 Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kevin C. Miller, and I'm the Associate National Communications Director with Disabled American Veterans DAV. Joining us for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is Anthony Love. Mr. Love serves as the principal advisor of Intera Agency Collaboration and Director of Community Engagement for the Department of Veteran Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, Homeless Programs. In this role, he develops and implements strategies to improve VA's engagement with federal, state, and local agencies, communities, and other interested stakeholders to ensure every resource is available to veterans needing to exit homelessness. He also provides timely and insightful advice to the Director of VHA Homeless Programs on operational and security opportunities, as well as identifies and recommends best practices related to homeless solutions, community, state, and local government engagement, as well as facilitates alignment of VHA operations and research functions. Thank you, Anthony Love, for joining us today. And just to let our audience know, we will be answering any questions in the comments today after our Q&A ends for the last segment. Thank you again, joining us today. Dr. Love, I mean, Mr. Love. Yep, that's Mr. Love. Thank you so much for having me. Definitely appreciate it. I appreciate being here. Look forward to the conversation. So to kick off, earlier this month, officials from VA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the US Interagency Council on Homelessness released an update on veterans experiencing homelessness. Mr. Love, can you let us know more about this latest update of the number of veterans currently experiencing homelessness? Oh, absolutely. So every year, the communities around the country do what they call a point-in-time count. And this point-in-time count generally is led by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But VA and other agencies participate in that. The point-in-time count that was done this year, for example, was the first full point-in-time count done since 2020. And so we've gotten a partial result of the point-in-time count showing that on a single night in January, there were over 33,000 veterans who were experiencing homelessness in the United States. And so with that number, we've seen the number of veterans experiencing homelessness decrease by 55% since 2010. And so that is a major, major celebration, short-term. But the fact of it is, there are still over 33,000 veterans who need a place to call home. And so we still have a lot of work to do. But for the point-in-time, we recognize that we know what works. And being able to reduce those numbers by over 55% says a lot for the strategies that we've put in place to ensure every veteran has an opportunity to have a permanent and safe place to call home. Thank you for that insight. And I'm glad to see we're taking continue to make inroads and positive steps forward in reducing the number of veterans experiencing homelessness. To that, can we, next, can you elaborate a little bit on the demographic of who's amongst that 33,000 veterans who are still working to find a place called home? No, absolutely. So as you can imagine, pretty much homelessness, even homelessness among veterans, touches every demographic. But it impacts different demographics differently. So when these numbers came out, what we saw in terms of who it was impacting, we saw that African-American and Black, Hispanic, Latino, and Native American Pacific Islanders were overrepresented within those populations, in the homeless veteran population. And what I mean by that, for example, Hispanic and Latino veterans account for roughly about 7% of all US veterans, but they were 11% of those veterans experiencing homelessness. Same goes for Black or African-American veterans. Black and African-American veterans account for about 12% of United States veterans, yet they account for 33% of veterans experiencing homelessness, same for our Native American veterans, who only account for a little under 1% of US veterans, but are 3% of veterans experiencing homelessness. We also have women veterans who are experiencing homelessness. The thing that we've seen with that, though, is that women veterans are roughly about 8% of US veterans and also a little over 8% of veterans experiencing homelessness. We even have veterans who have identified as gender non-confirming or transgender, and they account for 0.4% and 0.3% of those veterans experiencing homelessness in that order. So like I said, it pretty much touches every demographic, but it also impacts certain demographics more than others. Thank you for elaborating on that. And it's good to see that we've made overall progress, but it looks like we still got a lot of work to do to continue to reach those underserved communities that you mentioned. To continue to go off that on the follow-up, I'd like to ask, what are some of the risk factors for veterans who are potentially facing homelessness? Yeah, that's a very good question. There are quite a few risk factors that impact those veterans that are at risk, their risk of homelessness. There are several studies out there, but one study that we looked at kind of characterized these risk factors contributing to veterans experiencing homelessness in two ways. There are those individual level risk factors, and then there are those system level risk factors. So when we talk about individual level factors, we look at those factors like substance use disorders, a lack of stable income or an employment history, or a history of incarceration. Also, you can put into an individual risk factor is a lack of social support, not necessarily having family or friends that you can turn to if things get tight, and also adverse childhood events, things whether you were in foster care or you came from a household that wasn't very stable. Those individual level factors really increase the risk of a veteran becoming homeless. And then you also have those system level factors that we don't often talk about but are very key to consider, particularly if we're talking about finishing the job of ending veteran homelessness. And some of those system level factors include a lack of affordable housing, lack of opportunities, and kind of neighborhood factors. I think before we started, I talked about NIMBY, not in my backyard, when you're trying to build affordable housing for veterans exiting homelessness, and the pushback that you may get from certain neighborhoods, and also different cultural factors. And this is where in some of those system level