subcommitt subcommittee. represents from advocacy and veterans service groups testified as well as officials with the departments of veterans affair, labor and housing and urban development. >> subcommittee will come to order. good morning, everyone. thank you for being here. it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's subcommittee, joint subcommittee on health and subcommittee on economic opportunity oversight hearing on veteran homelessness. want to apologize first for being a little late. i had another obligation in my responsibility on the budget committee, and my colleague, brad wenstrupu chair of the health subcommittee, will not be able to make it, so i'm going to preside. we have the vha subcommittee chair julie brownley and her capable leadership. thanks for being here. my friend from texas and ranking member on the subcommittee for economic opportunity is joining me as well. we have our chairman who's joining us. thank you, dr. roe, for coming. i want to begin also by asking for unanimous consent for congressman mike kauffman, 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. and so ordered. i'm going to cut through my -- open my remarks here and break from my customary reading of script and just say this is a subject that's heartbreaking. and when you look at the statistics on veteran homelessness and the underlying issues that our veterans struggle with, many and maybe mostly on account of the burden that they bore for us and for our country and for our freedom it's ju, it's just gut wrenching and 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 studied 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.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 homelessness over 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 that 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. okay. i'm going defer to you. i'm going to refer to you, ranking member brownley and ask that 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 homelessness 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 homeless female veterans encountered and have survived military sexual trauma. without the v.a., hud would not know how to treat the underlying trauma and injuries that mst could lead to. without hud, the v.a. would not have the housing assistance expertise necessary to ensure veterans receive permanent housing as part of their treatment. 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 by working together, we can build on the gains we made over the last seven years which saw 3 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 wraparound 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 brownley. 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 brownley, i want to thank you and the staffs that work with 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 chairman roe is here, the fact that members who are not even on the committees of jurisdiction have asked to have the privilege of sitting here and being helpful as we try to address this issue of homelessness which is not provocative, isn't sensational, doesn't grab headlines. it's not one of those things that people are on late night tv screaming at each other about, but it could not be more important. the fact that we're able to work together and do what's important much the way we addressed access to mental health, meeting the crisis of veteran suicide head-on, make bing progress in that very important underserved area. i feel we'll be able to do the same thing. the only thing, mr. chairman, i can add to your comments, you say it's because of the generosity of the taxpayer we have the opportunity to do this work. it's also thanks to the service of those veterans whose service we are honoring by our commitment to make sure none of home' are homeless, we get that down to zero. in every sick singngle one of o communities. need to make sure it's the resources, to your point, the oversight, the accountability, followthrough to make sure the programs are working. i'm pleased we have such an important panel before us. those who understand and work on this issue directly who are going to be able to inform the policy that we make here and improve our level of oversight and the accountability from the v.a. and the federal government. and lastly, i just want to thank mr. john martin from the opportunity center in el paso as someone who makes this flight every single week, i know how hard it is to get from el paso to washington, d.c. i know you almost didn't make it due to some problems with some of those connections. so the fact you'd take some time out of what you're doing, the important work in serving veterans in el paso to be here and help us, just know we're grateful and i extend that gratitude to everyone on this panel. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. o'rourke. now we'll get to our first panel. i'd like to welcome you guys again this morning. thank you for making time for this very important issue. we're honored to have you here. let's start with the john f. chansy, president and chief executive officer of the tri-state veterans community alliance which is located in cincinnati, ohio. mr. clancy, thanks for being here today and representing the ohioans you serve, angela f. williams is 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 w. martin, the development director for the opportunity center. and finally, kathryn monet, chief executive officer for the national coalition of homeless veterans. thank you for being here. mr. clancy, start with you. we now recognize you for five minutes. >> good morning, ladies and gentlemen, my name is john clancy. aisle an air force veteran. i serve as president and ceo of the tri-state veteran community alliance, or tvcs, in cincinnati, ohio. thank you for inviting me to testify at this important hearing regarding support for our veterans in need. as an independent veteran-led non-profit 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's meaningfully serviced 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 storytelling event for veterans to share their journey with local citizens. to ensure success within our work group and pilot programs, we leverage our united way 201 call center and facilitate data sharing efforts inside and outside our region. our efforts are characterized by the following aspects. we are proactive, seeking to engage veterans and their families before a crisis happens. we seek collaboration whenever possible. we work across sectors, we have many businesses involved in our efforts but also include social services, veteran organizations and all 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 distressed and/or homeless veteran population. based on our community need assessments, 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 tbca 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 commend blt and success bl. 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 homelessness by 50%. however, based on client trends seen in our region, we believe that client needs and demographic profile are beginning to show signs of moving from traditionally homeless individuals to those who are transitioning or at risk. to serve the new customer base we should not only focus on homeless veterans but also successful life transitions for at-risk veterans. to accomplish this shift in mindset, a broader set of outcomes need to be developed that involves not just housing attainment, but boosting veteran self-efficacy, development of clear personal goals, and developing or enhancing the motivation to succeed in the civilian world. for veterans in distress, there are several strategies that correspond to how soon or what level we engage. at the individual level, for those in acute distress, we need to ensure the right clinical levels of care are accessible and available. at a systemic level, we need to ensure existing organizations are communicating and strategizing across sectors including the continuums of care, medical centers, and other veteran wellness and support groups. finally, and ultimately, we need to ensure sure the transition system from military to civilian life is coordinated. veteran centered and resourced. this includes a greater level of information sharing, new and improved programming focused on proactive strength-building approaches. we believe that upstream regional veteran clab tollabora like the tcba in cincinnati, combined arms in houston, for example, are a key part of the solution. this collaborative approach allows the community to mainstream best practices, decrease competition and allow for the scaling up of efforts to support transitioning veterans. a coordinated community-based approach that brings together diverse sets of resources and identifies new opportunities across public and private sectors is needed. we applaud your review of the mix of programs available for veterans, assessing the correct mix for current needs and opportunities. in closing, we would like to stress, again, the importance of a relevant, trusted community organization that can initiate and sustain the conversation for aligning strategy on transition support, employment, and el w h wellness. thank you. >> thank you, mr. clancy. we now yield five minutes to miss williams. >> chairman arrington, ranking members brownley and o'rourke, members of the subcommittees, good morning, i'm angela williams, president and ceo of easter seals. a national network of non-profit organizations committed to helping veterans and others reach their full potential through local services and supports. i am also a proud veteran. thank you for inviting me to testify this morning on this hearing to assess the various programs designed to reduce veteran homelessness. easter seals has been actively serving veterans for more than seven decades. my testify will highlig employment and other supports needed for their successful community reintegration. in 2010, about the time easter seals started a new phase in its effort to help homeless veterans, our country's veteran homeless population grew to over 74,000. today that number has dropped nearly 46% due to strong collaboration between federal, state, and local partners and the complementary alignment of programs across various federal agencies. in my written testimony, i shared the 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 employment barriers that proved too difficult to overcome. defeated and homeless, she turned to a women's shelter where, thankfully, she was referred to easter seals for employment assistance. we leveraged our community partners to help paula with housing, resume development, interview preparation, obtaining the appropriate wardrobe and subway cards to get to job interviews. today paula is living indent. ly independently, working full time and contributing to her community. paula's story highlights the effective collaboration and alignment of the department of veteran affair's supportive services for veterans' families programs,de apartme department and urban development and v.a. supporting housing program, and the department of labor homeless veterans reintegration program or hvrp. it takes the strengths, resources and clap ration of many to help veterans succeed. easter seals' distinction in the national effort is to help homeless veterans find jobs. our expertise serving most in need job seekers made us a natural partner with the department of labor on its hvrp program which is employment focused and a perfect complement to the housing focus of hud and the v.a.'s supportive services for veterans' family program. the homeless veterans reintegration program taps into the existing community network by providing grants to local organizations. we provided hvrp employment services to nearly 1,200 homeless veterans last program year. and are proud how to share that 61% found jobs during that year with wages averaging from $10 to nearly $21 per hour. once unemployed and homeless, these veterans are work bing, paying taxes and contributing to their communities. their success represents a strong return on the hvrp federal investinvestment. easter seals is honored to be part of the solution in reducing veteran homelessness but our work is not finished. i include recommendations in my written testimony to build on the strong foundation congress set for addressing veteran homelessness. let me boil them down to two main points. one, congress should support full funding and long-term extension. easter seals supports the bipartisan effort to extend and expand hvrp. additional funding is necessary to meet the growing needs of the chronically homeless and hardest to serve veterans who will require more supports 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 wenstrup and ranking member brownley's bill. that expands veteran eligibility to services. congress should also 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 and ssvf. thank you for your time today. i'm pleased to answer any questions. >> thank you, miss williams. mr. peck, five minutes. >> good morning. my name is steven peck. i'm the president and ceo of u.s. vets. i'm also a vietnam veteran. i served with the first marine division in '69 and '70 and i've been working for homeless veterans since 1991. u.s. vets is the largest veteran-specific non-profit housing and service provider in the country providing housing and services to 3,300 veterans every night and providing homelessness prevention, employment, and mental health services to an additional 5,000 veterans