VA Awards $84 Million in Grants to Aid Homeless and At-Risk Veterans

 September 24, 2025

WASHINGTON — In a major push to address veteran homelessness, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is allocating $84 million in grants to 176 nonprofit and community organizations nationwide. 

The funding is evenly split: $42 million is earmarked for legal services, while another $42 million is dedicated to case management.

---

Legal Services: Preventing Evictions, Resolving Disputes

The legal services grants will be channeled through the VA’s Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans At-Risk for Homelessness Grants program.  Veterans will receive support in areas such as:

• Landlord-tenant disputes to prevent eviction

• Family law matters (child support, custody proceedings) and estate planning

• Securing state and federal benefits

• Legal defense in criminal proceedings (e.g. warrants, fines, driver’s license issues)

---

Case Management: Supporting Housing Stability

The case management portion of the grants is administered via the VA’s Grant and Per Diem (GPD) program, which focuses on helping formerly homeless or at-risk veterans maintain stable housing. 

Approximately 100 new case manager roles will be funded. These professionals will:

• Assist veterans in identifying and securing suitable housing

• Conduct home visits to monitor housing stability and service needs

• Support veterans’ access to education and empowerment resources 

---

Context and Reaction

VA Secretary Doug Collins emphasized the urgency of the initiative:

“No one who served our nation in uniform should go without shelter. These grants will provide crucial support and services to help thousands of Veterans on their journey back to self-sufficiency.” 

The announcement arrives amid signs of progress: a 2024 VA point-in-time count reported 32,882 veterans experiencing homelessness — a record low and a 7.5 percent decline from 2023 levels. ) The decline is part of a long-term trend: since 2010, veteran homelessness has dropped by more than half, according to analysis cited by Newsweek.

Advocacy groups such as the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) have long pushed for stronger legal aid and wraparound support for veterans, noting that legal troubles and unstable housing often go hand in hand.

---

What Veterans Can Do

Veterans experiencing homelessness or at risk of losing housing can:

• Call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 1-877-4AID-VET (1-877-424-3838) 

• Visit the VA Homeless Programs website for eligibility information, grant awardee lists, and other support resources

---

This funding round joins a broader VA effort: recently the department awarded $818 million to support veteran homelessness through similar programs in fiscal year 2026.

VA Grants Will Aid Homeless Veterans

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 17, 2012 – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is awarding nearly $100 million in grants that will help approximately 42,000 homeless and at-risk veterans and their families, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced.

The grants are going to 151 community agencies in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, according to a VA news release.

“We are committed to ending veteran homelessness in America,” Shinseki stated in the release. “These grants will help VA and community organizations reach out and prevent at-risk veterans from losing their homes.”

Under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, VA is awarding grants to private nonprofit organizations and consumer cooperatives that provide services to very low -income veteran families living in -- or transitioning to -- permanent housing, according to the VA release. Those community organizations provide a range of services that promote housing stability among eligible very low-income veteran families.

Under the grants, providers will offer veterans and their families outreach, case management, assistance in obtaining VA benefits and in getting other public benefits, the release said. Community-based groups can offer temporary financial assistance on behalf of veterans for rent and utility payments as well as security deposits and moving costs.

This is the program’s second year. Last year, VA provided about $60 million to assist 22,000 veterans andfamilies.

In 2009, President Barack Obama and Shinseki announced the federal government’s goal to end veteran homelessness by 2015 and the grants are intended to help accomplish that. According to the 2011 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress, homelessness among veterans has declined 12 percent since January 2010.

In fiscal year 2011, VA committed $800 million to strengthen programs that prevent and end homelessness among veterans, according to the release. VA provides a range of services to homeless veterans, including health care, housing, job training, and education.

Labor Department Announces Grants to Train Homeless Vets

From a Department of Labor News Release

WASHINGTON – The Labor Department today awarded 90 grants totaling more than $20 million to fund job training and support services that officials said will help more than 11,000 veterans succeed in civilian careers.

The grants are being awarded through the department’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.