factors where you find the structural racism that has been embedded within those systems that really impact those veterans who are experiencing homelessness and looking for those opportunities to exit. So those factors really increase the chances of those veterans becoming homeless, particularly the ones when I talked about those who are overrepresented, all of those who are overrepresented within that factor fall within our veterans of color, so to speak. Thank you. And you really addressed the complexity that is in the background of a myriad of issues that can potentially have a veteran and their family fall into homelessness. And thank you for elaborating on the different factors that really can potentially put one at risk for losing their home and trying to regain footing within their life. But you mentioned the numbers earlier, and we have seen a significant drop in veteran homelessness of more than 55% since 2010, which really demonstrates how impactful the programs that the Department of Veteran Affairs has been. So my next question is, can you let our audience know what programs are available for veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness? Yes, there are a ton of programs that are available. I mean, for veterans who are at risk, imminent risk are experiencing homelessness. Particularly, a lot of those programs that are offered by VA, those programs and services, they really go a long way at addressing the full spectrum of housing instability and the homelessness experience of veterans. And all of them are built around what we call a housing first approach. And just real briefly, what housing first is, is the ability to ensure moving a veteran into a housing setting, a permanent housing setting, and wrapping around him or her those services that they need in order to stay stable within that housing as well as to begin the process of improving their quality of life. The idea of housing first is to eliminate the chaos that comes with homelessness, and then that veteran can then focus on those services that would help him or her begin to move forward in life. And so a couple of categories in which those services fall under, and I'll start with what I would call our permanent housing services that we have available. One such service, which is a new particular service program, is our supportive services for veteran families. And that particular program really has a component that is twofold. One is to rapidly rehouse those veterans who have recently become homeless by helping them to move back into permanent housing and provide some support both on the supportive services side as well as the financial support for, I think, roughly about four or five months. And then they began to be able to move forward, still having access to some of those support services, but being able to take on the financial piece on their own. Also, HUD VASH, or HUD, what we call a HUD VA supportive housing program, a lot of people know that as HUD VASH. And that is a partnership between Department of Veterans Affairs and HUD. And then when you go down to the local community, it is the VA Medical Center partnering with your local housing authority, where the local housing authority will provide the rental voucher to that veteran, where that veteran would only pay roughly between 10% to 30% of their income. And the voucher will cover the additional piece. And the VA would come in and provide the supportive services for that veteran to ensure that he or she can stay in that housing, as well as, as I've said before, begin to work on those areas that not only stabilize them, but to help them improve their quality of life. Another program we have followed under the residential services. And so a lot of folks are familiar with our grant and per diem program. And it provides a temporary placement in the form of transitional housing. And that transitional housing can fall under several categories like bridge housing, which is a 90 day stay for a veteran, while he or she may be in the process of moving into permanent housing, and only needs that light touch, 90 day stay while the housing is becoming available. To give you an example of that, if you or I were to sign a lease on an apartment, nine times out of 10 that apartment is not gonna be ready the same day. However, you or I can go back to where we were living at first while that apartment is being made ready. But if you're homeless, you may not have that ability. And so these bridge housing, that bridge housing piece of grant and per diem allows a veteran to have that stable place to be for up to 90 days before moving in. There's also the hospital, I think I'm getting it right, hospital to housing where those veterans who are what I would call their inpatient hospital and they're getting ready to be discharged because they're not sick enough, if you will, to still be inpatient in the hospital, but they're not really well enough to be on their own. And so this particular program would address that to help that veteran fully heal, fully get ready and in the help to him or her to transition into permanent housing. And then you also have a low barrier program within the transitional piece, which really operates with what we'll call a harm reduction model, as well as easy entry, if you will. And when I say easy entry, I just mean that you're looking for ways to screen the veteran in versus screening them out, working with them where they are to help them again, staying that, you know, providing them with the supportive services, substance abuse services, mental health counseling and the like before them transitioning out. And then you also have the, what I would call the traditional transitional housing, the long, what I'll call service intensive transitional housing for those veterans who may really have just said, look, I need some time before going into a permanent housing setting. And so you work with them to deal with employment issues, getting ID, doing all the other paperwork as they are getting ready to make the move into a more permanent setting. And so that is all of that is under the grant and per diem. We also have a healthcare from this veterans contracted residential services, which are more around the form of an emergency type of housing. And all of these are for those veterans who need a place to stay right now. And then we have what we call our outreach engagement, assessment and referral services. And again, those come under the, one comes under the healthcare for homeless veterans going out to do outreach in the community, identifying those veterans where they are trying to get them into housing, whether