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$500,000 grant will fund rental housing for 70 homeless vets

A federal program that will provide permanent rental housing here for 70 chronically homeless veterans also will benefit landlords.

Rental subsidies of $500,000 a year will be paid to landlords who rent to chronically homeless vets in the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program, aka VASH, said Peggy Morales, administrator of Tucson's public housing programs.

"This is a program where we want to open our hearts to show (vets) our appreciation. This is a program that has been a long time coming," she said.

Priority for the housing slots will go to homeless vets with dependents and to homeless female vets of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to Charles Learned, a clinical social worker at the Southern Arizona VA Health System who will work with the VA housing program clients.

Morales said there has been no federal housing subsidy like it for chronically homeless vets for more than 10 years and she's eager to get started.

"These are special people," she said. "We're ready to rock and roll."

An earlier pilot program, also funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, ran for five years until 1997. It had regulations, including income limits, that made it hard for vets to sustain long-term success, she said.

The HUD funds became available July 1. Phoenix got funding for 105 homeless vets and Prescott got funding for 35.

Morales said her father is a World War II Bataan Death March survivor.

"I have a soft spot for the (homeless) veterans," she said. "They've been homeless and shunned for so long.

There are an estimated 600 homeless veterans in the Tucson area, the VA has said.

Learned and a second social worker to be hired by the VA in October will work with the vets who are enrolled the VASH program.

"Unlike the first installment of the VASH program, this one has no time limit," said Learned.

"The caveat is, there is lifetime approval, but this is more than a housing program," Learned said. "It involves a commitment to case management in a way that keeps (veterans) in housing."

"As long as they are actively participating in case management and comply with their case plan, which can include mental health services or addiction treatment," they can remain in the housing program.

Each vet's housing placement and progress with treatment will be reviewed quarterly.

Marty Twohill, clinical director of the Tucson VA's rehabilitation programs, said, "Our hope is they will come into the VASH program (get treatment) and exit that program and become independent."

"Homeless vets have issues and some landlords are going to have to be maybe a little more flexible than maybe they have been," Morales said.