“Americans who have served their country should not find themselves without a home,” Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said. “The grants announced today will help these heroes find good jobs and take us one step closer to the goal of ending veteran homelessness altogether.”

The grants are second- and third-year awards to state and local workforce investment boards, local public agencies and nonprofit organizations -- including faith-based and community organizations -- that demonstrated satisfactory performance during the past year, officials said. Some of the grants are set aside to serve formerly incarcerated veterans, female veterans and veterans with families who are homeless.

Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program grants provide occupational, classroom and on-the-job training, as well as job search and placement assistance, including follow-up services. Grantees are expected to maximize available assistance and find good jobs for veterans by coordinating efforts and resources with the Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development department, as well as other national, state and local agencies, in accordance with VA’s five-year plan to end homelessness for veterans and their families, officials said.

Last month, Solis announced the award of 64 grants through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program. Those grants -- which are separate from the 90 receiving funds today -- are first-year awards totaling more than $15 million, aimed at providing about 8,600 homeless veterans nationwide with job training.

Job Training Grants to Assist Nearly 9,000 Homeless Vets

By Terri Moon Cronk

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 19, 2012 – Some 8,600 homeless veterans will benefit from $15 million in grant money for job training through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said today.

The Labor Department has awarded the money to 64 organizations that help America’s veterans, DOL officials said. The grant, officials added, will go to state and local workforce investment boards, local public agencies and similar groups that are familiar with their homeless veteran populations, and have shown they can provide help for them.

“As a nation, it is our sacred obligation to the countless fathers and mothers, to the sons and daughters who put their own lives on the line to protect ours,” Solis said of efforts to assist homeless veterans. “No service member should ever have to come home and be homeless. They should never have to go to sleep in cars, streets, under bridges, or in vacant homes.”

The program will start on July 1, officials said.

Organizations receiving grants will provide a range of employment services to homeless veterans, officials said, including career counseling, resume preparation, skill development, job training and job placement -- in addition to support services such as transportation help, clothing, housing referrals and referrals to medical providers and substance abuse counselors.

“Our grantees are focused first and foremost on helping our veterans find good jobs and contribute to our economy,” Solis said.

Solis said 61 percent of homeless veterans are between the ages of 35 and 54, and while most are men, the number of women homeless veterans is increasing. She added that fewer than 60,000 veterans are assumed to be homeless any given night, a decline of more than 90,000 from four years ago.

“We’re making some progress but we know we have to do more,” Solis said.

DOL also works closely with the departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs and Health and Human Services to provide affordable housing for homeless veterans, Solis said.

“We know that once our veterans have shelter, [and have their] basic needs met, they’re more likely to seek treatment for medical issues, substance abuse and mental health challenges. And with permanent housing, they’re also more likely to seek employment,” she said.

“As a new generation of American veterans comes home, we’re reminded of the tremendous sacrifices made by our service men and women and our military families,” Solis said. “No one pays a higher price for freedom than our veterans.”

VA Makes Progress on Pledge to End Veteran Homelessness

By Donna Miles

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 3, 2012 – The Veterans Affairs Department is making progress on its pledge to end homelessness among veterans, with a focus on getting all homeless veterans off the streets by 2015, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki told American Forces Press Service.

Shinseki joined President Barack Obama in announcing the plan in November 2009, proclaiming that no veteran should ever have to be living on the streets.

VA is working toward that goal, Shinseki told Congress last month, reporting that the number of homeless veterans on a given night dropped from 76,300 in 2010 to about 67,500 in 2011. The next goal, he said, is to drive those numbers down to 35,000 by the end of fiscal 2013, and ultimately, to zero.

As Shinseki set out to transform VA after arriving in 2009, he made the homeless issue a top priority in getting to the bottom of what he viewed as an institutional problem.

“Homelessness among veterans was a demonstration to me that we didn’t have all our programs knitted together,” he said. “As good as we thought we were doing in health care and other benefits, … we had people who were slipping through the gaps in our programs -- most visibly, the homeless.”

Getting homeless veterans off the streets, particularly within such a tight timeline, would be the driving force in creating positive change throughout VA, he explained.

