On Veterans Day, VA Secretary Shinseki Recognizes, Thanks Veterans

This Veterans Day, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki calls on America to honor its 23 million Veterans by reaching out to them and their families with heartfelt thanks and encourage them to seek the benefits and services they have earned from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

“As we observe Veterans Day, I look to everyone - families, friends and acquaintances in communities, large and small–to turn out and thank all our Veterans, from earlier eras and those who are just returning home,” said VA Secretary Shinseki.

Shinseki noted that America has made significant investments in Veterans benefits and services over the past 19 months: a 16 percent VA budget increase last year and a 10 percent increase in the 2011 budget request. He said this is making it possible to increase Veterans’ access to benefits and health care services, help end the disability claims backlog, and eliminate Veterans’ homelessness by 2015. The Post 9/11 GI Bill has already sent more than 400,000 Veterans to college, and care and benefits will be extended to more Veterans who have illnesses related to exposure to Agent Orange and service during the first Persian Gulf War.

Read more

Video from VA’s National Veterans Awareness Campaign

This is the second ad in VA’s National Veterans Awareness Campaign. The campaign is intended to make Veterans and their families aware of the VA benefits to which they may be entitled.

VA Taking Life-Saving Campaign to Streets

This week, nearly 1,200 life-saving advertisements will go up on city buses, bus shelters, rail and subway stations across the Nation displaying a message of hope for those who have served their country and may be facing an emotional crisis. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is advertising its Suicide Prevention Hotline through Jan. 9, 2011.

“I know of one Veteran who saw these signs on a bus shelter, called the hotline, and came to VA for help that same day,” said VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. “That Veteran had been walking out to the desert to take his own life. There are thousands of other Veterans like him who are still with us today as a direct result of the hotline. It’s important that we get the word out to everyone who put their lives on the line in defense of this Nation.”

Since its inception in July 2007, VA’s Suicide Prevention Hotline, 1-800-273-TALK, has saved more than 10,000 Veterans and provided counseling for more than 180,000 Veterans and their loved ones at home and overseas.

The hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week by trained mental health professionals prepared to deal with immediate crises. The hotline also offers an anonymous online chat feature available at www.suicidepreventionhotline.org. (Look for the chat feature in the upper right hand box.) While implemented for Veterans, any person who calls the hotline and needs help will receive it.

VA has marketed the hotline through mass transit campaigns since summer of 2008, increasing the number of calls and lives saved with each city the campaign has reached. VA is partnering with Blue Line Media (www.BlueLineMedia.com) for the campaign, a transit advertising  company that specializes in helping business and government tell their stories through transit advertising media, such as buses, bus shelters, benches, subways, trains, airports, billboards and more.

VA has also promoted awareness of the hotline through national public service announcements featuring actor Gary Sinise and TV personality Deborah Norville. The transit advertisements and both PSAs are available for download via You Tube and at www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention.

Secretary Shinseki Announces $41.9 Million to Help the Homeless

WASHINGTON - Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki has announced that 40 states will share more than $41.9 million in grants to community groups to provide 2,568 beds for homeless Veterans this year.

“These grants wouldn’t have happened without the extraordinary partnerships forged with community organizers,” said VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. “These investments will provide transitional beds to Veterans who have served honorably, but for various reasons now find themselves in a downward spiral toward despair and homelessness.”

The Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program provides grants and per diem payments to help public and nonprofit organizations establish and operate new supportive housing and service centers for homeless Veterans.

The $41.9 million is broken into two categories. About $26.9 million will help renovate, rehabilitate or acquire space for 1,352 transitional housing beds. A second group of awards, valued at $15 million, will immediately fund 1,216 beds at existing transitional housing for homeless Veterans this year. The awards will cover daily living costs based upon the number of homeless Veterans being served in transitional housing.

A key component of VA’s plan to eliminate homelessness among Veterans within five years, the grants and per diem payments helped reduce the number of Veterans who were homeless on a typical night last year by 18 percent to about 107,000 Veterans within one year.

VA’s strategy to eliminate homelessness among Veterans is to implement a “no wrong door” approach, meaning Veterans who seek assistance should find it in any number of VA’s programs, from community partners or through contract services.

Under the Secretary’s action plan to end homelessness among Veterans, VA will continue to offer a full range of support necessary to end the cycle of homelessness by providing education, jobs, health care and counseling, in addition to housing. VA will increase the number and variety of housing options available to homeless Veterans and those at risk, including permanent, transitional, contracted, community-operated and VA-operated housing. Most importantly, VA will target at-risk Veteran populations with aggressive support intervention to try to prevent homelessness before it starts.

For more information, visit VA’s Web page for VA’s National Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Office at www.va.gov/homeless. Additionally, VA has a National Call Center for Homeless Veterans, 1-877-4AID VET (1-877-424-3838), www1.va.gov/HOMELESS/NationalCallCenter.asp.

HUD and VA Launch $15 Million Demonstration Program to Prevent Veteran Homelessness

In an effort to prevent homelessness among veterans, primarily those returning from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that both agencies will invest a combined $15 million in five selected communities near military installations. The HUD and VA grant funding is intended to provide housing assistance and supportive services to veterans who might otherwise be living in homeless shelters or on the streets.

Read more

VA Selects Permanent Location for Historic Civil War Monument

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced Dec. 30 that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has selected the Frazier International History Museum in Louisville, Ky., as the new home of the Bloedner Monument, the nation’s oldest Civil War memorial.

Read more

Sec. Shinseki and Other Top Obama Administration Officials Hold Rural Health Community Forum

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki will join three other Cabinet Secretaries in hosting a rural health community forum today in St. John Parish, La., to share information about the federal government’s efforts to rebuild and revitalize rural America, announced the Department of Veteran Affairs in a press release today.

This is the next leg of a tour launched by President Obama, showcasing how communities, states, and the federal government can work together to help strengthen rural America.

The Secretaries for the Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Labor and Veterans Affairs will listen to local residents’ perspectives and discuss solutions to the challenges facing rural communities during the 90-minute community forum.

Read more