in the communities that we serve. comprised of seven veteran non-profits that collectively provide housing and care to more than 25,000 veterans each year. despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent, numerous government policies and the best efforts of hundreds of communities, there are still more than 40,000 veterans living on our streets. and that number is rising across the nation. in california, the number of homeless veterans rose nearly 20% in 2017. and in los angeles, that number rose 57%. this is no time to be taking our eye off the ball. zee spi there was no longer an empl sha to get every veteran off the street, evident in two ways. first the proposal by the v.a. to take permanent housing support if dollars out of the special projects category where it's protected and placing the dollars into the general fund where medical directors can redirect it at will. while they said they will not shift these dollars, the vast funds remain in the general fund line item. second, v.a.'s overall management of the hud program, it's plagued by lack of accou accountability and inadequate outcome measures. today these factors can inhibit our abilities to get veterans off the streets and into permanent housing and provide case management and supportive services that will keep them there. the housing-first model requires a ratio of 25-1, addition willy, it requires access to assistance with a simple phone call 24 hours a day. we have project-based beds at five of our sites. v.a. social workers are consistently failing to -- the v.a. is required to provide three full-time case managers. we never have three. we rarely have two. our clinical staff picks up the slack. in a non-profit such as u.s. vets provided that level of coverage while contracted with the v.a., we would lose the contract. i've attached three letters to my written testimony from three different communities awarded the hud vouchers. two in california, one in florida. in each case, the v.a. has indicated that it does not have the resources to provide adequate case managed coverage for the number of hud vouchers awarded. the result is that the vouchers go unused while veterans languish on the streets. if i understand correctly, funding that congress appropriated to the v.a. specifically for vast case management positions is for some reason not available. veterans living on our streets need every dollar. if the vast program was turned into a grant program, non-profits would assume full responsibility, would spend every dollar appropriately and could be held to outcome measures that we are already meeting and exceeding. because our programs are residential, we have staff 24/7 and are used to responding to client issues day and night. u.s. vets provides case management, permanent supportive housing with a 92% retention rate. by contrast, the recent inspector general study reports a 70% success rate in the hudvash program. the study also states the reason the vast majority of those veterans exited the program was unknown. quote, as hud's systems do not have the capacity to track this information, unquote. this is just careless. homeless veterans' rate of attempted suicide is 20 times higher than the rate of suicide attempts among all veterans. they are plainly at risk and desperate for our help and with e need better data on how federal funding is serving our failing them. we've all been at this for a long time. you've put a lot of money into this. you might ask is your return on investment? my 25 years of experience tells me that if you pull back now, the number of homeless veterans on the street will continue to grow and they'll use the only services available to them, expensive mental health and medical services. they will spend time in jail and homeless shelters and they will continue to die having been abandoned by the country they fought for. combatting homelessness is not a one-time fix. to mitigate the unequinequality exist in our system for veterans. lack of opportunity, lack of education, mental illness, combat trauma, or other deficits end up on the margins of society. we're paying for this tragedy one way or another. we simply have to make the decision these veterans' lives are worth saving. thank you. >> thank you, mr. peck. 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 for the homeless in el paso, texas. and i think that statement in and of itself is important because my comments are going to be reflective of the community that's struggling as it relates to ending homelessness. whether it be veterans, chronically homeless or the families and youth. the other aspect of this, i felt a little bit like a fish out of water from the standpoint i tend to live more in the hud world than i do the v.a. it's also very 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 has existed now for over 24 years in el paso. i've had the pleasure of working with them for four. as a development director, i do a lot of strategy and thinking. many might consider my position as that of a professional beggar, as a general description. the truth of the matter is, we care for a jeemajority of the homeless in el paso, that includes the chronic homeless. of our population that we serve, 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. there's been a reference during this test men nimony to a housing-first initiative, that severely hampered our efforts in el paso. housing first is an incredible program. i don't quantity anybody to take those comments the wrong way. in respect, all our funding in the community is directed toward increasing our housing inventory and not that of support services and the two must go hand in hand. as an example, just over the last five years, we've lost $1.2 million per year as a community, not as an organization, as it relates to support services. now, that includes employment, legal, transportation, medical care, mental health, street outreach. and in turn as a community, we lost a little over a half a million dollars with regard to overall funding. and so what we're facing is a struggle at this point is to provide the appropriate level of services that are needed, not only for placement within housing, under the housing-first initiative, which is an incredible tool, but also with regard to sustainability and how to present -- prevent recidivism. in my written testimony, i gave you some numbers. numbers that reflective of us as an organization. an organization that has 14 programs and 10 different houses. those ten houses, seven of which are permanent housing. one of which is transitional which is our veterans' transitional living center which is the program we operate within the community. the remaining are what you would refer to as emergency shelters. and that's where that 15% lie. these are individuals that are depi defined as chronically homeless based on disability as well as length of homelessness. in turn, when you look at goals such as 25-1 on a case management that was stated earlier, which is the ideal situation, we're working in situations where it's 200-1 to 250-1, and that is sbauz becaus the absence of what we need for the support service dollars because we as a community, in a general statement, we're a very poor community. a little over 50% of our population falls under 200% of the federal poverty level. so you would say we have a low tax base. so we have no local investment, with regard to the city or to the county. and so for us, the burden is placed on the service provider. and we're being asked to do measure with less. and i think my conclusion here, if i so make that statement, is that in some respects, as it relates to funding, you have to take a look at the unique characteristics of each of the communities because in many cases, those parameters, those metrics that are imposed on us as an agency that receives funds, are restricted in a manner that works in other communities but not necessarily el paso. we need to have that flexibility to be able to design a system utilizing those same metrics that meets the need within the community and the unique characteristics of those that we serve. with that stated, i welcome any questions when that time comes and i look forward to having further discussion. thank you. >> thank you, mr. martin. miss monet, you are now recognized for noofive minutes. >> chairman roe, arrington, ranking members brownley and o'rourke, i'm kathryn monet. on behalf of our board of directors and members across the country, we thank you for the opportunities to share our views with you this morning. nchv is the resource and technical assistance center for national network of community-based service providers and local, state and federal agencies that provide a range of housing and supportive services to homeless, at-risk and formerly homeless veterans across the country. we're committed to working with our partners to end veteran homelessness. the good news is that 60 communities including 3 states have achieved the federal bench marks in criteria for ending veteran homelessness and this demonstrates for the first time ever that ending homelessness is actually an achievable goal. this progress is largely a testament to the dedication and hard work of local service providers, community partners and v.a. medical center staff. in the abstract, this is progress toward this major goal, right, but in real terms it's life changing for the vaeeteran who've been able to access housing and assistance as a result. the bad news here as you heard over and over again this morning, our hold on this is tenuous at best, as evidenced by the slight increase of the number of veterans between 2016 and 2017. while 36 states and d.c. saw decreases in veteran homelessness, other communities with high-cost rental markets saw dramatic increases. from nchv's perspective, an increase of even one veteran is one too many. so this is a really stark reminder to all of us that now is not the time to take our foot off the gas pedal or shift resources to other priorities within v.a. we need to focus on doubling down on the efforts to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrue curing for veterans and all americans. for communities and providers, doubling down means looking at your community level data, knowing their homeless neighbors and needs, right, so you can implement evidence-based strategies like housing first community wide and homeless veterans can access permanent housing quickly and resources like employment and supportive services they might need for housing stability. we also need to recognize, though, that housing first never means housing ementation of housing first includes access to health and mental health care and wraparound services like benefits assistance, employment, training services and all the other things a veteran needs to make sure their housing placement is sustainable. here in d.c., doubling down means congress needs to ensure that key programs that serve veterans experiencing homelessness are sufficiently funded. nchv, we never advocate for the growth of resources for the stake of expanding programs. the slight uptick in the count in conjunction with rising rents across the country and series of natural disasters that occurred in 2017 demands nothing short of your continued leadership and attention with regard to funding and oversight of these programs. homelessness is a multifaceted and complex problem that differs for every single veteran experiencing it. one of the best ways we can address it is for congress to support a permanent authorization for the united states interagency council on homelessness, usich. the small team of experts at usich convenes federal agencies to set shared priorities and objectives that can actualize the plan to end homelessness. furthermore, from the unique cros cross-cutting position, able to identify and prevent duplicat n duplications of services that would otherwise waste effort and resources. . we can also encourage further collaboration between v.a., hud, dol, and all other grantees to provide more seamless services to homeless veterans. the hudvash program allows v.a. to focus, by pairing with the hud funded section 8 voucher for some of the most vulnerable veterans we see. the case management funding, case managers truly must be located where the vouchers are distributed to ensure adequate support for the veterans who are using these vouchers. as you know, last september, v.a. sent guidance to directors regarding the immediate conversion of this funding from special purpose to general purpose funds. while v.a. has backed away from this decision for the time being,thy could have dramatically reduced case management for vulnerable veterans using these vouchers. let me be really clear here, nchv objects in the strongest of terms to this proposed conversion or any action that would reduce case manager availability to veterans using hud vouchers. in the 60 communities which effectively ended veteran homelessness, known as resources that make housing affordable, incentivize affordable housing development and allow communities to end homelessness. reduction these case managers like mr. peck said are already stretched thin, sometimes caring for far more veterans than clinically indicated. to remove these would be catastrophic to the health, wellbeing and housing stability of all the veterans using these vouchers. as such, we insist they must be used for their intended purpose. thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. it's a privilege to work with all of you and your