A new group of disabled veterans is returning to cities across the U.S. at a time when Vietnam and Korean-era are increasingly utilizing the V.A. Healthcare system due to problems of aging. The Veterans’ Administration and the ICHH should prioritize an expedited process for enhanced use leases for underutilized VA Health System facilities in order to rapidly bring on-line new permanent supportive housing for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with Traumatic Brain Injury, blindness and/or mobility impairments and for older WWII, Vietnam-era and Korean War vets with problems of aging. Beyond VASH, a new round of Project-based Rental Assistance to make these new units permanently affordable for disabled Veterans should be bundled together.

Homeless woman veteran are the fastest growing population of our homeless veterans. Treatment program offered by the Veterans Health Administration for these woman are not gender specific, group sessions, treatment and program services are often integrated with male veterans, which is not meeting the sensitive needs of these woman veterans Our woman served honorable in the military however, the Veterans Health Administration was built on a WWI model dedicated solely to men in uniform and the VHA continues that practice today. The new federal plan must included gender specific program and services for Homeless Women Veterans integrated throughout the Veterans Health Administration. Theses program and services must also allow for families as well.

one of the biggest problems we face in recent decades is the de-funding and inadequate funding of existing housing programs. Simply fund them adequately! Currently there is a strategy by massive coalitions of nonprofits, to subvert and divert the funding to pay for their operations and staff, RATHER THAN paying for the housing itself. STOP this waste and abuse. Pay for housing units to be built or preserved, and subsidized, with very minimal supports if any, such as PAYING THE RENT DIRECTLY FROM THE VETERANS DISABILITY CHECK. or REFERRING THEM TO THEIR MENTAL HEALTH PROVIDERS. THIS KIND OF THING is very practical and WILL KEEP THEM HOUSED.

When veterans return, they may or may not be ready to jump back into the civilian life they left behind.

Organized support for re-entry (and for the family of re-entering veterans, so that they are prepared to support their veteran) should be an integral part of military service (not extending the commitment, but constituting the final weeks of the commitment).

Many people enlisted in the military because they didn't have good economic alternatives; they are at an even greater competitive disadvantage when they return from the military if they don't have -- or don't know how to market -- the skills / experience that employers want.

If we want to support a successful re-entry, we have to be willing to provide -- and sustain -- the financial support that veterans need while they work to get their feet on the ground, including moving ahead with their education and training. Given all the physical and emotional challenges that veterans have withstood while they were in combat, re-entry should presume the need for healing, rather than putting the burden on the veteran (or his/her family) to ask for help.

Even without the burden of trauma, many returning veterans might be expected to have a stressful time coping with the financial realities of civilian life. If, on top of that, the veteran learned to "self-medicate" or has trouble transitioning from the "wired" / hypervigilent / "jumpy" mentality that helped with survival on the battlefield, or has PTSD, that will only make it harder to cope with the stresses of re-entry.

Veterans deserve a supported re-entry, and peers that have navigated that process can provide invaluable mentoring. A better supported re-entry could very well be the difference between inability to make it and successful return to civilian life.