other things and i have visited the l.a. cam us and what they are doing there for the homeless. i made a trip several months ago. with the job market with historic lows, in our state it is 3% nicu call economy is doing well. how do you atribt this, and i think this point in time whether it is up or down, this point and time are never all that accurate but a guess on how many homeless people there are at any particular time. why do you think in california the rates are going up? is people just moving into california is that what it is? what's the reason? >> there's always more veterans in california, more than anywhere else. as you said, the unemployment rate is very low so some of the veterans don't have the skills they need. the housing is very high. >> high, yeah. >> and they are unable at a minimum wage job or $15 or $18 able to afford the housing to take them out of homelessness none of them are staying at the supportive permanent housing. they can't afford to move back out in the community. >> that's one of the things we found even where i live, there's a couple of things. one, finding housing that's affordable even where we are. and to get developers to build housing for these that would meet these needs. it's a huge problem for the lower income people and afterwards, i would love to discuss a program that we did at home and it seems to be working well. mr. martin, you mentioned also something and we seem to be spending more and more money but i feel like i'm running in place. you mentioned that and you're correct that every community is different and that el paso texas is different than northeast tennessee where i live. i think you were suggesting that you need more flexibility in the grants to do what you need to do. i don't know if it is to fill a hole or if you needed the money and the grant doesn't fit your community? >> in direct response to your question, chairman, it's not necessarily to fill a hole. we have create add foundation under a continued of care model that was in place until 2009 and 2010 and that model was the foundation of what it was we were doing and the success we had and when we had that shift in funding which was focused on housing. it took the dollars away from the support services. because the veterans that we're, working with in the opportunity center are those who are not v.a. eligible so they have limited options. and they tend to stay with us. many times they can access ssvs but because of local requirements it's limited to three months worth of assistance. if we go back to the comments about living wage, youen can't do that with an entry level position. it is three months and you are at and we see the return to homelessness. and that's illustrated in the numbers i provided with you in the written testimony for our organization. it is too early to tell if it's going to be a trend but we did see a significant increase from 2015 to 2017 and we are seeing a interest in service nights. those are the individuals that come in and take advantage of the shelter because they simply don't have any other options at this point. and so it's that support service component that is desperately needed at this point when we talk about case management. just to give you an example of some of the services lost. daycare, legal, transportation, mental health, okay? all of those wrap around service that is these panelists indicated that are desired because we don't need to look at payment but sustain ability and that's where the flexibility is needed. >> i want to thank you for what you do in a difficult situation. thank you for your effort put into that. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield myself five minutes for questions. >> for me, just some context and these are broad questions, but i think i can drill down and my colleagues it may be useful to them as well. ending homelessness is a very lotable vision. if we can't measure it we won't achieve t. my question to each of you is and we'll go down the line. define ending homelessness as it relates to your organization and tell met specifically how you measure the success of achieving that outcome. just go down the line and start with you mr. clancey. >> so we don't provide direct support, we don't receive federal funding for hvrp or any of the programs, so we network with the organizations in our community. what we see that drives the homelessness or an important factor is not unemployment but under employment as was talked about before. it's almost like when you think about unemployment and the nation, you never get to zero, because there's always some factor in there. when you are at 3% unemployment you are at full employment in the country same thing on the veteran side. to see you are going to get to zero homelessness is not an actual achievable goal because there will be folks through addiction and mental health who don't take the support offered. >> do you think we are at the functional zero or ways to veterans. >> we've made a tremendous success over the last nine or 10 years getting that down. we capture the low hanging fruit and getting it down to the veterans that need the help. i've worked before i took this role, i was the director of veteran services in cincinnati and we had access to hud vouchers and on the book rehab side, educational assistance for veterans and i can tell you it is hard to find the veterans that you can apply the funds to in the cincinnati area, at least. >> why? why veterans why can't you find the veteran to apply them to? >> unfortunately, not every part of the country is the same. you have some states that declared the veteran homelessness and ohio had a 7% decrease last year and the national rate of veteran homelessness is 1 had not 5%, 567 homeless vet rans. >> you are saying that the underlying issue with homelessness or a major one is employment, under employment and so you would define you can success as getting veterans a job? >> getting them a job as well as you know, housing. all those issues combined. where they are not needing assistance. >> is it housing or is it the job that allows them to sustain self sufficiency so they can have that independence and pay the rent and feel the dignity of all that's involved in that. >> that's right. >> would you define that as success? >> let me ask ms. williams. >> yes, sir. so we focus on employment. when you're able to get them employment and then that helps them though sustain housing. so we measure success by how many veterans we can get employed and from there hopefully to become contributing members of society and be able to sustain themselves and their families. >> mr. peck, thank you. >> four things. those transitional housing pramts that provide rehab that gets them off the street. mental health counseling, employment, never enough employment ever and the affordable housing. so you need those four together. >> in the interest of time let's keep going, mr. martin. >> first and foremost veterans. [ inaudible ] >> the term functional zero. when you look at the veteran population, a vast majority of those almost 70% are over the age of 50. we look at sustainability, not payment and the wrap around service that is go with tfrmgts sustainability is their ability to sustain their independence and because of employment veterans. >> because of employment veterans. >> is rehabilitation, et cetera. >> you're correct. sustainability. ms. m okonet and then i'm done. >> and i'm sure you're aware that the federal government has a set of benchmarks and criteria they use to assess communities ending homelessness it looks like dow know them, can you move them in permanent housing, if you're in a shelter you still count as homeless on the pick count. so things like that are really how we look at success. >> thank you. my time expired. i now recognize ms. brown, ranking member bha for remarks and questions. >> thank you, mr. that i remember aveterans chairman andi want to thank you the witnesses and the work that you do everyday in support of our veterans and addressing this issue of homelessness around the country. mr. peck, you had mentioned in your testimony that you were particularly concerned about v.a. having an intention to rededicate some supportive services funds into the general fund, my understanding in terms of what their intention is and i will certainly ask the va when they are up next, but that they were going to take 5% sort of across the board from these funds to provide resources to meet sort of, the priorities of the v.a. given those dollars to directors et cetera, to be able to accomplish those goals. i want to make sure we pulled back from that. my understanding is that 5% that would roughly mean, $264 million taken away from supportive services to veterans. so i guess my question really is, you know, what are you hearing on the ground vis-a-vis that and are you hearing that these funds are going to be taken a way, what do you know? >> we're in 11 different locations across the countries so hearing different things. some of the v.a.s have assured us that the funds will be there and other v.a.s have not. as i said in my testimony, we're not getting the case management help we need today when those funds are supposed to be protected and fenced and used for v.a. case managers and they are not. and i don't know where they are. my fear is if those funds, if there's a choice to redirect the funds they will redirect the funds to other needs within the community. as i said, the suicide rate among homeless veterans is high, very high, much high are than the rest of the population so providing services for the homeless veterans is suicide prevention. >> i agree wholeheartedly. do you know what has been said in los angeles relative to this issue specifically? >> identify spoke to the director, she said shell not redirect the funds, we would like to hold her to that. >> very good. in terms of the homeless population in los angeles, do you know what percentage are female veterans? >> i don't. it is quite small, generally about 3%. >> and do they typically have children, also? >> some portion of them do, many have lost custody of the children but some portion of them do. i'm not quite sure of the portion, sorry. >> as far as the case management or lack of, case management, is the problem that the resources aren't there to hire or is it a problem of just constant churn and turnover, do you have any sense of that? >> there veterans hiring within in a bureaucracy is challenging sometimes takes a number of months to do that. the west l.a.v.a. has something over 200 social workers. that's really hard to manage. my recommendation is that they spread the contracts out among agencies that are knowledgeable in the community so that each agency is able to do that job with more oversight because now it is not good. >> if homelessness risen 57% and i believe l.a. has approximately 20% of the homeless veteran population across the country. do you feel that los angeles is getting the proportionally correct amount of resources distributed across the country? >> los angeles has been pointed out before for funds because i think anyone who knows about homeless vet rans, knows there's a lot more there than anywhere in the country. whether we are getting the appropriate fair, i couldn't tell you. i think we have like 1,500 vast vouchers, something like that. >> thank you i realize my time is up. >> i'm faster and looser than the chairman over to my left. so you are okay. there's going to be a second round here. but great line of questions. i would yield five minutes to the chairman of the vha. >> thank you very much. i want to thank you for being here and what you do everyday and the efforts you make trying to help our fellow americans and i became familiar when i came back for iraq, i wasn't looking for a job but i became familiar with the work of easter sales in trying to make the matchups, working with employees and employers and trying to make the match. so i'm going to direct my questions to mr. cla nrk cey i have a geographic bias being hee is from ohio and being familiar, i would like if you can comment about the relationships you were able to build with places like joseph skmous our veterans court and how it relates to reducing homelessness. >> thank you, congressman. the whole purpose of it when it was built was to be the center of collaboration for the hundreds of veteran organizations in the cincinnati area. so we have built good relationships, we don't compete with anybody for the federal dollar. so when we have a veteran in distress coming through our processing center, we can diagnosis them and refer them out to the agencies out there including easter s.e.a.l.s. >> of course veterans court and those types of things that are trying to get our veterans in a better direction. >> we have a strong veterans court in cincinnati. tvca we have subgroups, that we work with, education, health and wellness, the education subgroup working with veterans court to get those vet rans access to the gi bill. >> the senator has been robust and lots of interactions with veterans of all ages, not just recent ones but ones from previous wars and we want to get less solessons learned. this is economic opportunity committee and health committee. what do you think can be done better, we engage in the transition assistance program which is administered by d.o.d., are there things we can do that can help them in the long run as far as guidance, on the track to a profession rather than v.a. and what you do being reactive later, what