staff to ensure that every veteran facing a housing crisis has access to safe, decent and affordable housing paired with supportive services. thank you. >> thank you, miss monet. again, thank you all of the panelists for your remarks. i want to now yield to our chairman dr. phil roe five minutes for comments and questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i appreciate that. i have another committee hearing i got to go to, but i wanted to hear this testimony today because to me, one of the -- first of all, all of you here, thank you for what you do, thank you for the service to our country. those of you who served in the military. i very much appreciate that. one of the frustrations i think you have to take a step back, i'd like to hear any of you, what is the primary cause not just for homelessness in general,vy a fa vi have a fairl understanding. but for veterans homelessness. these are capable people who were in the military and had responsible jobs in the military. now they're out and are homel s homeless. there are three of us, mr. bilirakis and myself were there nine years ago when the chairman sat there and said we're going to end veteran homelessness by 2016 which i thought was an honorable plan to do and bring the programs to do that. number one, in veterans, what is the primary cause? is it relationships, is it mental health, is it substance abuse? what is it? anybody can take a whack at that. >> i'll jump in. it's all the above. while combat trauma is the cause in some veterans, military sexual trauma among female veterans who are also committing suicide at an alarming rate. but it's also societal issues. they go into the military, perhaps to escape from a disruptive family life, perhaps to escape from gangs. they're in the military for two or three years and they come out really with knowing how to shoot a gun or drive a tank. so the transition is very challenging with, among those groups that are coming out. >> i disagree, i think they come out with more skills than that. they learn leadership skills, they learn how to get up early in the morning, they work hard all -- matter of fact, there is no clock when you're in the military, you understand that, i understand that. >> understand, yes. >> it's 24/7. so they bring out some very good skills, i think you learn, in the military. >> absolutely. they also have -- when we're in the military, we knew what we were doing 24 in showhours a da. it wasn't our responsibility to go out there and determine what happens next, what happens a year from now. some of them don't transfer those skills well into the civilian workforce. >> a couple other things, and i have visited the l.a. campus, what they're doing for the homeless there. i've made a trip there several months ago. with a job market being at historic lows, our state, a state unemployment rate of 3%. i know california's economy is doing well. how do you attribute this -- i think this point in time, whether it's up and down a little bit, these point in time are never all that accurate. they're a guess at how many homeless people there are at any particular point in time. why do you think in california the rates have gone up, just people moving into california, is that what it is? what would be the reason? >> there have always been more veterans in california than anywhere else, more homeless veterans there as anywhere else. as you said, the unemployment rate is very low. so some solve the veterans don't have the skills that they need to. the housing is very high. >> high. yeah. >> so they are unable to, at a minimum wage job or even at $15, $18 an hour ablg able to afford the housing that would take them out of homehomelessness. a lot of them are staying at our site much longer than they would like to because they can't afford to move back out into the community. >> that's one of the things -- one, finding housing that's affordable even where we are and to get developers to build housing that would meet these needs. it's a huge problem for lower-income people. and afterwards, i'd love to discuss with you a program we have done at home, beginning at home, that seems to be working pretty well. i know not to take all the time, mr. martin, you mentioned also something, and we seem to be spending more end 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. and so i think you were so suggesting you need more flexibility in these grants to be able to do what you node eed do. i'm not sure whether it was to fill a hole in what your community wasn't doing or needed the money, just the grant doesn't fit your community? >> in direct response to your question, chairman, it's not necessarily to fill a hole. we have created a foundation under a continue of care model that was in place until roughly 2009, 2010, win the new ophen tg doors initiative came out. the model is what we were doing in el paso and success we had in el paso. when we had the shift in funding focused more 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 that are not v.a. eligible. and so they have very limited options. and they tend to stay with us. now, many h times they can access ssvf. because of local requirements that we have, that's limited to three months' worth of assistance. and so if we go back to the comments that were just made with regard to a living wage, you can't do that with an entry-level position. so, many times it's three months and you're out. and then we see that return to homelessness, or that recidivism that's going to take place. and that's illustrated in the numbers that i provided to you within the written testimony for our organization. now, it's too early to tell if that's going to be a trend, but we did see a significant increase in recidivism from 2016 to 2017 and we're also seeing an increase in h shelter nights which is how we gauge services. that's not unique individual served. those are individuals that come in and take add van tavantage o shelter because they simply don't have any other options at this point. so it's that support service component that's desperately needed at this point when we talk about case management. just to give you an example of some of the services that were lost, daycare, legal, transportation, mental health, okay? all of those are those wr wraparound services these panelists have indicated that are desired because we don't need to simply look at placement, we need to look at sustainability and that's where that flexibility is needed. >> my time's expired, mr. chairman. thank you. i want to thank all of you all for what you do in a very difficult situation and population. thank you for the effort you're putting into that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. now 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 maybe it will be useful to them as well. but ending homelessness is a very laudable vision, but if we can't measure it, then we won't achieve it. and so my question to each of you, we'll just go down the line, define ending homelessness as it relates to your organization and then tell me, specifically, how you measure the success of achieving that outcome. just go down the line. start with you, mr. clancy. >> yes, sir. at the tcva, we don't provide direct support. we don't receive any federal funding for hvrp or any of those programs. so we network with the organizations in our community. what we see that drives the homelessness or important factor is is not unemployment, but underemployment as was talked about before. so, it's almost like when you think about unemployment, and you think about the nation, you never get to zero, right? because there's always some factor in there. when you're at 3% unemployment, you're basically at full employment in the country. and the same thing can be said on the veterans side. so to say that you're going to get to zero homelessness is probably not an actual achievable goal because there will always be folks that through addiction or mental health don't take the support that's offered there. >> you think we're at that functional zero or do you think it's -- there's still ways to -- >> we've made a tremendous success over the last nine or ten years getting that down. we've captured the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, getting that down to the veterans that really need the help. i've worked, before i took this role, i was a director of veteran services for easter seals in cincinnati. and we did have access to hvrp and hudvash vouchers and also on the rehab side, educational assistance for veterans. i can tell you, it's sometimes hard to find those veterans that you can apply those funds to in the cincinnati area, theest. what we try to do is get the transition. >> why can't you find the veteran to apply them to? >> as we talked about before, not every part of the country is the same. >> yeah. >> so you have some states that have declared the end of veteran homelessness anyone you have states like ohio that had a 7% decrease last year in veteran homelessness. the national rate of veteran homelessness went up 1.5%. 568 veterans. but the state of california had 1,800 veterans. >> so just back to my original question, i think you're saying that the underlying issue with homelessness, or at least a major underlying issue is employment, underemployment, and so you would define success as getting veterans a job. >> getting them a job as well as, you know, housing, all those issues combined. but whether or not needing assistance. >> is it housing or is it the job that allows them to sustain self-sufficiency so that they can have that independence and pay the rent and feel the dignity of all that's involved in that? >> that's absolutely right. >> does that -- would you define that as success? >> yes, sir. >> let me ask miss williams. in the interest of time, need to make it through the panel here. >> yes, sir. easter seals focuses on employment. as you just mentioned, when you're able to get someone employment, and then that helps them to be able to sustain housing. so we measure success by how many veterans we're able to get employed then from there hopefully to become contributing members of society and to be able to sustain themselves and their families. >> mr. peck. thank you. >> it's four things. those transitional housing programs provide the rehab that get them right off the street. the mental health counseling to address their mental health issues. the employment. there's never enough employment training money ever. and the affordable housing. >> so you really need those four together. >> in the interest of time, let's just keep going. mr. martin? >> first and foremost -- >> yep, hit your mike, if you would. >> thought i did. my apologies. >> that's all right. >> first and foremost, i'm not overly fond of the term, functional zero. when you look at our veteran population, those that are not v.a. eligible, a vast majority of those, almost 70% are over the age of 50. we look at success as housing sustainability, not necessarily placement but sustainability and wrapwrar wraparound services. >> sustainability, their ability to sustain their independence and because of employment -- >> because of employment and the other related services. >> and we -- >> yes, you're absolutely correct. sustainability. >> miss monet, then i'm done. >> we really want to look at how communities are building the systems that are making homelessness rare and nonrecurring. i'm sure you're aware the federal government does have kind of a set of benchmarks and criteria they use to assess whether communities actually ended veteran homelessness but really looks at do you know your veterans, are you making offers of permanent housing, can you move them into permanent housing within 90 days or less? are you decreasing unsheltered homelessness, right? if you're in a shelter, you still technically count as homeless on the count. so things like that are really how we would look at success. >>? thank you, miss monet. my time's expired. i know recognize miss brownley, ranking member vha for her remarks and questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i, too, want to thank the witnesses today for being here and the work you do every single day in support of our veterans in 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 vash supportive services funds into the general fund. my understanding in terms of what their intention is, and i will certainly ask the v.a. when they're up next, but they were going to take 5% sort of across the board of -- from these funds to provide resources to meet sort of the priorities of v.a., giving those dollars to vision directors, et cetera, to biableo accomplish those goals. i want to make sure we have pulled back from that, but my understanding is that 5%, that would roughly mean -- roughly mean about $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? are you hearing that, you know, these funds are going to be taken away? what do you know? >> we're in 11 different locations across the country, so we're hearing different things. some of the v.a.s have assured us that those funds will be there. 