“If you say you are going to end homelessness, then you have to be good at everything else,” he said. “If you declare to end it, you have to figure out all the pieces that contribute to it so you can begin solving the pieces in order for the whole to be solved.”

That, he said, requires making sure VA is addressing the root causes behind homelessness.

It means more than simply getting veterans into school; it means making sure they graduate, he explained. It’s not just sending them for vocational training; it’s ensuring they finish the training and are postured to land a job.

“That’s how you beat homelessness,” Shinseki said. “It’s not the front door. It’s the back door. What did they gain out of the program?”

To support this effort, VA’s budget request for fiscal 2013 includes nearly $1.4 billion for programs designed to prevent or end homelessness among veterans. This represents a 33 percent increase, or $333 million, over the 2012 funding level.

The additional funding will provide grants and technical assistance to community nonprofit organizations to maintain veterans and their families in current housing or get them quickly into new housing. It also will provide grants and per diem payments for community-based organizations offering transitional housing to 32,000 veterans.

Shinseki also plans to hire 200 coordinators to help homeless veterans with disability claims, housing problems, job and vocational opportunities and problems with the courts.

Since announcing his homeless initiative, Shinseki said, he’s come to understand that dealing with homelessness is really a two-part challenge.

It’s one thing to get homeless veterans physically off the streets in what he calls the “rescue” part of the challenge. Shinseki said he feels confident that this part of the mission to be completed by 2015, as promised.

But the less visible and more challenging part of the problem, he said, is addressing a population that’s at risk of becoming homeless. These, Shinseki explained, are veterans who are “one paycheck, one mortgage payment, one more missed utility bill away from being evicted.”

“We never see that. But if we are going to truly end homelessness, we have to have a better picture of [that]… and go into prevention mode,” Shinseki said. “Otherwise, you will never be able to solve this.”

So while he expects the rescue mission to wrap up in 2015, Shinseki said, he’ll be able to dedicate more resources toward an ongoing prevention effort.

“If you don’t stop this faucet, you never end homelessness,” he said.

Bill of Rights Institute to Honor Veterans by Donating $1 of every $10 of Curriculum Sales to Veterans Inc

Arlington, VA -   During Veteran's Day week 2011, the Bill of Rights Institute will pay tribute to veterans past and present by donating $1 of every $10 of curriculum sales to Veterans Inc., a 501(c)(3) organization that helps veterans re-gain control of their lives in order to eliminate homelessness among veterans.

Beginning at 12 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 7 and continuing through 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 11, $1 of every $10 of educational resources purchased on the Bill of Rights Institute website will support this honorable cause.

From its founding to today, the Institute has remained steadfast in its mission of educating young people about the Constitution. Through educational resources on America's Founding documents and principles, and intensive teacher programs, the Institute has significantly increased the Constitutional knowledge and understanding of over 18,000 teachers. The Institute’s educational resources, national Being an American Essay Contest, and Constitutional Academy have provided a better understanding of the Constitution to more than 1.9 million students.

"By providing 10 percent of our total Veteran's Day Campaign sales to Veterans Inc., the Bill of Rights Institute will not only benefit veterans but their families as well." says Jason Ross, Ph.D., Vice President of Education Programs at the Bill of Rights Institute. "American veterans have protected the Constitution, and we're proud to honor their sacrifice."

About Veterans Inc.

Veterans Inc.’s mission is to help veterans re-gain control of their lives to eliminate homelessness among veterans. In many cases, Veterans Inc. actually saves lives, as their clients tell them time and again. They aim to remain a leading provider of services that improve the lives of veterans and their families by providing the highest quality services; and continuing to create new opportunities in the areas of health, employment and housing. For more information visit www.veteransinc.org.

About The Bill of Rights Institute

The Bill of Rights Institute is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization focused on educating young people about the Constitution. The Institute was launched in September 1999 to fill the need expressed by many high-school teachers for educational materials about American Founding documents and principles. For information visit www.BillofRightsInstitute.org.