Secretaries of Veteran Affairs and HUD Announced they are Mobilizing (their) strength to do Everything in (their) power to end Veteran Homelessness and California Should Announce the Same

California’s 44 Continuums of Care Should Echo the Announcement
and do Everything in their Power to Finish Ending
Veteran Homelessness in their Jurisdictions 

Local Data Throughout California Reveals the Goal of
Ending Veteran Homelessness is Within Reach
for Many Continuums of Care
(see map below)

In a recent joint statement on ending veteran homelessness, HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge and VA Secretary Denis McDonough noted that that there was a 47% reduction in veteran homelessness during the first half of the past decade according to estimates based on point-in-time counts.

There was a 43% reduction in veteran homelessness in California during the same time.

The Secretaries also noted that a GAO report found that, since 2016, progress towards ending Veteran homelessness slowed down. A decrease has continued. However, the decrease was 7% when the 40,056 veterans counted in 2017 is compared to the 37,085 veterans counted in 2019.

In California, progress towards ending veteran homelessness has also slowed down during the same period. There was a decrease of 4% when the 11,472 veterans counted in 2017 is compared to the 10,980 veterans counted in 2019.

NOTE: Odd number years were compared because HUD does not require Continuums of Care (CoCs) to conduct unsheltered counts during the end of January in even number years.

What Next 

Ending homelessness for all veterans who are living unsheltered in California may appear daunting. The last few point-in-time homeless counts noted that approximately 8,000 veterans were living unsheltered in California. 

Ending homelessness for the number of unsheltered veterans within each of California’s 44 CoCs is less daunting. 

As visualized in the map below, during the 2019 unsheltered point-in-time count:

• 29 of California’s 44 CoCs or nearly two-thirds (65.9%) counted less than 100 unsheltered veterans; and
• 8 of the 44 CoCs, or nearly 20%, counted between 100 and 200 hundred unsheltered veterans.

Of the remaining seven (7) CoCs,

• 1 CoC counted between 200 and 300 unsheltered veterans;
• 5 CoCs counted between 400 and 600 unsheltered veterans; and
• 1 CoC counted more than 600 unsheltered veterans.

Click here for a pdf copy of map.

California’s CoCs should echo the announcement of the secretaries of VA and HUD and further the alignment of their joint forces to mobilize their strength to do everything in their power to end homelessness among local unsheltered veterans.

Making it known that they are mobilizing their strength to do everything in their power to end homelessness for each unsheltered veteran in their CoC will likely mobilize more forces and not only make the goal appear feasible but within their reach.

Unprecedented Funding

Unprecedented federal and state funding to implement a wide-range of evidence-based, best, promising, and emerging practices ranging from health care to housing to end homelessness for unsheltered veterans in each California CoC will be the focus of the following report in this series.