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. be protected. they are supposed to be fenced, only used for the managers and they are not. and my fear is if the directors have choice to redirect those funds, they will redirect those funds to other needs within their community. as i said, the suicide rate among homelessness veterans is very high, much higher than the rest of the population, so in effect providing for them will help with suicide prevention. >> i agree with that. do you remember what was said in los angeles. >> i have spoken with ann brown. she said she would not redirected the fund. we would like to hold her to that. >> very good. in terms of the homelessness population in los angeles, do you know which percentage are female veterans, at all, roughly? >> i don't. it's quite small. it's generally about 3%. >> and do they typically have children, also? >> some portion of them do. many of them have lost custody of their children, but some portion of them do, yes. i'm not quite sure what that proportion is, sorry. >> so 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 constant turnover? do you have any sense of that? >> they are hiring within that bureaucracy is challenging, sometimes it takes a number of months to do that. but the west l.a. va with the number of vouchers there are in los angeles has something over 200 social workers. that's really hard to manage. my recommendation is that they spread those contracts out among agencies that are knowledgeable in the community so that each agency is able to do that job with moreov oversight because t oversight now is not good. >> if homelessness in l.a. count has risen 57%, i believe l.a. has approximately 20% of the homelessness veteran population across the country. do you feel like 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 everyone who knows anything about homelessness veterans knows there is an awful lot of homelessness veterans there than anywhere else in the country. whether we are getting the appropriate share, i couldn't tell you, but i shi think we ha something like 1,500, something like that. >> i realize my time is up. i yield back. i apologize. >> i'm faster and loser than the chairman over to my left. so you are okay. there is going to probably be a second round here. but great line of questions. now, i would yield five minutes to the chairman of the vha, mr. win strum. >> thank you very much. i want to thank you you for being here and what you do each and every day and efforts you make in trying to help our fellow americans and those that defended our country. and i became familiar when i came back from iraq, i wasn't looking for a job, i had medical practice to go to. but i became very familiar with the work of easter seals in trying to make those matchups, working not only employees but employers and trying to make those work. so i'm going to direct to yancy, because i have bias being where he is from, cincinnati, ohio. and i would like you to comment for a minute the relationships you've been able to build with places like joseph house and veterans court and how that relates to reducing homelessness? >> thank you, congressman. the whole purpose of this, when it was built, was to be the center of collaboration for the hundreds of veteran organizations in cincinnati area. so we have built very good relationships. we don't compete with anybody for the federal dollars. so when we have a veteran in distress that comes to our in process c processing center, we can refer them out to all the agencies out there, including easter seals. when i was with easter seals we work closely with them and continue to do that now. >> and of course veterans court and all those types of things that are trying to get our veterans in ha better direction. >> absolutely. we have a very strong veterans court in cincinnati. and at the tvca we have subgroups on specific issues we work on, education, health and wellness, and education subgroup is working with veterans court to try to get those veterans that need help access to the gi bill. >> i know the center has been pretty robust and interactions with veterans, some from previous wars. and we want to get lessons learned. where i want to go with this is this is economic committee and health committee. and what do you think could be done better? we engage in the transition assistance program. which is administered by dod. are there things we can do before people take that uniform off that can help them in the long run as far as guidance, counseling, on the track to a profession, you know, rather than va and what you do being reactive later, what can we do more on the front end? >> that's a great point. and that's one of the goals we have and one of the things we strive for is contact the veterans upstream, even as they are separating. we have a program we call excel where we work directly with the national guard which is big in cincinnati, army national guard, work directly with them with the veterans separating to help them with their resume l the culture change they are going to see from a military unit to civilian office in terms of everything from the direct feedback you might get in the military that you might not get in the civilian workforce. went to the basics. but we continue to see underemployment 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 civilian hr department what they are capable of doing. and we have a two week program that we do that. bring in the companies who work with the hr departments directly and veterans and try to make that one on one match to help that. so combination. we definitely have to be upstream helping the veterans understands the change they are about to have. >> and being local like that, guard is a perfect opportunity. >> absolutely. >> what kind of success or results are you having and what are some of the walls, if you will, in the process? >> we are getting great feedback from the companies that we deal with. they love the veterans. there is no problem in unemployment in cincinnati. there is a great opportunity for employment. so they love the veterans because they show up on time. they have a sense of mission. they have a sense of team. so from the company's perspective we get feedback on all the veterans we send their way. and then from the national guard side, they are excited about what we are doing because they like that their veterans are hitting the ground running on the civilian side. >> and from the veterans themselves, i'm looking for best practices here, what kind of feedback from the individual veterans themselves? >> the individual veterans really appreciate the mentoring that we can give. we are all veteran staff. there is plenty of corporate veterans out there that can be mentors for other veterans coming out of the service. and so one of the best practices we have is having those civilian now civilian former military successful businessmen and women mentor the new soldiers coming out of the military. >> thank you. i yield back. >> yawning, chairman wynn strum. will now yield five minutes to the ranking member of the equal opportunity subcommittee o'rourke. >> thank you, mr. chairman. this is one of the best meetings and thank you for coming to the table. one of the takeaways so far for me, mr. peck, i think you asked the defining moral question of this committee when you asked are these lives worth saving. and when you point out 20 veterans every day single that take their own lives and the suicide rate against homelessness veterans is 25% of the population, that should catch everyone's attention and add some surgency to our work o this. so i want to thank you for making it clear we are in cree cyst. a crisis today. and we need to meet that with your geurgent action. our role for the taxpayers dollar. if we are not making that 25 to 1 ratio, and spending all this money, to put a roof over a veterans head, perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently, but we don't have the wrap around support services, we are not getting the greatest bang for taxpayer dollar and not ensuring that we end some of that chronic homelessness by health care and transportation services. so i think you made excellent case for us for having oversight and making sure we fulfill the commitment for 25 to 1. the issue that mr. marti martin alluded to, which is that we have hundreds of thousands of veterans that have other than honorable dischargement and what we are focusing on is that precludes them from seeing a mental health provider and we have alarming sue stied rate on those. and we are work on that and i think we'll get to greater access. but means those same veterans are in gelable for the hud vash program and confines them to greater suffering, homelessness. and whether we look at our moral obligation to those veterans that served the country or taxpayer dollars well spent, i think we have to expand eligibility to include those that have had had other than honorable discharges. i think it's the right thing to do and we have absolutely have to do it. and the point many of you brought about the hud vash dollars being moved to the general fund, that is very alarming. i'm very interested in what the va has to say on this issue. and i anticipate that question will come from both sides of this committee. last couple of points. i'm really glad mr. clancy that you mentioned combined arms. one of these outstanding veteran service organizations in houston. part of what makes them so great is they take the mindset veteran is not a victim but if we can unleash their potential by connecting them in some cases with the care they need and not currently getting. upside for everyone else in society is unlimited and i'm grateful you pointed that out. i'll end with the antidote. the chairman held a really positive field hearing in texas on transitioning service members into civilian life successfully. and that morning we went to paul's project at grace campus, it's a homelessness center. thaen sa and they said about 75% of their patients have some homelessness, they can no longer pay the rent or disability so significant they cannot go to work and found themselves homelessness. several of you mentioned health care as a connection. i'd ask mr. martin i have about a minute left, talk about how significant health care is as a connection to homelessness and perhaps how expanding eligibility decreases our homelessness population? >> in el paso at the center, we have one distinct advantage, and that is that we have on-site health clinic and is operated by separate entity. but that access to medical care is critical component as well as health care. because we also have a community as it relates to mental health needs that's overwhelmed. so we have to look at accessibility as we pick it up. and then in the absence of that what happens is we see a large number of individuals to use a term used in the past that self medicate through alcohol and drugs. and that includes the veteran population. there is just that lack of trust in the system. that's one thing i haven't heard at this point especially when we get into the older veterans. we have a lot of folks that simply say i don't want anything to do with the va. i just want out. it's distrust, whatever the case might be, overtim time. so that goes back to a certain extent cultural transition. so we talked about in terms of employment, but also look at it from a social atmosphere as well. because in many cases they elect to be there. and there is a right to have a choice. >> thank you, ranking member member o'rourke. and we'll now yield to. >> thank you. veterans families in my district in florida, i represent the tampa bay, portions of the tampa bay area. they highlighted a need for better coordination between the va and hud, hud, strengthening the continuum of care so the veteran homelessness populations have the support they need for long-term success. they stress the importance of directing dollars we have provided to the va towards t towards continuum of care support. so the question is for the panel, the entire panel. we can start with mr. clancy. how would you recommend va, hud, and the department of labor, how could they improve the communication with community partners like those each of you are part of? and i would appreciate your testimony today. >> thank you, congressman. in since nat cincinnati we have communication with va center. i think there is an advantage to flexibility. and i think as we mentioned before. and so i know there is a concern with the hud vash program, dollars not specifically being directed to them. but again in cincinnati we don't have the needs that maybe los angeles has. and the think the flex ablgtdibf working with va facility is great and we have a very good relationship with them. >> i'll admit this is my third day on the job, so if you don't mind i'd like to submit an answer to you once i get that. >> very good. thank you. you are doing very well, i'll tell you that. yes, please. >> i think it's important that we look at the entire tcontinuu. there has been tendency to find a single fixment housing first was it for a while. but i think it's critical we provide the more intensive services now done at the grand program at the beginning, so veterans coming in off the street are getting the services they need, whether it be mental health, or substance abuse, education, whatever it might be. and have a direct connection between all that, not just hud vash, but the support of housing available through the hud program. and that they cooperate with counties so that the counties are doing a range of services particularly in regards to mental health and employment that can serve the veterans that are va eligible. so all the systems have to work together. >> i had to sort of think a little bit to response to the question. because in our reality we have a wonderful working relationship with our va in the el paso. so we have a lot of interaction taking