can we do more on the front end. >> that's a great point. that's one of the goals we have, and what we strive for t. contact the veterans upstream as we are separating. we have something called vet excel. we direct with the national guard with the veterans that are separating to help them with the resume, the culture change they're going to see from a military unit to a civilian office in terms of everything from the direct feedback you may get in the military that you might not get in the workforce. what to wear, the basics. we continue to see the under employment is a big concern so we help them take the experience they have in the military and be able to change the verbiage or explain properly to a civilian hr department what their capable of doing. we have a two week program and we bring in the companies, we work with the hr department in directly. we need to be upstream helping the veterans understand the change that they're about to v. >> being local like that, the guard is a perfect opportunity to do that. what kind of success or results are you having and what are some of the walls if you will, in the process? >> well, we're getting great feedback from the companies that we deal with. they love the veterans. there is no problem with unemployment in cincinnati. there's a great opportunity for employment. they love the veterans because they show up on time and have a sense of mission and team. so from the hr perspective, we get great feedback and from the national guard side, they are very excited about what we're doing they like the veterans are hitting the ground running on the civilian side. >> from the veterans themselves i'm looking for best practices here. what kind of feedback from the individual vet rans themselves. >> the individual veterans really appreciate the mentoring we can give. there's veterans that can be mentors for other vets coming out of the service. one of the best practices is having the now civilian, former military successful business, men and women mentor the new soldiers coming out of the military. >> thank you, i yield back. >> i will yield five minutes to the ranking member of the economic opportunity subcommittee. >> thank you mr. chairman. this has been one of the most helpful panels in my 5 years here. so thank you for your testimony and what you brought to the table today. some of the take aways so for me mr. peck, i think you asked the defining question of this committee, are these lives worth saving and when you point out that there are 20 vet rans a day that take their own lives and the suicide rate is 20 times of the general population. that should catch everyone's attention and add some you aurg. it is a crisis and it will remain a crisis until we meet it with urgent action. i think many of the panelists make an excellent point that answer the chairman's concern about the few do you remember yar roll of the taxpayers dollar. if we are not making the 25-1 ratio and spending all of this money to put a roof over the veterans head perhaps temporarily, and don't have the wrap around support services we're not greatest bang of the taxpayer dollar. and we are not providing mental health care, day car, transportation services, so i think you made a excellent case for us ensuring that there's accountability and over sight for v.a. and dol and hud making sure we fulfill that commitment, 25-1. we have hundreds of thousands of veterans who have an other than honorable discharge. what we have been focused on is that they precludes them from seeing a mental health care provider and we have alorming rates on suicide rates. it means the same veterans are ineligible for the hud program and it gives them greater suffering and homelessness. we f we look at that obligation, i think so we have to expand eligibility to include those who have other than honorable discharges and i want to work with the vchlt a. and secretary and president and i think it is the right thing to do and we have to do it. and then the point that many of you brought up about these huv dolla dollars moved to general fund. that's alarming and i'm interested on what the v.a. has to say about this issue and ian tis pate the question will come from both sides of the committee. last couple of points. one of these outstanding veteran services organizations in houston and part of what makes them accessible, they are not a victim and have so much to contribute. if we unleash their potential by connected them with the care they need and they are not getting, the upside for everyone else in society is unlimited and i'm grateful that you pointed that out. i'll end with this anecdote, the chairman held a positive hearing in texas on transitioning service members into civilian life successfully and that morning we went to paul's project at grace campus, a homeless center. they said 75% have a connection with hemlessness. they can't pay the mortgage or great or the disability is so significant and they can't go to work and found themselves homeless. several of you mentioned health care as a connection. mr. martin, i have a minute left. talk about how significant healthcare is as a connection to homeless spns perhaps how expanding eligibility decreases the homeless population. >> we do have one distinct advantage and we have an on site health clinic and it's operated by a separate entity. but that access to medical care is a critical component as well as mental health care because we also have a community as it relates to mental health needs overall that's overwhelmed so we have to look at accessibility as we pick it up and in the absence of that what happens is we see a large number of vimgs to use a term that's been used in the past, self medicating through alcohol and drugs and that includes the veteran population. it's the lack of trust in the system and that's one thing i haven't heard at this system. especially when we get into the older veterans. we have a lot of folks that say i don't want anything to do with the v.a., i want out and it is distrust, or whatever the case might be over time. and so, that goes back to a certain extent a cultural transition. we've talked about it in terms of employment but we have to look at it from a social atmosphere as well. because in many cases they elect to be there and there's a right to have a choice. >> thank you, ranking member o'rourke and we'll now yield for five minutes to mr. bill irakis >> af couple of questions. stake holders from the supportive services in my district in florida, i represent the tampa bay portions of the tampa bay area. they've highlighted the need for better coordination between the v.a. and hud and stentening the continuum of care so the veteran homelessness population have the support they need for long-term success. they stress the importance of directing dollars we have provided to the v.a. towards continuum of care, support so the program can focus their efforts on prevention and rehabilitation. so the question is for the panel, the entire panel, we can start with mr. clancey, how would you recommend, v.a, hud and the department of labor, how can they improve the communication with community partners like those each of you are apart of and i appreciate your testimony today. >> thank you, congressman. in cincinnati we have a good relationship with the v.a. medical center. we are in good communication with them constantly. i think there's an advantage to fl flexibility and there's a concern with the hud vast program the dollars not specifically directed to them and in cincinnati maybe we don't have the needs that los angeles has and the flexibility of working with them is crucial and we have a good relationship with them. >> i'll admit this is my third day on the job. so if you don't mind i would love to submit an answer to you once i get that. >> you are doing very well, i'll tell you that much. >> i think it is important that we look at the entire continuum, there's a tendency to try to find a single fix. housing first was the answer for a while. i think it is critical that we provide intensive services done through grant per diem program so that veterans in off the street are getting the services they need whether it is mental health or substance abuse whatever it may be and have a direct connection between the per diem programs, not just hud vast and the housing available through hud program and they cooperate with counties so that the counties are providing a range of services, in regards to mental health and employment that can serve the veterans who are v.a. eligible and nonv.a. eligible. all of the systems have to work together. >> i had to sort of think about the response to this question because in our reality we have a wonderful working relationship with them. that's through g prk d program and so we have a lot of interaction taking place as we work through that. i just i think it was a week and a half ago i sat in a tell le conference call, and i think that's one example where we are trying to take two systems and having them use the same entry point and if you are not familiar with the entry, one door in. everybody goes through a common assessment process f. they qualify for v.a., whatever it might be, they go direction one. if they don't it's direction two which takes you to the hud side of the fence, okay? so that's the intent to have the two work together. now, the reality is when you look at direction two, we need to start looking at support services and that can potentially pull in the department of labor. alo a lot of the employment side of the fence, sustainability, not just an entry level job. so you've got to take a look at the strengths of the individual and you've got to get away that you must be job ready and you got to start working with that individual and develop the skills sets needed and two, to be able to provide the coaching necessary for sustainability in employment. so again, it goes back to support services. >> agreed. please. >> so i think this is a relly important question and i appreciate that you are asking this. i'll tell you that i look a the it from two perspectives, from a top down approach. all of the agencies are focussing in on sending coordinated messages and reinforcing them to the grantees encouraging people to communicate. other thing to think about is that the federal government is the largest funder of homelessness assistance if you can incense vise coordination, i think you will be in good shape. the per diem program is moving to do that in the current reboot of the system and you need to look at this from the bottom up and think about what is in it for providers, and coordinated entry is a great approach. case conferencing and sharing resources and create ago solid system in the community is another benefit to the provider and that provider should be thinking and looking at. >> thank you very much and i see my time expired i yield back mr. chairman, submit the rest of the questions for the record, thank you. >> you bet, tlaung, we'll yield five minutes to mr. takano. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to thank you for the tremendous works that the u.s. vets does in my district and the wonderful facility being built with the wrap around services. so i congratulate you on that work. you mentioned in your testimony that there is not a lot of accountability for v.a. case management and contractor organizations are held to achieve greater outcomes. you said that the inspector general study unable to identify why veterans exited the program. were they comprehensive studies by an entity outside of v.a. or hud or jao for example, be helpful in understanding the hud vouchers efficacy and where there are still issues in deliverance of services? >> absolutely, i think if we can bring transparency to the goals of the program as opposed to what is happening would be invaluable and i've not seen such a study. that study that i referred to was specific to the veterans specific to the california area. so i think a nationwide study would be excellent to make sure they are providing the service based on the model they said it is based on which is the housing first model. >> mr. chairman, i think we should look at such a study or get one ordered because it is about the use of most effective and sufficient use of taxpayer resources and so if we could work with you on that i wouldit chairman. mr. peck, i want to continue with a line of questioning. in 2016, riverside county which i represent as you know reached functional zero for veterans homelessness. but just because there's been some progress in our area, i know that next door in los angeles county which is kind of much larger population, they have experienced an uptick and they have the largest number of homeless. we'll definitely i think suffer if we don't in my area if we don't address what's going on in los angeles. and it doesn't mean we can let up our efforts just because riverside achieved functional zero. a continued and coordinated strategy is ended to end veteran homelessness. we have seen the number of homeless veterans rise by 20% last year in distinction to what's happened in riverside county. as service providers, as a service provider, do you feel that the va remains committed to ending veterans homelessness? >> i should hope so. i think the directors that we deal with at loma lima and in los angeles is committed to these effort. it frightens me when people talk about the functional end of homelessness. it feels like the problem has been involved. and we have actually experienced a talking to funder who is will say isn't that problem involved? it is not. >> well, yeah. so, here's my thing. i reallyize that lomaly ma and l.a. directors may feel supportive but has the secretary's decision to remove veterans homelessness impact the work you do on the ground? >> it absolutely will impact. if those funds are redirected, the homeless population will go up. >> last year, okay, while the va proposed moving money from specific funds to a general purpose fund, how would that have impacted the services you provide do veterans and the veterans you serve? >> not only reduce the case management we are getting currently from the va, it would allow a number of those hud vouchers to go unused. they cannot be used without the appropriate case management so it's an overall reduction in service to homeless veterans. >> the hud vouchers would be unused because we aren't doing the wrap around services as part of the holistic approach we have to use? >> yes. the three letters i've submitted with my written testimony indicate sometimes only using half of the vouchers because the va cannot commit to providing case management to 100% of the vouchers. >> so funding on the table we can't use? mr. martin, could you quickly respond to that same question? how would the proposed repurposing of the money affect you on the ground? >> well, when you're talking about va dollars, like i said, i'm in a different world. when i talk about the absence of case management, i'm referring to crisis response system, that emergency shelterment in the va funded programs we maintain the levels as we work through that because it's a requirement of doing so. now, when you look at the vast vouchers, i believe we have about 294 as a community. and i'm not heard concerns that have come in from the va in that respect in direct answer to your question. >> all right. i would ask the rest of the panel to submit an answer to that question that i asked in writing later. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. takano. now yield five minutes to ms. radewagen. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you very much. i want to personally commend the panel for not only appearing today but for doing this very difficult, challenging, work. i mean, you just -- you're amazing. mr. clancy, your testimony suggests that regional veteran collaboratives are part of the solution to ending veteran homelessness. what are those and why do you think they're needed? >> thank you, ma'am. the veteran collaboratives as we mentioned not only here in cincinnati with but also combined arms in houston as the congressman mentioned are critical because it enables the community to come together in a collaborative sense to provide the best of services for the veteran. we can combine best practices, different organizations receive different funding and we can as best we can move upstream to get those transitioning veterans before they become in crisis mode. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, mrs. radewagen. we'll yield five minutes to ms. kuster. >> thank you, mr. chairman. delighted to be here. thank you very much. informative hearing. you have taken on a calm tone in what i consider to be a serious change in policy that congress was not consulted about, and i want to make sure that we get a chance to get to the bottom of what the impact is on a daily basis for our veterans and not just the veterans that are currently in the system but perhaps more importantly the veterans who are not yet in the system or as you mentioned have been disillusioned. i wanted to mention nashua, new hampshire. we have done particular work in my district particularly with easter seals and thank you and to harbor homes. very effective program integrating health care and housing services. i had a wonderful story of a man, john, i met who had been living under a bridge with a group of vietnam era veterans. they were over time brought in by the social workers and it turns out part of his problem was a health care issue. he was diabetic and not receiving any health care. and when he was housed and got the health care that he needed, come to find out that he had been a middle manager in a company in our area. he had a family that he was estranged from and over the course of getting the housing and the services he was able to reunite with his family and actually now he's a part of helping other veterans. so my question to you is, are there lessons that can be learned and i'll direct it to ms. williams, from the programs that have been effective and in particular we have been talking a lot about los angeles. if you could turn your attention to rural communities and what more we need to be doing and i think in a bipartisan way we need to take back this discussion from an administration that seems to be turning a blind eye or turning a shoulder toward those veterans in need and make a decision about funding, fully funding the services that are needed. the wrap around services, the health care, the social workers. so, mrs. williams, if you could talk about the lessons learned and where we go from here. >> thank you so much for the question. and let me speak specifically first starting with new hampshire. that new hampshire does have many rural areas and with minimal staffing it's difficult to reach all the veterans in need and to provide the level and attention they need so that's the experience we're having in new hampshire. and then, secondly what i would say is that there needs to be greater flexibility to meet the unique needs of veterans and i want to highlight easterseals support of hr 4451 and which is the bill does it does, in fact, allow for that flexibility. secondly, focusing on retention, helping to maintain jobs and increase employment and not just any employment but better jobs is critical. and then the final thing that i would say, again, would tie into what my fellow panelists have discussed is early access to case management. the community care coordination is vital. that's what we have heard and i would just encourage the federal agencies and you all to push for that. that is part of how we achieve success. >> could i ask our representative from hud, do you see the continuum of care as part of the mission to address homelessness from a holistics perspective to not only employment but i want to remind the chair that some of these veterans are 65, 70, 80. employment is not the only solution. and if anyone else wants to add in i have about a minute left. i'd appreciate your comments. >> direct answer on that question, when i look at the population that we serve, over 67% over the age of 50. and if i take that up a notch and get to 65 and older, we are looking at -- i just ran the numbers, 18%. okay? so when we look at our mission under the continuum of care and our mission statement states this, we transition those that can and protect those that can't. so you've got do look at that long-term vibltd for those that are not in a position to seek some type of sustainable housing through employment. >> right. >> and that's where you look at the different options. >> thank you. the other question i have is about work force and -- my time is limited but if you have any comments on workforce or if you want to submit for the record. >> i would be more than happy to. i know we're piloting a project right now which the local university, ourselves and workforce which is based on the premise that anybody can work. but i will submit that in a written format to you -- >> i would be very interested. with the brief indulgence that veterans be included both on the training side but also the workforce, social workers and such. i would be very interested in any thoughts you might have. and the chair is gone but i wanted to invite him to new hampshire for a roundtable on homelessness. thank you. i'll yield back. >> thank you, mrs. kuster. we'll now yield five minutes to mr. higgins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank the panel members for attending today. mr. chairman, ranking members, i would like to suggest that we see a future panel addressing this crucial issue that would include dod because it occurs to me as a veteran myself that our nation invests a great deal of energy and money into training our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to do their job within the military largely soldier in today's military chooses his mos. and yet, we invest virtually nothing prior to their ets from the military to help them make the transition to civilian life. and all of us know that there's term in the military of a short timer. 99 and a wake up. et cetera. it seems to me that if our energies were invested in coordination with the dod to have sort of an ets ait, advanced individual training, to help that military member be prepared for work because these men and women that serve our nation, they lose their uniform. they lose their rank. but they maintain their skill and yet they enter the civilian world as rookies. you have -- you have excellent mechanics leaving the military that don't have an ace qualification. not qualified to change oil at a dealership. we could fix that if the dod would work together with the va and the existing entities that help post ets transitions. we have heavy equipment operators operating dozers and cranes and, you know, very significant heavy equipments that are not certified to operate a forklift when they get out. welding certifications. heavy truck driving certifications. nursing and medical profession certifications. all of these excellent skills that are performed by our military members every day across the world and when they ets from service they don't have the civilian certifications that are equivalent to their existing skills. so they -- they lose not just their uniform and their rank. but they lose their opportunity to serve their fellow man with the skills that they have learned. and excelled at within the military. as a street cop for 12 years, i've had personal interaction with hundreds of homeless veterans. and i can tell you that there's a sort of an underground culture in existence and i'd like a couple of you to address this. we say we have 40,000 homeless veterans. we have 184,000 veterans incarcerated in america. at an average cost of a conservative average cost of $32,000 a year per veteran. that's $6 billion. so, there's a culture that a veteran because the very nature of a military veteran is independent and strong and mission oriented. and they don't expect to be bantered about by civilian housing directors and people of that ilk. so, many veterans house themselves in jails. they'll commit a -- they're smart. they'll commit a misdemeanor crime that requires incarceration. they won't make their bond and they'll do three, six months, eight months in jail. in a local jail. and then they're back on the street and they'll live on the street for a while until they repeat that cycle. so i would ask, mr. peck and ms. monet, if the chairman would allow the time, i would ask you address your consideration regarding the future that we could invision working with dod to help these military veterans make the transition with the skills that they have in the service to acquire the civilian certification equivalent of their skills so that we don't have this problem. >> i think you've hit on a very important problem. that transfer once a veteran -- once a service man or woman comes out of the military and hits the street, they do so without appropriate help. the tap program is there. it's a lot of information. short period of time. you want out of there once you're a short term and don't necessarily want to talk to anybody. starting a program well before they get out indicating the possibilities of -- their possibilities once they get into civilian life, and giving them a connection in the community where they are discharged. so that the va can contact them and, you know, 90 days later, 6 months later saying are you all right? do you have a job? is your family okay? just rather than the veteran running out of resources after six months or a year or three years. and being so disconnected and disillusioned they won't connect with the va. i think that connection is critical and we have to find some -- some formal system to make that transition. >> thank you. >> mr. chairman would allow ms. monet? >> go ahead, ms. monet. let's make it quick. we're running late already. >> i'll be as quick as i can. i think from our perspective, one of the most interesting things that we do as an organization is we have a toll free hotline where veterans experiencing a housing crisis can call in and say, hey, i need help. we have heard from a good number of young and recently returned vets saying i'm ready to get out. i have nowhere to go. i, you know, i live on base housing and i don't even know how to find an apartment. i don't know what that means. so i think to your point about dod involved in transition planning, they need to think about not only employment but a housing plan, do you have somewhere to live when you get snout if you don't, can we connect you with a va or a housing provider in the ear i don't to help you out and wrap services around you to get you started off on the right foot. i think to the thing you're talking about with incarceration, any transition planning is important. not only from dod but coming out of jail or prison or even if you're coming out of like mental health treatment or hospital. i think folks need to be cognizant that big life transitions are points that are -- points of vulnerability i guess where we could be doing a lot more to improve services. >> thank you, ms. monet. >> mr. chairman, thank you for the indulgence. >> you bet, mr. higgins. now we yield five minutes to mr. correa. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the veterans for the service to our country and echo some of the comments made by my colleagues of redirection of funds without properly notifying congress. let's do better next time. a couple of questions. i'll start out. i'm from california and the question i'm getting asked by a lot of my veterans is, what impact would cannabis use by veterans have on their eligibility to access the various programs, the services that you offer. how are they affected in terms of their eligibility? >> that's a tricky one. i know that the va does not allow cannabis use. there are some verifiable medical uses for marijuana. it's -- it is a tricky area because so many of the veterans that we have in our housing have substance abuse issues, addiction issues. so -- >> we have an issue of opioid use, abuse. then we have right now the issue, the famous cold memo that's been essentially repudiated by our attorney general. then the state of california we do have medical cannabis use. there's a doctor/patient relationship. there is recommendations made by physicians to their patients for use of cannabis. so we have -- what we have is a conflict of laws here. state versus federal. and my veterans are asking me what's going to happen if i medicate with cannabis. will i have -- be affected in terms of my benefits from the va? and i've gotten conflicting answers. i'm asking you here publicly because i need to give my vets an answer. and if you don't have the answer now, can i ask you to please submit your answers to me in writing? >> i will do. i will -- >> the best you can given -- >> yes. >> i can't answer. >> you're right. there's a conflict between state and federal and where there's verifiable medical benefit that should be allowed so i'll ask all of our clinicians and get back to you. >> mr. peck, you talked about more efficient use of funds and unused grant programs, turning them into vouchers. i'm out of orange county. we have some great folks providing great services. like the illumination foundation, a group of ten, 15 years old. gets homeless folks, gets them into converted motels that gets them on their feet. is that the kind of services you're talking about in terms of also aiding veterans in terms of getting them back on their feet? >> absolutely. nonprofits really have extensive outreach into the communities. much more so than the va. >> i say that because the only limitation that these folks have is resources. >> yes. absolutely. yeah. i'm a big proponent for the va to contract and i think those dollars would be much more efficient and we'd reach more veterans. >> let me with the few seconds i have left, i want the follow up with dr. wenstrup and mr. higgins' comments of following up with veterans after they take off uniform in a meaningful way. one thing to give them a survey when you leave but like just mentioned, you know, some of these vets may be in many ways lacking of the skills they need to survive out there. especially given the invisible wounds they have once they leave the service to our country. do we have a system to meaningfully follow up with them two years out other than a survey and filling it? >> there's no such system and a lot of us are advocating they have to opt out rather than opt in to a program that would allow the va to contact them after -- >> given that we want to do what's best for the veterans, given that we want to figure out a best way to use taxpayer dollars, i'd rather just follow up with them, how the best we can, six months out, one year, five years later. as mr. higgins said, we have too many of our veterans in jail today. that's just -- the's no excuse for this. >> 90-day follow up, 6-month follow up would save a lot of lives, for sure. >> how can we do that? >> i think my fellow marine secretary mattis would support that and love for man to talk to him about this. >> what do we need to get going, folks? >> congressman, if i may, if any veteran comes the our in-processing center in cincinnati does get follow up three months, six months, one year. if we get them a job, we follow up with the veteran and employer to make sure that everything is going and the veteran is still squared away. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield. >> thank you, mr. correa. we now yield fives minutes to the gentleman from indiana, mr. thanks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks to each of you once again for the important work you do. mr. chairman, thanks for this incredibly important venue today to talk about this important issue. ms. monet, i wonder if you could talk more about the housing first model. you said a minute ago i thought quite profoundly that housing first should not ever mean housing only. multiple times the va reiterated its support of housing first but i hear from some of the leaders in my district who serve homeless veterans it doesn't always provide the best option, that it might put a roof over a veterans head but doesn't get to the root, underlying problem such as drug addiction so could you elaborate on that, what you mean by that and talk a little bit more about the housing first and why it might fall short in some of those cases? >> absolutely. that's a wonderful question. thank you for that, sir. so housing first really means you're putting someone in housing first and then following up and offering services. right? saying, hey, i see you have this issue. can we help you address your diabetes or opioid use or you're unemployed. do you need a job? let's get you employment services. it's important to make the distinction the housing is not predicated on the requirement to access services. right? you are not requiring them to go to 90 aa meetings in 90 days, not requiring them to jump through a bunch of hoops to stay in housing but what you're really doing is enticing them into the services while they're in housing because research really has shown when a person is in housing they can better address all of the other issues they're facing. >> very good. as a segue from that, mr. peck, you talked a little bit ago about the importance of gpd up front. and i wonder maybe if you could talk more about that, what you mean by that and why that would be important. >> the case management is more robust in the grant per diem programs with the offer of rehabilitation many of them need and are asking for. while housing first is a good model, it's only one avenue. and i think a number of them would welcome the opportunity to get into a program that could provide the mental health, the substance treatment, the educational opportunities a program can offer which a housing first permanent housing program cannot. there's just simply not the robustness of the case management assistance. >> do you sense that the va is continuing to support gpd up front? can you talk about what we have seen for the posture of the va, from your perspective? >> they have supported it. thankfully. they have reduced it somewhat. there's a few thousand beds they have reduced and i think those beds may not have been well utilized. they've redesigned the program to make it more proactive. you have to state what kind of service you can provide. focusing on outcomes a ten outcomes largely are getting the veterans into permanent housing. whether through the income they earn through employment or a disability income so they are now i think measuring that program better than they were before. >> you're optimistic about the way forward from your perspective? not concerned about the changes? good, healthy changes? >> good changes, yeah, yeah. absolutely. and i think they will continue to support that. i'm hoping that they will. >> okay. thank you very much. i appreciate once again all that you do and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. banks. and finally, we now yield to mr. peters five moneys for questioning. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank all the leadership for holding this hearing and allowing me to participate even though this isn't my subcommittee. i represent san diego which is the home of tremendous veterans population. because of that, the nature of the homeless population is it's heavy on veterans. we have a lot of programs in san diego that are community based. we think are doing well but obviously they depend so heavily on the federal participation. so let me turn to a couple of observations and questions. we are very supportive of the interest of secretary in veterans suicide. but we don't want that to come at the expense of housing because two are so related. we have heard that suicide rates of veterans are so much higher so keeping them housed and off the streets and dealing with housing is in effect part of the suicide battle, as well. we certainly urge the secretary to keep that in mind talking about where he spends money and shifts money. the other observation i would make that a lot of my colleagues have made is the importance of defen department of defense. the american taxpayer money is to really prepare transitioning vets to come out and be productive, be employed, have a plan. and i think that we may want to ask more of the department of defense to take that on as one of their tasks. they train great warriors. they train them to have the skills i think that the chairman had but not necessarily trained to deal with civilian life in a way that they could be and they should be at the time of transition. and mr. clancy's talked about some of the efforts he's done in his area on that. i commend that. maybe you know of 0800 in san diego, which is a transitioning program that tries do the same thing. go on the base at the time of transition and introduce the community at that point so that when people walk off the base as civilians they're not strangers to that. mr. clancy? >> absolutely. san diego has a great program. cl it's a group that we as a combined arms, best practices, doing it successful, what we're doing is successful and collaborations around the country working together to, again, learn from each other and learn how to best to prepare the veteran for separation from the military. >> terrific. it's worth observing even functioning at 100% we couldn't replace the importance of community involvement. that's something we can't do. as a government. not every solution that comes from the government. i think with community involvement is so helpful. in the time i have, though, the question to ask is about vouchers. in san diego we get reports of large number of vouchers that are not used and i would like maybe, mr. peck, how can you address, how is that possible, how does that happen and what can we do to make sure that the resources we have are employed to make sure that veterans have housing? >> in some instances, unfortunately, it's due to high housing costs which i'm sure is true in san diego and i've worked closely with the vvsd down there. a really good program. so, some landlords are not talking the vouchers. i know in los angeles 500 veterans walking around with vouchers in hand that cannot find housing so they stay at -- in bridge programs like the ones we run and others. so creating the affordable housing, talking with landlords is critical to be able to get those veterans into the housing. and additionally, a shortage of va social workers is contributing to the vouchers not being used. >> so the landlord -- the work with landlords is more local issue. >> yes. but these -- it is critical that there's a local plan for each of these federal issues. >> right. >> as you said, the community based nonprofits are the ones that know and are familiar with the community. >> as a federal lawmaker, what would you suggest i do to see that more vouchers in san diego are given the high housing costs, mr. peck? >> i would -- two things need to be done. check with the va to make sure they're providing the appropriate number of case managers. and two, talk with the -- with the city who can talk to the landlords. what's happening in los angeles, in an effort to get them to look more closely at these vouchers and we have housing locaters to reach out to those landlords. >> i think the case managers is the answer. we have to make sure that support system is providing, as well. >> absolutely. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. peters. i would like to say as the chair of the subcommittee for economic opportunity that i associate myself with much of what you said and of what my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have said which is what i love the most about this committee. i mean, we just -- we just somehow when you walk through these doors and thinking about the customer which is the veteran, you just -- you just put everything aside and you do everything you can to putt america and our veterans first. and i appreciate the candor and thoughtful responses of the panel and appreciate your service to our veterans and country in that regard. one final comment before we conclude and then have the next panel join us is that as an economic opportunity subcommittee that oversees the transitional assistance program, and i think the comments were made repeatedly about sort of the ounce of prevention and in transition, the assessment, holistically of the veteran or the service man or woman coming out of active duty into civilian life and all that we do to invest and time and resources to prepare these good americans to defend us and our freedom and our allies all that we do to prepare them to be warriors and in my opinion how little we invest to transition them so that quite frankly we don't need much of your services because we've done a good job on the front end and we've made it as much of a priority to transition them and assimilate them back to civil yn and to tap those skills they have learned and those responsibilities that they have had. and we have rehabilitated where there's been trauma in their experiences. so i hope in the next year and this is something i've made known to the -- my colleagues who are staffing the committee, i want reform of the tap program to be of the first and foremost priority for our committee. and after some of the hearings we had on t.a.p. we don't know what outcomes. they didn't have much to any outcome. could be that they're doing a good job. i have a sense from talking, listening to you and talking to folks back in my district that we can do a whole lot better so i hope we can commit to transforming that program to really work on the front end and so we have less drug addiction, less suicide, left homelessness and joblessness from our heroes on account of a program that actually works. maybe it is working. i don't know. there really wasn't much data to suggest it was. so a lot of this is just intuition. thank you, guys. you're dismissed and we would ask that the second panel come and join us to introduce you and get on with the second panel and the discussion. in the interest of time, i'm going to go ahead and make the introductions of our panelists. joining us now this afternoon is matt miller, deputy assistant secretary for the veterans employment and training service of the u.s. department of labor. and we have an alongside of him, dominique blom, for the office of public and indian housing of the u.s. department of housing and urban development. and also dr. thomas lynch, the deputy undersecretary for health and clinical operations for the veterans health administration of the u.s. department of veterans affairs when's accompanied by dr. keith harris, the director of clinical operations for the homeless program office. we thank you for joining us. and, mr. miller, let's start with you. you have five minutes for your opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to provide a statement for today's hearings on veterans homelessness. as a former chief of staff in this body, i want to personally recognize you and committee staff for their tireless efforts to ensure that america fulfills its obligations to our current service members, veterans, and their families. my name is matt miller, deputy assistant secretary for policy at the united states department of labor's veterans employment and training service or v.e.t.s. also the department's representative on the u.s. interagency council on homelessness. secretary stands behind the service members and veterans, a clear goal that will assist our veterans in finding and keeping good jobs. for the department, one veteran experiencing homelessness is one too many. we look forward to working with the subcommittees and providing those who served our nation with the employment support, assistance and opportunities they deserve to succeed in civilian workforce. our partnerships throughout dol extend vets' ability to achieve the mission and bring all of dol's resources to bear for america's veterans. one important components of the commission migs is homeless veterans program. which provides grants to organizations to assist in resbig rating veterans in meaningful employment. also provides wrap around services to link homeless veterans with health care and housing opportunities provided by our partners. while hvrp is like a canoe compared to the programs at the va and hud offers, it serves a critical mission of ending homelessness among veterans. each participant receives employment and training service such as occupational, classroom and on the job training to address his or her specific barriers to employment. the hvrp program succeeds because of the hard work and local connections of our grantees like u.s. vets and the collaborative efforts of our government partners at the federal and state levels. two weeks ago i had the humbling experience of touring a grant ees along skid row in los angeles, california. while there i heard about jeremy, an honorably discharged marine corps veteran. he had been incarcerated for seven years and began working with the grantee volunteers of america. jeremy's counselor worked with him for a career plan and within four days of enrolling in the program jeremy got a job at the socal construction company and since starting his wages have increased from $12 to $14 an hour. fy-2017, the program received an appropriations of $45 million. that provided services to over 16,000 homeless veterans. with a placement rate of 67% and an average salary of $12.88 an hour. the fastest growing segment of the veteran population are women. funds are used to serve them along with veterans with families and incarcerated veterans. we also support stand down events where we partner with federal and state agencies, local businesses and social service providers to offer critical services to homeless veterans. additionally to assist with the hurricane harvey relief efforts, veteranses for three stand down events in houston, texas, serving a total of 756 homeless veterans. i'd be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to highlight a challenge we face. the statutory definition of homeless veteran. if jeremy who i mentioned earlier had first received permanent housing from one of our counterparts, at 11:59 p.m. on monday, he would not be eligible to apply for the programs at 12:01 a.m. on tuesday. and thus not able to take advantage of our employment services. studies have shown that barriers to employment still exist after immediate housing needs are met. and individuals still run a risk of becoming homeless again. vets 2016 annual report to congress proposes a solution to this and i'd like to work with you to further discuss how we can rectify this problem. chairman, ranking members, and distinguishing me believed of the subcommittee, department of labor's committed to the goal of ending veterans homelessness and working with you, our federal partners and the interagency counsel to ensure the continued success of our efforts. this concludes my statement. thank you again for the opportunity to testify today. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. miller. we now yield five minutes to mrs. blom. >> thank you. good afternoon. good afternoon to you, chairman arrington, chairman wenstrup, ranking member brownly and ranking member o'rourke and members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to discuss the efforts of the department and housing urban development and dwol partners for ending veterans homs. i'm dominique blom, a career senor official and for the office of public and indian housing at hud. my office is responsible for the hud bash program. hud is committed to working towards the goal of ending veterans homelessness with international and local partners maximizing the collective resources. thanks to funding of congress, we have made remarkable progress. hud's general homeless programs run by hud's office of community planning and development pra vid about $2.4 billion annually to help homelessness primarily of permanent supportive housing. 97 million of these funds serve approximately 17,000 veterans through the continuum of care program including 10,000 veterans with disabilities. thousands more veterans are served with rapid rehousing, emergency shelter and other assistance. my office administers the hud bash program with housing choice voucher rental assistance from hud of case management and clinical services provided by the va. this program is one of our most effective tools at reducing veterans homelessness. since 2008, over 131,000 veterans and their families have used a hud bash voucher for safe, stable housing and as of september over 77,000 veterans were housing through hud vash. shortly awarding approximately 550,000 new hud vouchers with additional $40 million appropriated last year. although we have seen incredible results through the program, we continue to make changes to address local needs. first, hud is changing the distribution of homeless veterans between hud and the va for a process to recapture unused vouchers and reallocate them to high need cities. second, we have awarded 4,700 vouchers as project based vouchers allowing for the development of affordable housing and high cost areas. third, we are encouraging public housing authorities to project base the existing hud vouchers which was made easier through modernization act of 2016. these efforts dpon zrat our commitment to optimizing the effectiveness and allowing for local flexibility. in addressing homeless veterans population. building on the success, congress appropriated $5.9 million in 2015 for the tribal hud pilot program to begin addressing veterans homelessness in indian country. as of last week, 299 native american veterans were receiving case management and of those 234 were already housed under the program. one of the lessons learned from the tribal hud demonstration in the indian housing need study is homelessness looks different in indian country. as tribes face severe housing shortages, close family ties result in overcrowding as families live with other families. the tribal hud program has become instrumental to get families into appropriately sized homes. when army infantry specialist returned to his reservation in arizona, he found himself sharing one room with his girlfriend and six children. but after receiving a hud voucher, his family now lives in a four-bedroom apartment. while most communities across the country showed a decline in veterans homelessness, sharp increases were in a few areas of extremely high housing cost needs and that led to the overall increase. based on the 2017 point in time count veterans homelessness increased by 1.5% between 2016 and '17. but the larger story here is that veterans homelessness has climbed by historic 46% since 2010. and the results are largely due to the success of the hud vash program. perhaps one of the best examples of federal partnership. together hud and the va and the u.s. interagency counsel on homelessness implemented a joint decision making structure to administer the policies and programs related to hud veterans homelessness and standards to evaluate whether communities endeded homelessness and since 2014, more than 880 state and local officials set the goal of ending veterans homelessness and as of january 11th, 60 communities across 30 states have achieved this goal. this is an amazing accomplishment. in conclusion, we must continue to find ways to maximize effectiveness of hud vash program and work to bring critical housing and health resources to veterans and assisting communities of utilizing all available homelessness resources. thank you very much for facilitating this work and i welcome any questions you may have. >> thank you, ms. blom. dr. lynch, you now have five minutes. >> thank you. good afternoon, chairman wenstrup. ranking members and members of the subcommittees. i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the va's commitment to ending homelessness among veterans. i'm accompanied by dr. keith harris, clinical -- director of clinical operations for va's homeless programs office. let me state up front, va remains committed to ending veteran homelessness and is working in close collaboration of our partners to ensure that veterans have permanent, sustainable housing with access to high quality health care and other supportive services. va and our partners at the department of housing and urban development and the u.s. interagency counsel on homelessness have developed systematic protocols for ending veteran homelessness which include the identification of all veterans experiencing homelessness, the ability to provide shelter immediately and the capacity to help veterans swiftly move into permanent housing. the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in the united states has declined by nearly one half since 2010. this is an unprecedented decline both as it relates to ending homelessness in this country and other public health efforts. to date, 60 communities across 30 states have achieved the goal of effectively ending veteran homelessness. over 600,000 veterans and their family members have been assured housing through hud's targeted vouchers and va's homeless programs. va has dramatically increased the number of services available to veterans that focus on housing, clinical care and social services as well as resources aimed at preventing homelessness. overall, the message is positive and important. communities in partnership with va are preventing and reducing veteran homelessness. recently, va proposed to reallocation of specific purpose to general purpose funding. this shift did include funding of the vash program. the goal to give facilities greater flexibility in the effective use of budget to reduce homelessness reflecting local variations in the use of resources. this unfortunately resulted in unnecessary confusion. please, be assured that our commitment to veteran homelessness remains unchanged. there will be no change in funding