it be permanent emergency or transitional as quickly as possible. And then we have the National Call Center for homeless veterans. And it serves kind of as this front door to both VA homeless programs and to the broader VA healthcare system. That's great. That's a wide array of programs available to veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness. And it's great to see that the VA has developed this over time to really meet veterans where they are at whatever phase they are in their life. Cause there's never, one solution doesn't fit all. And so, having this, the diversification of the programs as I can see has really beneficial in providing an open door policy for veterans to pursue different means to obtaining permanent housing. Absolutely. And I would be remiss. I mean, because that's not an exhaustive list. I mean, we also still have programs who are involved in the criminal justice system, veterans helping them to gain meaningful employment or to take care of their health needs through primary care. That's tailored to their unique access barriers that these particular veterans experiencing homelessness face. And I might wanna add a plug that for people to remember, yes, we have a wide array of programs and services for veterans trying to exit homelessness within VA, but first and foremost, veterans are citizens first. And so there are also programs within the Department of Labor and Health and Human Services as well as HUD programs that veterans also can access to help them exit homelessness in their community. Great, thank you. Just to let our audience know, a lot of the resources that Mr. Love did mentioned in the last question will be posted and links and replied to in the chat. So if you wanna know and elaborate on how to access these resources, we'll be making sure to respond to that at the conclusion of our Q and A. And so if you do have questions, please do address them in the comments. We'll get to them at a later time. And so for my last question really to kind of like tie this up, Mr. Love, what advice do you have for our audience today so that might want to help homeless veterans in their community? They see someone on the street or they have a friend or a family member, they know that's come on a hard times. What advice would you give them to point them in the right direction? That's a very good question. I mean, there's so much that all of us can do. We all have a part to play in ending veteran homelessness. So what I would say, there are a couple of things that I would add that one, if you are a veteran who's homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness or if you are an individual who knows a veteran, a veteran or his or her family who's homeless or at imminent risk of homeless, you can call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans. It's 877-424-3838. And then this particular call center is a 24-7 center which have operators there that will talk to you on the phone, ask where you are and connect you to the resources closest to you in that community. Also, if you are a landlord or you are a housing provider and you have housing units and are interested in renting to veterans, we have a website you can go to at www.va.gov forward slash homeless, forward slash landlords.asp that will show you how you can help and be able to help us to house veterans who are trying to exit homelessness. We would encourage you to go to that website. Also, if you are a landlord and you don't have time for the site, if you're and you're familiar with our different programs, just ask you to take those vouchers that veterans have and support that hero who is really trying to get his or her life back together. Also, if you are a business owner, I would just encourage you to hire veterans. You can visit our website at www.va.gov but with this one, forward slash homeless, forward slash CEC contacts ASP. And this will connect you with your local VA community employment coordinator, can work with them to ensure if you have an interest in hiring veterans, they can help you get those veterans connected. And again, let me repeat that call center number because for all of us, again, if you don't know of any places in your community and you know this veteran and you may not want to approach, but you can still call that number 877-424-3838 and you can use it if you know of these veterans who are in need of assistance. Great, thank you, Mr. Love, really appreciate it. And you really highlighted by all the ways folks can get involved or how to point them, it's a community effort. It really is a community effort to make sure we hit our mutual goal of ending veteran homelessness across the country. While we've seen great strides and positive step forwards, there is still a lot of work to be done, but thanks to the leadership of the VA and other community organizations serving veterans, we're continuing to get closer to that goal. And so, as before we wrap up here, I'd like to leave our audience with three additional ways of how they can support, volunteer, or advocate for veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness. DAV's Charitable Service Trust also financially supports many organizations that helps veterans experiencing homelessness, distributing more than 100 grants totaling nearly $4 million over the past five years alone. If you'd like to make a donation today to support the work of DAV's Charitable Service Trust, or if you're an organization serving veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness, looking for grant opportunities to help funding to serve these veterans, please visit cst.dav.org. Also, DAV offers a wide range of opportunities to assist our nation's veterans, including serving veterans at homeless stand downs. For information how you can get involved in these events, please visit www.volunteerforveterans.org. And lastly, to stay informed on how you can take action to support federal legislation and policies affecting veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness, please join us at DAV's Commander's Action Network, also called DAV CAN by visiting www.davcan.org. Thank you again, Mr. Love, for joining me today in DAV and for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. It's really with your support that we continue to address this issue and inform our community members of the steps we're continuing to make to end veteran homelessness once and for all. So have a great day, continue the great work you all do and we appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for the great work that DAV is doing in the community and helping us to help those veterans who...