place. i think a week ago i sat in on teleconference call that va hosted with coordinated entry. that's one example. trying to take two systems and having them use the same entry point. and if you are not familiar with coordinated entry, one door in. everybody goes through a common assessment process. if they call pqualify for va, t direction one. if they don't, they go direction 2 which takes you over to the hud funding side of the fence. so that's the intent to have the two work together. now, the reality is, when you look at direction 2, we need to start looking at support services, and that could potentially pull in the department of labor. because a lot of the employment side of the fence. employment is one of the keys to sustain ability. desired employment. not just entry level job as you work through it. so you've got to take a look at what the strengths of the individual are and you've got to get away from you must be job ready as the underlying premise and you have to start working with that individual and develop the skill sets that are needed. and, then, two, to be able to provide the coaching that's available for employment. so again goes back to support services. >> agreed. >> so i think this is really important question. and i appreciate that you all are asking this. i'll tell you that i look at it from two perspectives the first is from top down approach where all the agencies are focusing in on sending coordinated messages to the grant tease, encouraging people to communicate. i think the other thing to think about is the federal government is largest for homelessness. so if you can incentiveize you'll be in good shape. now moving to do that in its current reboot of the system. but have you to look at it bottom up and what is it in it for providers. case conferencing and sharing resources and solid system in your community that is benefit to provider and that provider should be thinking about and looking at. >> thank you very much. and i see my time has expired. i yield back, mr. chairman. submit the rest of the questions for the record. thank you. >> you bet. thank you, mr. bill. we'll now yield five minutes to mr. ta cano. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for the tremendous work u.s. vets does in my district and 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 va case management. and that contractor organizations are held to and achieve greater outcomes. you also said the inspector general's study was unable to identify why veterans exited the program. comprehensive study by somebody outside the va or hud or like jo for example be helpful in understanding the hud vash efficacy and where there is 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 actually happening would be in valuable. and i've not seen such a study. that oig study that i referred to was specific to the western -- specific to the california area. so i think a nationwide study would be excellent to make sure that they are providing that service based on the model that they say it is based on, which is the housing first model. >> i think, mr. chairman, i'd like to make sure we look at such a study or get in such a study ordered. because it's about the use of most effective and efficient use of taxpayer resources. and so if we could work with you on that, i would appreciate it, mr. chairman. mr. peck, i want to continue with the line of questioning. in 2016, riverside county, which i represent, as you know, reached functional zero for s veterans homelessness. but just because there has been some progress in our area, i know next door in los angeles county much larger population, experienced up tick and have largest number of homelessness. we will 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 in riverside county have achieved functional zero. it continued and multi strategy is needed to end veterans homelessness. we have seen in california the number of homelessness veterans rise by 20% last year in distinction to what's happening in riverside county. now, as service providers, do you feel the va is committed to ending va homelessness? >> hi should hope so. i think the directors that we deal with at loma linda and in los angeles are committed to this effort. it frightens me when people talk about the end of functional homelessness. it feels like the problem has been solved. and we have actually experienced talking to funders who say isn't that problem solved? and it is not. >> well, yeah. so here's my thing. i realize loma linda and l.a. is supportive. but has the decision to remove homelessness impact the work that you do on the ground? >> it absolutely will impact. if those funds are redirected, the homelessness population will go up. >> last year, okay, while the va proposed moving money from specific funds to general purpose fund, and how would that have impacted services you provide to veterans and the number of veterans you serve? >> it would 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 over all reduction in service to homelessness veterans. >> so the hud vouchers would be unused because we aren't doing the wrap around services as part of the holistic a roach we have to use? >> yeah. so the three letters that i've submitted with my written testimony indicate in some cases they are 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 repurchase posing of the money effect you on the ground? >> well, when you are talking about the va dollars, like i said i'm in a different world. when i talk about the absence of case management, i'm referring to the crisis response system, safety net, emergency shelter where we have a large number of individuals. because in va funding we are able to maintain 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've not heard any concerns come in from the va in that respect in direct answer to your question. >> i would ask the rest of the panel to submit an answer to the question that i asked in writing later. but mr. chairman i yield back i'm sorry foregoi going over. >> thank you. >> thank you. i too want to commend the panel for not only appearing you but doing this challenging work. a you are 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 are needed? >> thank you, ma'am. the veteran collaboratives, as we mentioned, not only here in cincinnati, 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 the transitioning veterans before they come in crisis mode. >> thank you. mr. chairman i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. now yield five minutes to miss kuster. >> thank you, mr. chairman. delighted to be here. very informative meet hearing. i think you've 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 mention, have been dissolutioned. i wanted to mention massachusetts we have done tremendous work in our district particularly easter seals, thanks to that, and harbor homes, very effective program with health care and services. i have a good story of jim living under a bridge. they were over time brought in by the social workers. and turns out part of his problem was health care issue. he was diabetic and had not been 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 reu night with the 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 this to miss williams, from the programs that have been effective, and in particular we've 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 then 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 towards those veterans in need and make a decision about funding, fully funding the services that are needed? wrap around services, health care, social workers. so miss 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 they do have many rural areas and with minimal staffing it's difficult to reach all the veterans in need and to rprovid the level and attention they need. so that's the experience we are having there. and secondly what i would say is that there needs to be greater flexibility to meet the unique needs of veterans. and i just want to again high lie easter seals support of hr 4451, which is congressman win strum and brownley bill, because 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 which would again tie into what my fellow panelists have discussed is early access to case management. the community care communication is vital, and i would 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 holistic 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 any one else wants to add in, i have about a minute left, i would appreciate your comments. >> direct answer on that question. when i look at the population that we serve, over 67 percent are over the age of 50. and if i take that up a notch, 65 to 70, we are looking at the numbers, 18%. so when we look at our mission under the continuum of care, and mission statement says we protect those. and so you have to look at the long-term viability for those not able to seek sustainable housing through employment. that's where you look at the different options. >> thank you. the other question i have is about workforce. 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 are piloting a project with the local university, ourselves and workforce, with i is based on the premise that anybody can work. but i'll 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 for social workers and such. so i'd be very interested in any thoughts you might have. and the chair is gone, but i wanted to invite him to new hampshire on round table on homelessness. thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. we now give five minutes to mr. higgins. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i thank the panelists for coming here today. i would like to see a panel addressing this crucial issue which 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, air men 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, as a term in the military called a short timer, 99 and 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. they have excellent mechanics leaving the military that don't have an asc certification. not qualified to change oil at a dealership. we could fix that if the dod would work together with the va and existing entities that help post ets transitions. we have heavy equipment operators operating dozers and cranes and 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 professions 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 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 homelessness veterans. and i can tell you that there is sort of an underground culture in existence. and i'd like a couple of you to address this. we say we have 40,000 homelessness veterans. we have 184,000 veterans incarcerated in america. at an average cost of, conservative average cost of $32,000 a year per veteran. that's $6 billion. so there is a culture that a veteran, because the very nature of a military veteran is independent and strong and mission oriented. 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 are 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 are 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 miss monet if the chairman will allow the time, address your consideration regarding future that we could envision 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 serviceman 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. very short period. as you said, once you get to it be a short term you want out of there and don't necessarily want to talk to anybody. so starting a program well before they get out indicating the possibilities, their possibilities once they get into civilian life. and giving them ha connectia co the community where they are discharged. so the va can contact them. and 90 days later, six months later say how are you doing, do you have a job, are you all right, 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 dissolutioned that they won't connect with the va. so i think that connection is critical and we have to find some formal system to make that transition. >> thank you. >> chairman would allow miss monet. >> go ahead, let's make it quick. because we are running late already. >> i'll be as quick as i can. so i think from our perspective one of the most interesting things that we do as organization is we have a toll free hotline veterans housing crisis can call in and say i need help. and i think we've heard from a good number of young and recently returned vets who said i'm getting ready to get out, i have no where to go, 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 getting involved in transition planning, they need to be thinking not only about employment, but, hey, do you have a housing plan? do you have somewhere to live when you get out? if you don't, can we connect you with va so they can help tu out and wrap services around you to get you started off on the right foot. so i think the thing you are talking about with incarceration, any transition planning is important, not only from dod, but when are you coming out of jail or even 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. >> thank you for the indulge ens. >> indulgence. >> thank you. now first of all i wanted to thank your service to our country. and echo some of the comments made by our colleagues regarding the redirection of funds without properly notifying congress. that's do bett let's do better next time t a couple of questions. i'm from california. and the question i'm getting asked by veterans which cannabis use on their eligibility to access the services 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 is a tricky