to support our homeless programs until we solicit further input from the congressional colleagues, our external stakeholders and local va leaders. over the next several months va will engauge in a formal interagency process for further input to ensure that any realignment of funds best supports our nation's veterans. va's way forward is to implement the strategic plan to end veteran homelessness. important objectives include enhancing integrated services for homeless veterans struggling with suicide risk and substance abuse, addressing high need communities by recapturing and reallocating available resours, emphasizing employment outcomes and committing to efforts in local communities. to expand on these objectives, 57% of veterans who are at risk of homelessness or are currently homeless have a mental health diagnosis and 46% have a substance use disorder. our homeless program is working closely with our mental health and suicide prevention officers to respond to these clinical priorities. va's efforts must comprehensive be linked to all community efforts, as well. we heard this in the first panel. one size does not fit all when it comes to ending homelessness. all va medical centers are now required to work with their local communities to develop and operate a coordinated entry center and system for all homeless individuals including veterans. this insures coordination of community wide services for veterans experiencing homelessness, system wide awareness of available housing and services, and easy access to an appropriate priorization for resources. after six years of consistent progress, hud's 2016 point in time count shows a continued decline in homelessness in most communities. but stalled progress in others due largely to high rent and low vacancy rates. we are promoting housing and working with all partners to encourage aims of additional housing stock. when veterans are at risk for homelessness, va and its federal, state and community partners must work together to rapidly connect them with appropriate assistance to provide housing stability. sustaining the momentum and preserving the gains made so far requires continued attention, collaboration and investment of financial resources. mr. chairman, this concludes my testimony. my colleague and i are prepared to any questions. >> thank the panelists for their remarks. we'll go in reverse order. mr. higgins for five moneys. the gentleman from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panelists for appearing today. regarding this crucial issue that challenges our nation. mr. miller, particularly, like to ask you, sir, and i thank you and secretary acosta for your commitment through the department of labor. to what extent do you coordinate homelessness programs like job training to prevent unnecessary due policetive process? particularly asking because one of our challenges as we have heard today from both panels is funding. and in the effort to protect the people's treasure, and yet, provide the needed services for our veterans, we -- it's -- you know, we are duty bound to find areas where there's duplicitive services that may not be necessary. to what extent do you coordinate programs and are there similar programs operated by dol and va that absolutely need to be operated separately? would you address that, mr. miller? >> well, congressman, of course as i stated in my testimony, or oral statement, we do a collaborative effort very much so with the va, with hud, with fema, with other organizations, as well as the interagency on homelessness but when a grant ee for an hvrp program is as -- puts forth an application, one of the things that they have to have in an application is a strategy of how they're going to work with agencies such as the va and hud and overcome housing and health care needs of the individual. we use things such as va supportive services for veterans families. that's encouraged the grant per diem program, hud's veterans housing program, that was mentioned or continuing of care. in addition to the -- you mentioned about the federal level. but we also work with states and local levels to do that as well as our grantees. we provided about $45 million for grantees all over the country, nationwide in both rural and urban settings, for about 155 grantees all over the country and we also urge them to work together. i mean, that's what makes our program such a success is the collaborative efforts of the grantees an partners. >> thank you for that very thorough response. shift gears in the remaining time to regarding the services provided for incarcerated veterans. it's a good program. how is funding anding for that? are you able to touch the local, state and federal jails where veterans are incarcerated and provide these services? just give the committee, please, an overview of where you are on that program. >> yes, sir. we provide actually incarcerated veterans transition program that we use where we provide grants to incarcerated population. unfortunately, we are aware there -- this could be duplicative of states and department of corrections within states so that's something that we take in consideration but we do provide grants for folks to go in and work with incarcerated veterans. >> thank you again for that answer. i yield the balance of my time, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. higgins. we now yield five minutes to mr. peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman, for calling on this end of the bench. like christmas in january. appreciate that. i had some questions for ms. blom if i could about the hud vash. i think you heard the comments may before to the previous panel. will r there any actions that hud is taking to attract the mortgage disparities with the hud vash program? >> yes. thank you very much for the question. we definitely have seen particularly in west coast cities, those in california as well as in seattle, that there has been an increase in veterans homelessness. largely driven by decrease of affordable housing and high costs of living in those cities. so we have recognized this. we do believe that there are some potential solutions here. first, we believe that it's important for housing authorities to be working with the partners to proverdict base these vouchers. >> right. >> and now vash vouchers for project basing and made more easier as a result of changes congress made in 2016. we'll continue to encourage the project basing of these vouchers so that there's a development of affordable housing and that it's available long term for veterans. secondly, we're also changing and allowing housing authorities flexibility for their payment standards so they can go above a certain amount that hud generally provides for housing. going above that in these high cost areas. and then third, we are also encouraging that housing authorities provide additional landlord outreach, finding landlords that will be more willing to serve veterans. >> i know there's a cap on the project based vouchers of 20% s. that something you're considering raising or if not why not? >> so, just in the last two years hud now has the flexibility to allow housing authorities to go above that 20% cap. so hud vash vouchers are part of that pool of vouchers that housing authorities now can project base without approval of the department? >> made at the local level? >> yes that is. >> okay, great. and do you -- can you tell me how hud vash vouchers expire in 120 days? have you considered extending that? >> when we say that it expires, it expires for that particular service member. >> right. >> that voucher then would go back to the housing authority and that housing authority once it receives a referral from va would be able to reissue that voucher. but i think what you're asking, is there a possibility to extend the 120-day period for that particular veteran? we'll look into that. >> i understand there might be a reason behind it. it may present different circumstances. i don't know. >> precisely. >> are you satisfied that local agencies are taking advantage of this flexibility about project basing vouchers? if not, is there a way that we can help them understand the benefit of that? >> benefit of that? >> particularly, in l.a., we'll have concentrated efforts occurring there. we were a little taken aback by the increase in the point in time count for veterans' homelessness in l.a. we know we need to do concentrated outreach to the housing authorities in the l.a. region to talk about targeted ways that we can be increasing the success rate of vouchers there, and project basing is certainly one of those solutions? >> i really appreciate the testimony. thanks for being here, and we want to encourage your continued attention to housing the veterans that we have on the streets and we look forward to working with you on that. >> absolutely. >> i yield back. >> thank you, mr. peters. we now yield five minutes to the health committee, subcommittee chair, mr. brad winstrom. >> dr. lynch, question for you. how many veteran getting out of dod are homeless within the first five years or so? >> honestly don't have the answer for that, do you have an estimate. >> we are looking at the transitioning service members from dod and following them down to va and assessing homeless rate, but we are very early in the process. >> you are in the process? i think it's a key number to figure out, right? what is the problem here. why does this occur? it kind of reminds me, you see situations of a child who presents the emergency room with a cough. you treat the cough and they get a little better and three weeks later they're back with the same cough. at some point you want to go into the home and figure out why they're getting the cough and that's why you find out you get a mold growing and this is important information especially because it's current and it's now. so this goes back to what we want to do or considered doing in the transition process. so if the majority of people are homeless within the first three years, you know, why did that happen? what was missing from when they left that we can get them on the right track before they even take off the uniform. i hope that this is something and you can affirm this or not that you are definitely trying to track as best you possibly can. i know sometimes those numbers are hard to track people when they leave, but as best you can, i hope that that's the process taking place. >> can i just make a couple of follow-up statements? >> sure. i think number one it really emphasizes the importance of prevention which is a process that the homeless program is focusing on now. two aspects of that and one preventing veterans going back into homelessness and second, preventing veterans back into homelessness and we've initiated two programs now and initially focused on suicide prevention and one is for care, where we're actually reaching out to veterans after they transition and offering them help in terms of completing the enrollment process and offering them the opportunity to schedule an appointment at their va. the president's recent executive order also focused on the transitioning service member and that's going to begin taking a look at how we begin to provide services to that transitioning service member and how we begin to integrate with dod which is another point that's come out throughout this hearing. >> that's what we're interested in as you can tell is moving that time line. okay, want until after the problem exists, but how can we get there before it exists to make sure that it doesn't and so my question is do you have at this point is -- do you have walls in front of you from dod or whoever or whatever the case may be, are there obstacles in your way to achieving that goal of getting as close as you can to the veteran as soon as you can? >> i think we are in a position now probably better than we have ever been to collaborate with dod and begin to look at how we provide services to the transitioning service member and begin to address problems whether it's suicide prevention and homelessness to treat them earlier before they get to homelessness or suicide risk. >> can you describe the relationship that's starting to form then, between va and dod? >> we have recently recruited within the suicide prevention program, dr. kitta franklin who comes directly from dod and is going to be helping us to reach out and collaborating with dod and integrate the programs that both va and dod have, and just real quick it's been said in your testimony and have zero homelessness and netzero homelessness and what does that mean for the future? does that mean, we don't need to do more in those communities or is this in your opinion a constant light that needs to be on. i think it gets back to the issue of zero homelessness and i think it's a continuing problem. we have to continue to be on the alert for homeless veterans. we have to be able to provide them immediate shelter whether that's transitional housing or permanent housing and we have to provide them the wrap around support that keeps them in housing and keeps them from going back to homelessness. i think it's an ongoing effort. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield five minutes to my ranking member. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. lynch, a couple of the witnesses on the previous panel including mr. martin from el paso mentioned case manager at the client ratios that are way out of whack from best practices that should be one to 25. mr. martin mentioned el paso and he may have one to 200 and one to 250. what's the answer to that and who is responsible and how do we get that back down to a manageable level and you had your answer by dr. winstrom by talking about the importantance wrap an wrap around. >> there is no unique answer and should we be at one to 25? >> um, i think we -- >> is that open for debate? >> i think we need to understand the community. we need to understand the veteran. some veterans may, in fact, have greater support than other veterans. >> if we don't have the benchmark and i don't know what to measure against and give me context and i feel like they made a very good case in having active case management includes the likelihood that the veteran will transition out of homelessness and you seem to dispute that there may be a benchmark. >> i think i'm saying that trying to put a number on it is a difficult thing. >> if you don't put a number on it we can never measure it. >> some veterans may actually need greater support and as veterans become more acclimated to home and to employment and community they may need less support. >> i would love a better answer from you and the v.a. so i'll submit that for the record and i hop you can get me back something that we can measure and act upon, otherwise we're taking subjective measurement or it's different in each case and i don't know that we'll get the resources to those community providers who are telling us. you just heard them right now saying they don't have what they need to take care of these veterans and improve their chances of escaping homelessness and living to their full potential. i'm going to switch to a different subject. many of the panelists also mentioned the connection to access to health care. there was a recent announcement by the president and the secretary of the va about improved access to mental health care. i want to ask you, does that specifically include veterans who have an honorable discharge and by extension will that allow those veterans that have a bad discharge to access the hud voucher program which today they cannot? >> right now we are aiming to try to focus on every veteran who is transitioning. right now we can address about 40% of them because of eligibility. we're going to need to explore the issue of other than honorable and dishonorable and how we're going to address those veterans. i think there is an opportunity working with hud to give vouchers to veterans with other than honorable discharge because we can work with the community to provide the wraparound services. we also, i believe, have the opportunity to work with ssvf to provide care for veterans who may receive other than honorable discharge. >> want to make sure that i nail down the specifics with those answers and will veterans be eligible for the hud voucher program? >> do you want to respond? >> yes. thank you. i can address that. we have had a partnership with va to start piloting a program to have a portion of those hud vouchers other than honorable discharge members and this is decided on the local level with the va medical center as well as a continuum of care partner that provides them those wraparound services and the case management and that referral has come to the local public housing authority. we today have two housing authorities and localities that are participating in this pilot. >> how many veterans have less than honorable discharge status are participating in this program? in this pilot program. >> i'll be able to get that information back to you after this hearing. >> okay. i appreciate that -- >> congressman, would you mind if dr. harris just commented briefly? >> not at all. please. >> i appreciate the question about the staffing and understand the concerns about that, and i don't want to speak for the prior panelists and i don't believe he was speaking about the hud program and speaking about the 200-1 ratio that does not exist in the progr program. the positions are funded on one to 25 and instead of hiring one gs-12 social worker they might hire two peers or something like that. el paso is at 100% staffing and one of the rare medical centers and staffing is not a challenge there and their vouchers are well utilized, as well. >> so the point that i took from that and i'll see to the chair that there are want enough resources dedicated to support services which includes funding the appropriate case manager to client ratio and it's making it harder for those providers to extend mental health care, transportation, family care to their clients that in turn, helps them to transition out of homelessness. if i'm using the wrong nomenclature, let me know. i want to resolve the discrepancy saying, we're at one to 250. somewhere there is a breakdown and i would love to find out who is responsible not to punish them, but to make sure that we get the resources to those providing the care in the community where there is a gap right now. and i just want to thank the previous panel for hanging out. it looks like we'll wrap this one up soon and the fact that we're in the same room and maybe we can quickly get together and resolve what the discrepancy is and come up with the solution with el paso and some of these other communities and i'll yield back to the chair. thank you. >> thank the ranking member and that's an excellent line of questioning. i will yield five minutes now to the other ranking member for the health committee, miss brownlee. >> thank you, dr. lunch for stating on the record that there will be no funding transferred to general purpose funds. >> can i also just add the corolary that the secretary is committed to gettingic put not only from our federal partners, but also from our community partners, as well, and our stakeholders. i think this program is now ten years old and it's time that we need to have a critical re-evaluation and i think what i took from the first panel was the fact that there are different ways to manage problems in different communities. we need to hear that. we need to understand it and we need to figure out how we adapt our programs to be more effective. >> i couldn't agree more, and i welcome that interaction with our community partners and hope to have the discussion here, as well. so -- but thank you for stating that on the record because i think that people were concerned that that was happening today. so anyway, i wanted to go back. we've been talking a lot about the hud vash vouchers. i represent a little bit of los angeles county, but i represent all of ventura county and we have the issue of expensive housing, and that's an issue for us. what another issue has been is that our housing authority in the city of ventura has been told by the va that the vouchers can only -- they have some outstanding vouchers and right now the city of ventura is only using 67% of the vouchers that are allocated to them or the funding allocated to them. so what the va has been telling them is that those vouchers can only go to chronically homeless veterans, and i want to know if that's true or not and if it is true, to be chronically homeless, you have to be, you know, out on the street for a long period of time. it's almost like you have to be on the street for a year before you can even qualify to be chronically homeless, at least based on my understanding of that definition. so could you speak to that? >> i'm going to ask dr. hair toys speak for va. >> we do concur on the numbers here and our number is 70% utilization and it is clear that utilization is low in vent you area county and part of that is the result is part of lower staffing and there is an effort to recruit for that. in the terms of the question about chronic homelessness, it is true that hud vash is targeted to the homeless population and that's the population that most needs that intensive support. it is not true that vouchers can only be allocated or given to chronically homeless. that's a message we need to correct with that medical center and we will. >> well, we don't have a medical center in the county of ventura. >> sorry. greater l.a. and the supervisory chain is what i mean. >> very good. very good. so i think clearing that up will be very, very helpful and i do applaud miss bloom, what you're talking about in terms of the vouchers or unused projects as well as high-need areas and providing that flexibility is very good, but i want to make sure that in a county like ventura county that they can utilize their vouchers because the need is there before they would give up those vouchers to another area, but i wanted to follow up on mr. peters' line of questioning with the project-based opportunities. he was saying it's capped at 20%, but you were saying that's eliminated and the local housing authority and local government can decide we want to use all of our vouchers are used for project based. >> housing authorities can use all of their hud vash vouchers for project basing. there is no longer a cap on that measure. >> and that information is out to housing authorities throughout the country? >> we believe it is. if you have specific instances where you we haven't communicated that. >> i will certainly check in with our housing authority to the see if they understand that. in terms of homelessness and high-cost areas, so has there been any conversations about raising, you know, raising the level of the vouchers so it can be competitive in these expensive marketplaces? >> yes. we currently allow housing authorities to go up to what we call 110% of the payment standa standard and where housing authorities believe they have more flexibility and we will consider that on a case by case basis, and i think housing authorities in the high-need, high-cost areas would be able to make a compelling argument for that. >> and is there anything new coming forward in terms of addressing suicide, but particularly for female veteran suicide which we know is 20 times higher than the rate of suicide attempts and -- excuse me. the suicide rate amongst women veterans is exponentially higher than suicide amongst civilian women and is there anything new in terms of trying to address homelessness for women and certainly homelessness for women and their children. any new opportunities? i know -- i have a bill and there are other bills out there and is hud looking at other opportunities? so at this point the department hasn't targeted an additional population specifically to focus on and our current areas of focus don't include women veterans at this point, but just recently there had been conversations within hud about trying to look to see what kinds of resources we could potentially dedicate for female veterans. >> thank you, dr. lynch. any comments? >> i would add that va is in the process of really re-engineering a suicide prevention program, trying to move -- trying to continue our emphasis on those in immediate rick, but trying to move a little further to the left to understand those high-risk groups and women would certainly be included in those high-risk groups as are homelessness and the goal is to begin focus outreach to those groups that could potentially become at risk for suicide over time. so i think, yes, va is beginning to look at this and they're beginning to look at it in terms of targeted populations. >> very good. i'm over my time again. i apologize and i yield back. >> want to thank the gentle lady for her questions and now yield five minutes to mr. takano. >> mr. lynch shz, as we heard from service providers earlier this morning the hud program is very successful at housing veterans and giving them the support services that they need and the hud vash program is helping veterans rebuild their lives. my colleague from pennsylvania and representative boyle has a bill to improve oversight of hud vash contracts. it's a straightforward bill that requires the va to give notice to congress before a contract expires to help prevent lapses and service for veterans and supported by vss and pva. are you familiar with this bill? >> only vaguely having heard about it this morning and va is looking into the bill and we don't have specific positions right now. can you tell me as to the core intent of the bill. do you agree that congressional notification is a straightforward fix to help reduce lapses in service for veterans. >> without having looked at the whole bill, congressman, i'm really reluctant to comment -- >> i'm not asking you to agree with the whole bill, but the principle of a timely notification to congress that a program would lapse or funding would lapse and the oversight role is enabled here? >> i would submit that it is always important to commune kate with congressional colleagues particularly with issues that arise in their district. >> with regard to homeless services that are about to lapse and that are about to -- because the fund is expiring. shouldn't congress know about that? shouldn't congress be informed, hey, this program is about to end and or run out of funding here. shouldn't we be notified about that? >> i guess i'm trying to understand that this relates to the review that recently occurred of some of our homeless programs and the fact that it's -- >> many i shoudnldn't say fundi. shouldn't it be required to help prevent lapses in service to veterans and it's about a contract expiring, but a contract expiring with a provider. >> at this point, i guess i'm going to have to defer and say until we've had a further chance to look at the bill, i'm going reserve my opinion at this time. >> well, thank you. well, thank you. let me move