area because so many of the veterans that we have in our housing have substance abuse issues, addiction issues. so we ha so. >> we have an issue of opioid abuse. then the famous cold memo repudiated by our attorney general. then in the state of california we do have medical cannabis use. there is a doctor patient relationship. there is recommendations made by physicians to their patients for use of cannabis. so what we have is a conflict of law state versus federal. and my veterans are asking me what will happen if i medicate with cannabis, will i be affected in terms of benefits from va. and i've gotten conflicted answers. and i'm asking you publicly because i need to give my veterans answers. if you don't have one now, can you please give it to me in writing? >> you are right. there is conflict between state and federal, where there is 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 grant programs turning them into vouchers. i'm out of orange county, we have great folks providing great services like illumination, 10, 15 years old, gets homelessness folks get them into converted hotels, gets them on their feet. wrap around services. is that the kind of services in terms of aiding veterans getting them back on their feet? >> absolutely. nonprofit it is really have extensive outreached into the community. much more so than the va. >> and i say that because only limitation ta 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 reach more veterans. >> let me, with few seconds have left up, follow up with mr. higgins comments about following up with veterans after they take off the uniform in a meaningful way. one thing to give them a survey when you leave. but like you just mentioned 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 for our country. so do we have a system to follow up with them, six months, a year, two years out other than a survey and fill out the card? >> there is no such system and a lot of us are advocating they have to operate into a program that would allow the va to contact them. >> 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 no excuse for that. >> 90 day follow up, six months 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 i would love someone to talk to him about it. >> can we do something looic that? what do we need to get going, folks? >> congressman, if i may, any veteran comes to us, does get follow up three months, six months, one year. if we get a job, follow up not only with veteran but the employer to make sure everything is going well and the veteran is still squared away. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i yield. thank you. we now yield to gentleman from indiana. >> thanks for this incredible important venue to talk about this important issue. miss monet i want if you can talk about the housing first model. you said housing first should not ever mean housing only. multiple times vfrmt a ha has r this, that it doesn't always provide the best option. that it might put a roof over veterans head but dpoeoesn't geo the root underlying problem such as drug addiction. could you elaborate on that what you mean by that and talk a little bit more about the housing first and why it may fall short? >> absolutely. that's a wonderful question. thank you for that. so housing first really means you are indeed putting someone in housing first but then following up and offering services. so you are saying, hey, i see you have this issue. can we help you address your diabetes or opioid use. or you are unemployed, let's get you a job. but housing first very good to make the distinction your abltd to stay in that is not requirement on access to service. so you are not requiring them to go to repeating in 90 days. to jump through hoops to stay in housing. but enticing them into the services while they are in housing. because research has shown that when a person is in housing they can better address all of the other issues that they are facing. >> very good. as a segue from that, mr. peck, you talked a little bit go about the importance of gpd up front. and i wonder maybe you could talk more about that why that would be important. >> case management is more robust in the grand per diem programs that gives us the opportunity to offer them the rehabilitation that 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, subsidies treatment, education, educational opportunities, that a gdp program can offer, which a housing first permanent housing program cannot. there is simply not the robustness of the case management assistance. >> do you sense that the va is continuing to support gdp up front? can you talk a little bit about what we have seen for the posture from the va from your perspective? >> they have supported it, thank you thankfully they've reduced it somewhat. they redesigned the program to make it more pro-active. you have to state what kind of service you can provide. they really are focusing on outcomes. and outcomes are largely getting those veterans into permanent housing. whether through the income they earn through employment or disability income. so they are now i think measuring that program better than they were before. >> so you are optimistic about the way forward from your perspective? you are not concerned about the changes? those are good changes? >> those are good changes, yes, absolutely. and i think they will continue to support that. i'm hoping 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 now yield to mr. peter's five minutes for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think the leadership for allowing this hearing and allowing me to participate. i represent san diego which is the home of tremendous veterans population. because of that the nature of our homelessness is heavy on veterans. we have a lot of programs in san diego that are community based we think are doing well but rely on federal distribution. so let me turn to a couple observations and ask a couple questions. first of all we are supportive of the interest of the secretary in suicide veteran suicide. but we don't want that to come at the expense of housing because they are so related. we heard from all of you suicide rates among the homelessness are much higher so keeping them housed and off the streets and dealing with housing is in effect part of the suicide battle as well. and we certainly urge the secretary to keep that in mind as he talks about where he spends money and shifts money. the other observation i would make that a lot of my colleagues has made is the importance of department of defense in this. most cost effective expenditure of 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, train them to have the skills that the chairman had, but not necessarily rain necessarily trained to deal with civilian life they could be and should be at the time of transition. and mr. clancy talked about some of the efforts he's done in that area. i commend that. maybe you know of 0800 in san diego which is transitioning program that try toss ies to do same thing. go on the base at the time of tran sticks, int transition, introduce the community at that time, so as they walk off the base as civilians they are not strangers to that. mr. clancy. >> yes, san diego has a great program, coalition family collaborative is a group that we has conference calls with them, best practices, were we doing it successful, so number of collaborations around the country that are working together to again learn from each other and learn how best to prepare the veteran for separation from the military. >> terrific. and i certainly think it's worth observing that even if the va and the veterans kplcommittee w functioning at 100%, we couldn't replace the community involvement. that's something we can't do as a government. not every solution comes from the government. i think community involvement has been so helpful. in the time i have though the question i wanted to ask was about vouchers. in san diego we get reports there is a large number of vouchers that aren't used. and i would like to just maybe mr. peck you could address how is that possible? why does that happen? and maybe what could we do to make sure that the resources that we do have are being employed to make sure that veterans have housing? >> in some instances, unfortunately, it's due to high housing costs as i'm sure is true in san diego. and i've worked closely with them down there, a very good program. so some landlords are not taking those vouchers. i know in los angeles 500 veterans walking around with vouchers in hand that cannot find housing. so they stay 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 their housing. and additionally a shortage of va social workers is contributing to those vouchers not being used. >> so the work with landlords is more local issue? >> yes. it is critical that there is a local plan for each of these federal issues. 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 given our high housing costs, mr. peck? >> i would -- two things need to be done. check with the va to make sure they are providing the appropriate number of case manages. and, two, talk with the city, who can talk to the landlords. this is what's happening in los angeles. in effort to get them to look more closely at these vouchers. and we have housing locators to reach out to those landlords. >> and on our end i think case managers is the answer, we have to make sure that support system is provided as well. >> absolutely. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. peter's. and 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. we just somehow when you walk through these doors, when you are thinking about the customer, which is the veteran, you just put everything aside and you do everything you can to put america and our veterans first. i appreciate the candor and thoughtful responses from our panelists and i appreciate your service to our veterans and our 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 serviceman or women 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 have made it as much of a priority to transition them and assimilate them into the civilian. and to tap those skills that they have learned and those responsibilities that they've had. and we have rehabilitated where there has been trauma in their experiences. so i hope in the next year, and this is this is something i've made known to 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 tap, we know how much money we spend, we don't know what outcomes. they didn't have much to any outcome. could be they are 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 trans forming that program to really work on the front end and so we have less drug addiction, less suicide, less homelessness and job lessness from our heroes on account of the 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 that. thank you, guys. you are dismissed. and we would ask the second panel come and join us so i can introduce you so we can get on with the second panel and the discussion. in the interests of time, i'm going to go ahead and make the introductions of our panelists. joining us now this afternoon is matt miller deputy assistants secretary for veterans employment and training service of the u.s. department of labor. and we have alongside of him dominic blom the assistant secretary for indian housing of the u.s. department of housing and urban development. and also dr. thomas lynch, the deputy under secretary for health and clinical operations for the veterans health administration of the u.s. department of veterans affairs who is accompanied by dr. keith harris, the dretirector of clinl operations 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. chairman win, brownley and o'rourke, thank you for providing a statement today on veterans homelessness. as former chief of staff in this body, i want to personally recognize you and committee staff to ensure america provides the service members, veterans and their families. my name is matt miller and i'm the deputy assistant policy for department veterans employment and training service for vets. i'm also department's representative on the u.s. interagency council on homelessness. secretary acosta stands firmly behind our country's service members and veterans. he has 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 in providing those who served our nation with the employment support, assistance and opportunities they deserve to succeed in civilian work force. our partnerships throughout d.o.l. extend vets' ability to achieve its mission and bring out d.o.l. resources to bear for america's veterans. one important component of the mission is the homeless veterans reintegration program or hvrp which provides grants to organizations to assist in reintegrating homeless veterans into meaningful employment. grantees also provide 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 carrier sized programs that the va and hud offer, it serves a critical mission in ending homelessness among veterans. each hvrp participant receives customized employment and training service such as occupational, classroom and on the ground 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 but also because of the collaborative efforts of our government partners at the federal and state levels. two weeks ago, i had the humbling experience of touring one of our grantees located along skid row in los angeles, california. while there i heard about jeremy, an honorably discharged marine corps veteran. help been incarcerated for seven years and began working with our grantee volunteers of america. jeremy's counselor worked with him to develop a career plan and within four days of enrolling in the program, he got a job at the so cal construction company and since starting, his wages have increased from $12 to $14 an hour. in fy 2017 the program received an appropriation 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 veterans population are women. hvrp 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 effort, vets awarded $50,000 for three stand-down events in houston, texas serving a total of 756 homeless veterans. i would be remiss if i didn't take this opportunity to highlight a significant challenge we face, the statutory definition of homeless veteran. if jeremy, who 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 our programs at 12:01 a.m. on tuesday. thus, not able to take advantage of our employment services. studies have shown 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 would like to work with you to further discuss how we can rectify this problem. chairman wenstrup and arrington, ranking members brownley and o'rourke, the department of labor is committed to the goal of ending veterans homelessness. we look forward to working with you, our federal partners and the interagency council to assure 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 at this time. >> thank you, mr. miller. we now yield five minutes to miss blom. >> good afternoon. good afternoon to you, chairman arrington, chairman wenstrup, ranking member brownley and ranking member o'rourke, and members of the subcommittee. thank you for this opportunity to discuss the efforts of the department of housing and urban development and our federal partners for ending veterans homelessness. i am dominique blom, a career senior executive and deputy general assistant secretary for the department of housing and urban development at hud. hud is committed to working towards the goal of ending veterans homelessness with our federal and local partners by maximizing our collective resources. thanks to funding from congress and this collaborative partnership, we have made remarkable progress. hud's general homeless programs run by hud's office of community planning and development provide about $2.4 billion annually to help homelessness primarily through permanent supportive housing. 97 million of these funds or approximately 17,000 veterans through the 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 program combining housing choice voucher rental assistance provided from hud with 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 the voucher to move into safe, stable housing and as of september, over 77,000 veterans were housed. shortly, hud will be awarding approximately 5,500 new vouchers with the additional $40 million that was 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 plan to develop a process to recapture unused vouchers and reallocate them to high need cities. second, we have awarded 47,000 vouchers as project-based vouchers, allowing for the development of affordable housing in high cost areas. third, we are encouraging public housing authorities to project base their existing vouchers which was made easier through the housing opportunity through modernization act of 2016. these demplts strait our commitment to optimizing the effectiveness while also allowing for local flexibility in addressing homeless veterans population. building on the success of this, 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 this demonstration in the indian housing needs study is that homelessness looks different in indian country. as tribes face severe housing shortages, close family ties often result in overcrowding, as families live with other families. the tribal hud program has become instrumental in getting entire families into appropriately sized homes. when army infantry specialist jeremiah miguel returned to his reservation in arizona, he found himself sharing one room with his girlfriend and six children. but after receiving a 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 with 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 declined by historic 46% since 2010, and the results are largely due to the success of this program. perhaps one of the best examples of federal partnership. together, hud and the va and the u.s. interagency council on hemlessness have implemented a joint decision making structure to administer the programs and policies related to hud veterans homelessness. we have also jointly created a set of standards to evaluate whether communities have ended homelessness and since 2014, more than 880 state and local officials have set the goal of ending veterans homelessness. as of january 11, 60 communities across 30 states have achieved this goal. this is an amazing accomplishment. in conclusion, we must continue to find ways to maximize the effectiveness of this program and to continue to work collaboratively to bring critical housing and resources to veterans while also assisting communities in utilizing all available homelessness assistance resources. thank you very much for facilitating this work and i welcome any questions you may have. >> thank you, miss blom. dr. lynch, you now have five minutes. >> good afternoon, chairman. ranking members and members of the subcommittee, i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the va's commitment to ending homelessness among veterans. i'm accompanied today by dr. keith harris, who is clinical director, who is 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 with 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 council 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 in comparison to 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 a reallocation of specific purpose to general purpose funding. this shift did include funding in support of the hud program. the goal was to give facilities greater flexibility in the effective use of their 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 our congressional colleagues, our external stake holders, and local va leaders. over the next several months, va will engage in a formal interagency process to solicit further input to ensure that any realignment of funds best supports our nation's veterans. va's way forward is to work with federal partners to implement our interagency 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 resources, emphasizing efforts to improve employment outcomes and fully committing to coordinated entry 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 offices to respond to these clinical priorities. the va's efforts must comprehensively 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 ensures coordination of community-wide services for veterans experiencing homelessness, system-wide awareness of available housing and services, and easy access to and appropriate prioritization for these resources. after six years of consistent progress, hud's 2017 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 continuing to promote development of affordable and permanent supportive housing and are working with all partners to encourage efforts aimed at financing and developing 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 answer any questions. >> i thank the panelists for their remarks. we will go in reverse order. mr. higgins, you are prepared to ask questions, i'm going to defer to you for five minutes. the againgentleman from louisia. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank the panelists for appearing today. regarding this crucial issue that challenges our nation. mr. miller, particularly i would like to ask you, sir, and i thank you and secretary acosta for your dedication to the department of labor. to what extent does dol and veterans affairs coordinate homelessness programs by job training to prevent unnecessary duplicative processes? i'm particularly asking because one of our challenges as we have heard today from both panels is funding and the effort to protect the people's treasure, and yet provide the needed services for our veterans, we are duty-bound to find areas where there are duplicative services that may not be necessary. so to what extent does the dol and va 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 u.s. intercouncil on homelessness but when a grantee for an hvrp program puts forth an application, one of the things is they have to have in an application a strategy of how they are 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 the va supportive services for veterans families, it's encouraged the va's grant per diem program, the program that was mentioned or continuing of care. in addition to you mentioned about the federal level but we also work with states and local levels to do that as well as our grantees and we provided about $45 million for grantees all over the country, nationwide if both rural and urban settings for about 155 grantees all over the country. we also urge them to work together. that's what makes our program such a success is the collaborative effort between our grantees and our partners. >> thank you for that very thorough response. i will shift gears in my remaining time regarding the services provided for incarcerated veterans. it's a good program. how is funding and staffing 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. fortunately, we are aware that this could be duplicative of what exists in states as well as correctional, department of corrections within states, so that's something we take into 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. a little like christmas in january. appreciate that. i had some questions for miss blom, if i could, about the hud vouchers. i think you heard the comments i made before to the previous panel. are there any actions that hud is taking to address the mortgage and rental cost disparities in high cost markets with the hud voucher 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 cost 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 their partners to project-base these vouchers and now vouchers can be used as project basing and made much easier as a result of changes congress made in 2016. we will continue to encourage the project basing of these vouchers so that there's a development of affordable housing and it's available long-term for veterans. secondly, we are 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. then third, we are also encouraging that housing authorities provide additional landlord outreach, finding those landlords that will be more willing to serve veterans. >> and i know there's a cap on the project-based vouchers of 20%. is that something you're considering raising or, if not, why not? >> so just in the last two years, hud has now the flexibility to allow housing authorities to go above the 20% cap. so hud vouchers are part of that pool of vouchers that housing authorities can project base without any need for approval at the department. >> that decision is made at the local level? >> it is. >> okay. great. can you tell me why hud vouchers expire after 120 days. can you explain that? >> when we say that it expires, it expires for that particular service member. that voucher would then go back to the housing authority and the housing authority once it receives a referral from va would be able to reissue that voucher. but i think what you're asking, is it possible to extend that 120 day period for that particular veteran. we'll look into that to see if that's possible. >> i understand you want to put some urgency behind it, but, of course, in a tough market 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, and if not, is there a way that we can help them understand the 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 wenstrup. >> dr. lynch, question for you. how many veteran getting out of dod are homeless within the first five years or so? >> i honestly don't have the answer to that. do you have a quick estimate? >> i don't have an estimate. but we have a work group that works with dod, the va and others looking at the transitioning service members from dod and following them down to va and assessing homeless rates, 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 every three weeks or so 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 or whatever the case may be. this is important information, particularly 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 getting into homelessness. secondly, i would like to emphasize we initiated two programs now, initially focused on suicide prevention but easily converted if there's an opportunity. in one, we are actually reaching out to veterans after they transition, 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 timeline. not after the problem exists but how can we get there before it exists to make sure that it doesn't. so my question is, do you have at this point, do you have walls in front of you from dod or whoever or whatever the case may be, something we need to fix here? are there things, 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 or homelessness, before we get to the critical position but 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 collaborate with dod and integrate the programs that both va and dod have. >> and just real quick, it's been said in your testimony some communities have zero homelessness or net zero homelessness. what does that mean for the future? does that mean, we don't need to do anything 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 whole issue of zero homelessness. i don't think we are going to get there because 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? you ended your answer to dr. wenstrup by talking about the importance of wrap-around services. how do we make sure we are following through on that? >> i think what was apparent to me when i listened to the first panel is there is no correct answer. there are unique opportunities in every community. >> should we be at one to 25? >> 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, need greater support than other veterans. >> if we don't have a benchmark, i don't know what to measure against. give me context, i feel like they made a very good case that having active case management increases the likelihood that the veteran will transition out of homelessness. you seem to dispute that. >> 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. we will never put the resources to 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 va 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 other than honorable discharge and by extension, will that allow those veterans who have a bad paper 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 in your answer. will veterans who have an other than honorable discharge 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 serve 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 then provides the wraparound services, the case management, and then that referral has come to the local public housing authority. we today have two housing authorities in localities that are participating in this pilot. we are hoping to expand it in the future. >> how many veterans with an other than honorable discharge status are participating 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 but i don't believe he was speaking about the hud program and speaking about the 200-1 ratio that does not exist in the program. the positions are funded on one to 25. medical centers do have leeway within that. 