on to another question. in october 2013, the va identified approximately 168,000 enrolled veterans with an hcv diagnosis and given the diagnosis -- given the advancements in hep-c treatments in 2017 the va has been able to successfully treat 84,000 veterans. while the va continues to work through the list of known veteran, what is va doing to identify the untreated pool that may still exist out there specifically at-risk homeless veterans? >> we are actively working in the communities with our vso partners to try to encourage veterans to come forward for testing. this is our creurrent emphasis increase outreach to identify those veterans who haven't come forward to be identified. >> well, thank you. i assume that there's adequate resources to be able to try and find the veterans. >> we are successfully partnering with a number of our vso associates to try to encourage that outreach into the community. >> in early 2017, the secretary laid out his top five priorities and these included one greater choice to modernize in the system and three, strengthening foundational services and four, timeliness of services and five, suicide prevention. of note, given the topic of this hearing is the fact that homelessness is missing. since late between the 09, they've made homelessness a priority and as a result, veterans experiencing homelessness have been cut nearly in half. in 2017, hud's annual survey found that veteran homelessness had increased by 1.5% over 2016 figures. do you believe the agency' downgrading of veteran homelessness is having a direct impact on its ability to help the at-risk population. i believe it's downgraded the emphasis and identifying and treating our homeless veterans. >> even as -- even as veteran homelessness has increased and 1.5% and the secretary has not included this in the top priorities and you can say that with a straight face to me? >> yes, i can, sir. >> can you back that up? 1.5% over the 2016 figures, the facts contradict what you're saying to me. >> i think what we know is that there have been circumstances in certain communities that relate to high rent and the decreased availability to housing that we're working on aggressively and va continues to be committed to the homeless program and to basically to ending -- not ending, but addressing homelessness among our veterans, yes, i do, congressman. >> well, i would say that the statistics show otherwise and i haven't -- i'm not satisfied with your answer, sir. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. takano. are there follow-up questions from my colleagues? i'm going to take a few minutes and follow up with some questions. you mentioned, dr. lynch, the term permanent housing. explain what that means? >> right now there's two options when we house veterans and i may ask dr. hair toys basically expand on this a little bit. there is a process by which we put a veteran into transitional housing, surround him with some supportive services and then attempt to move him into permanent housing on a legal basis. there is another model where we try to move the veteran into a permanent housing situation and wrap the services around him at that time. >> sir, i'll ask you the same question i ask your partners and your community partners. what is success? when it comes to addressing homelessness in the veteran community? i think success can be defined as identifying a home for veterans, number one. putting the services in place to keep that veteran in a home and trying to find employment to make that veteran self-sufficient moving forward and it's having an aggressive prevention strategy that keeps veterans in the home and prevents new veterans from entering homelessness. >> i think that's well articulated, those sort of stages of success and ultimately the outcome seems -- the desired outcome is a self-sustainability and self-sufficiency. what is the rate of success with respect to the ultimate outcome desired outcome for everybody i've listened to in this discussion which is self-sustainability of the veteran? >> keith, would you like to give an answer to that? >> there are better numbers that i might be able to give? >> well, if i'm following the question, are you asking for a percentage that, for instance is housed and sustained without a subsidy, for instance? >> so you identified this person as homeless, this veteran. you have done this necessary wrap around services to stabilize or rehabilitate and you transitioned them into temporary assistance and now they are completely self-sufficient? >> sure. it's an incredibly important question especially as we look at the long-term sustainability of our efforts. a couple of things. there are a ilin onways we can go with that and just give me a couple. >> just give me one. >> if you look, for instance, which is the largest of the transitional housing programs, by far. two-thirds of the veterans that exit to permanent housing do so without subsidy, without a voucher and rapid housing assistance and that's important especially when you heard from mr. beck and he's one of the big gpd providers about the importance of employment. that is one place where we're seeing independence. >> which program is that? >> that was grant per diem. >> okay. point being there are successes through these programs that are not requiring subsidy. >> could you give me the same outcome measurement for all of the measure aments. >> not off the top of my head. >> could you get them? >> yes. >> i would like the outcome of self-sufficiency once you've identified a homeless veteran and you've helped them matriculate through the program that you've had that you're responsible for. >> yeah. if i can add one piece. >> yeah. >> i'm interpreting this as primarily a question about employment and it may not be entirely that. employment's not a goal, not necessarily a feasible goal for everybody we serve and about a third of the veterans we see are disabled at the point of assessment any if we add in retired and the number gets up much higher. >> maybe the way to do it is those that are able to be self-sufficient, what is our success rate because i recognize that there are situations where there are none. >> roughly half of the veterans entering the hud vash who are able and searching for, do, in fact obtain employment and that's a sizeable chunk and we'd like that to be higher. >> for everybody, what is the accountability and i'm not picking on anybody. i just think we have to define success. we have to measure that and then to know which of the 20-some-odd programs are working and i'm not -- against spending more money if a program is working towards our desired outcome to give veterans the help they need in self-sufficiency, but in addition to those things and the right partners and by the way, i do think at least for me, those who are closest to the problem are going to be best able to solve that and so i put a lot of faith in the community partners in regard to these programs and the program success, but another driver and success of effective programs and services, would be accountability, and that's the accountability of the panel that preceded you all, and that's the accountability of the veteran and what they are asked to do and what eligibility and whether it's time limitations or work requirements or whatever it is, and can you talk about the accountability measures built into this with respect to the key stakeholders and our veteran and our community partners and providers. i'll start with you and go down the line and i'll wrap up. >> mr. chairman, thank you. >> with hvrp programs there is accountability built in and we monitor our grantees on a regular basis, and subject them to just criteria and if they don't meet their criteria, we set them up on the action plan, corrective action plan to make sure that we work with them and that we partner with other folks to work with them and to make sure that they deliver the services that are needed to the specification of the grant in which we gave them money for. and that's an hvrp and we don't measure homelessness as much as we measure how many people get a job. and so for the secretary, he talks about job, jobs, jobs, and that would be our goal. the basic goal of the department of labor is making sure veterans homelessness is rare and non-reoccurring and brief. >> over 60% job placement is what i understand -- >> yes, sir. >> that's remarkable. i must say that i was blown away by that statistic, and i would like to drill down at another time. if that's, in fact, the success rate them i think we've identified one program that's -- that we might make a greater investment in because ultimately you can't sustain a home if you don't have a job. so kudos to you guys if again, that mesh sur accurate and i don't have any reason to believe it's not. >> accountability? >> do you believe it's there sufficiently in their programs. >> we hold our housing authorities accountable for the utilization of the vash vouchers. nationwide, we have an 88% utilization rate which means that 88% of the funding that has been providing to those housing authorities is actually being used to house veterans. another 5% of funding going up now to 93% of all of the funding available is in the hands of veterans, but not yet in the form of housing for them. these are veterans that are searching for housing. so we do believe in 93% success rate is very good in the program. of course, we want to the see that tick up and particularly in the high-cost areas such as l.a. >> when you say 93% success rate, what does that measure again? what? >> it's the measurement of funding that is being expended to house veterans and today that's 88% of all funding that the department has dedicated to the hud vash program is being used to house veterans and as a result of that we have 77,000 veterans that are currently housed and another 5% of that funding is in the hands of veterans to be able to search for a house so that they can live in a stable. >> do you know of the 93% that you give assistance to for housing and how many of those individuals move off of federal assistance who can sustain their own housing? >> so today we rely on the va for those types of statistics. the va, as i understand, tracks exits of vash vouchers either as positive, neutral or a negative outcome as a result of ending their participation in the vash program. >> dr. lynch, you get the last word. >> pretty much, we are tracking how many are successful following involvement in the programs and we track how many do not get housed and also importantly, we track how many fall back into homelessness and these are solid numbers and we're able to track those for our programs across the country. >> one last question, if my colleagues will indulge me here. kind of a rapid-round closure and we'll start on this end and mr. mill, you close this out. what is not -- everybody comes putting their best foot and presentation forward and i appreciate that and i'll bet there is success and some may be more wildly successful than others, but i -- i just have to believe there's something that's not working and so i'm a continual improvement guy myself and there are a lot of things not working in my own operation i'd like to fix. so could you tell me what's not working about your program where we can help you, if not -- if we can't help you, just tell me that you're working on it and to a greater avail to our veterans. >> dr. harris would like to start and i would like to follow. >> real quick, ten seconds. >> think the bigger one is a lack of prevention and too many people are falling into homelessness and it's a broader failure of the societal system and we need to go upstream. >> that may address some of the discussion around tap if we make that more robust and effective. >> i would say briefly that i think our greatest opportunity is to look at how we can partner more effectively and particularly with the community and learn from their experience and incorporate that into our program overall. >> miss blum? >> i will focus vash, and there was a senate bill introduced senate 1333 that would permanently authorize the primal vash program that would help communities be able to project base those vouchers and again, produce stable housing for veterans long term in indian country. >> thank you, miss blum, mr. miller, final word. >> mr. chairman, as stated in the 2016 annual report to congress, one of the things that we would like to work with you on is the technical amendment to the term homeless veteran to include recently housed. we estimate if that were changed we would be able to serve 10,000 more veterans. homeless veterans. >> okay. well, god bless you guys and thanks for coming and there are no further questions and the panel is now e kxcused and they revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material and without object, so ordered. this hearing is now adjourned. tonight, president trump will give his first state of the union address to a joint session of congress. c-span coverage begins at 8::00 p.m. eastern with a preview of the address followed by the state of the union at 9:00. white house press secretary sarah sanders announced the guests who will be attending and sitting in the first lady's box tonight. >> i do want to make an announcement about one of the most important traditions, the guests who will be sitting in the first lady's box. i'll name a few of those individuals in a little bit about them. >> first, corey adams. corey is a skilled

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