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 that is. staffing is not a challenge there. their vouchers are reasonably well utilized as well. >> so the point that i took from that, and i'll cede to the chair, that there are not 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 between you saying we have got everything filled, and john martin saying we are 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 for el paso and some of these other communities. 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 brownley. >> 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 corollary that the secretary is committed to getting input 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. harris to speak for the va to begin with. >> we do concur on the numbers here and our number is 70% utilization and it is clear that utilization is low in ventura county and part of that is the result of lower staffing in that area than we would like. there's aggressive efforts right now to recruit for that. in the terms of the question about chronic homelessness, it is true that hud vash is targeted to the chronically homeless population. that's the population that most needs that kind of 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 blom, what you're talking about in terms of using the vouchers or unused vouchers for project-based projects as well as high-need areas. i think 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, so the local housing authority and local government can decide we want to use all of our vouchers 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 across the country? >> we believe it is. if you have specific instances where you believe we haven't communicated that, we are happy to reinforce the point. >> it's the first i heard it today. i will certainly check in with our housing authorities to 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 have been talking about that. we currently allow housing authorities to go up to what we call 110% of the payment standard and where housing authorities believe they need more flexibility to go above that, we will consider that on a case by case basis. i think housing authorities in these 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, there are other bills out there, but 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. do you have 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 at immediate risk 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 to 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. >> i want to thank the gentle lady for her questions and now yield five minutes to mr. takano. >> mr. lynch, as we have 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 in communities all across the country, including mine, 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 in service for veterans. it's supported by several vsos including am vets, and pva. are you familiar with this bill? >> only vaguely having heard about it this morning and va is looking forward to reviewing that bill and providing feedback. 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 could lapse or funding would lapse and the oversight role is somewhat enabled here? >> i would submit that it is always important to communicate with our 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 funding 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 -- >> maybe i shouldn't say funding. it requires notice to congress before a contract expires to help prevent lapses in service to veterans, so it's not a contract expiring. not funding 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 to 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 as of march 2017, the va has been able to successfully treat more than 84,000 veterans. while the va continues to work through the list of known veterans, 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 current emphasis to 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 these veterans? >> we tare actually 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, two, modernizing the system, 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 2009, va secretaries have 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's downgrading of veteran homelessness is having a direct impact on its ability to help this at-risk population? >> i honestly don't believe the agency has downgraded the emphasis on homelessness, congressman. i think we continue to have a strong emphasis on identifying and treating our homeless veterans. >> even as -- even as veteran homelessness has increased 1.5% over 2016 figures and the secretary has not included this in his top priorities, 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 of 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. harris to 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 long-term 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 asked your partners, 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 have 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 than 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 wraparound 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 million ways we can go with that. let me just cover a couple. >> just give me one. >> if you look, for instance, at the largest of our transitional housing programs, two-thirds of the veterans that exit to permanent housing do so with no subsidy. without a voucher, without rapid housing assistance. that's incredibly 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 ultimate outcome measurement for all the programs within -- >> not off the top of my head. but yes. >> could you get them? >> yes. >> i would like for you to submit to the committee for the record the outcome of self-sufficiency once you've identified a homeless veteran and you have had them matriculate through whatever program that you have, 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. if you add in retired or volunteers, students, that 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 exiting our 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 get veterans the help they need and 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 those programs, and the program success. but another driver in 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, sort of whether it's time limitations or work requirements or whatever it is. could you talk about just 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 the 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. 67%. >> 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, then i think we've identified at least one program that we might want to make even 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 success measure is accurate. i don't have any reason to believe it's not. miss blom, accountability? >> yes. >> do you believe it's there sufficiently in your 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 provided 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 see that tick up, particularly in high cost areas such as l.a. and seattle. >> when you say 93% success rate, what does that measure again? >> 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 stable housing. >> do you know of the 93% that you give assistance to for housing, 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 what miss blom said. we are tracking how many veterans are successfully housed following involvement in our programs. we track how many do not get housed. 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 kroot 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. miller, you close us 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 i can tell you there's a lot of things not working in my own operation i'd like to fix and am working on. 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 for our veterans. >> dr. harris would like to start and i would like to follow. >> real quick, ten seconds. >> i think the biggest one is lack of prevention and too many people are falling into homelessness. it's not a failure of the homeless system. it's a broader failure of the entire societal system. we need to go upstream farther than we have. >> 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 blom? >> i will folk on tribal hud vash. there's a senate bill that was introduced, senate 1333, that would permanently authorize the tribal hud vash program that would help communities be able to project base those vouchers and again, produce stable housing for veterans long-term in indians 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. serve 10,000 more veterans. >> excellent. >> homeless veterans. >> okay. god bless you guys. thanks for coming. and there are no further questions, then the panel's now excused. i ask unanimous consent that all members have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. without objection, so ordered. this hearing is now adjourned. c-span, where history infolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. tonight on our companion network, c-span2, supreme court justice rouge bader ginsburg on jewish life, her career as a lawyer and judge and the news media. she will sit down with a discussion for the editor of forward magazine in washington, d.c. it gets underway at 7:00 p.m. eastern. you'll be able to see it on our companion network, c-span2. then at 8:00 p.m. eastern, president trump speaks to the republican national committee at hisz hotel in washington. that will be live on our companion network c-span. >> there weekend on american history tv on c-span3, saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on lectures in history, university of north carolina at chapel hill professor molly worthen on 20th century funneled. allism and the origins and growth of pentacostalism. >> they're conservative protestants who militantly opposed new ideas about the bible, science, and society. >> and at 10:00 p.m. eastern on real america, the 1989 documentary island of hope, island of tears. >> over 12 million men, women, and children passed this way. passed through rooms and corridors haunted with a special stillness which remains only in places once noisy with human life. here they sang the first songs, experienced their first american christmas and hanukkah. here they waited to be given per politician to pass over to the new land. >> sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, an interview from the west point center for oral history with katherine west moreland, wife of general william westmore land who commanded u.s. forces in vietnam. >> my main work was red cross and i did -- i really worked almost every day i worked in the vietnamese hospital. and our hospital and then i went to natrong once a week to do red cross work. >> watch american history tv every weekend on c-span3. >> c-span's history series land mark cases returns next month with a look at 12 new supreme court cases. each week historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind these significant supreme court decisions. beginning monday, february 26th, live at 9:00 p.m. eastern, and help you better understand each case, we have a companion guide written by veteran supreme court journalist tony morrow. landmark cases, volume two. the book costs $8.95 plus shipping and handling. go to c-span.org/landmarkcases. coming up next on c-span3, wisconsin governor scott walker delivers the state of the state address before a joint session of the wisconsin state legislature at the capital in madison.

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