About VHAF

                              Our Goal: 

There will be no veteran without a place to call “home.”

  

What we are:

  • The Veterans Housing Assistance Fund (VHAF) will directly and efficiently address the growing and tragic problem of men and women who have served in the armed forces of the United States and now find themselves homeless.

  • We will provide grants or loans to support the acquisition, development or rehabilitation of housing for Veterans.

  • A specific area of need addressed by the VHAF is that of providing "seed" money to organizations seeking to plan and develop new sites for such housing.

 The Nature of the Problem:

  • No one knows how many Veterans are homeless, it is estimated that on any given night, from 200,000 to 400,000 Veterans are homeless.
  • This represents 25% of the national homeless population, even though Veterans account for 10% of the general population.
  •  This is a national tragedy that can and should be addressed.
  • In 2006, the Health Care for Homeless Veterans program conducted clinical assessments on 60,587 homeless Veterans.
  •  About 43% served during the Vietnam Era, 11% in the Persian Gulf, and a growing percentage reported service in Iraq.
  • 60% of the Veterans seen in the program were living in temporary shelters or outdoors at the time of contact and 39% had been homeless for six  months or more.
  • These people are not homeless by choice.  This is a complex problem.
  • In some cases, combat and military life profoundly affects Veterans who cannot reintegrate into civilian life, leaving their famlies, homes and jobs, and become homeless.
  • In other cases, physical, or other injuries create barriers to employment and housing that result in homelessness.
  • Recent data shows the returning female veterans are becoming homeless at a rate of 4%.
  • Without a safe home it is hard for a Veteran to focus on "getting and staying better".
  • Once a Veteran has a roof over his or her head, medical treatment, counseling, job placement, and other social services have a much greater chance of success.
  • A multidisciplinary approach that houses, treats, counsels, and places vets in jobs has the highest chance of successfully breaking the cycle of homelessness.

What the VHAF will do:

  • Existing government programs provide some transitional and permanent housing for Veterans but cannot meet the growing need for permanent affordable housing.
  • Supportive housing programs coupled with medical, counseling, and other social services have proven to be more successful. 
  • Often, the VA, with whom the VHAF closely works, is the provider of such support. But, the VA cannot address this issue alone.
  • The key to building enough housing is in providing initial financial support and expertise to seed projects that local champions, want to build.
  • In short, there are some existing programs to fund construction and subsidize the monthly rents of qualifying Veterans.
  • But, there is a dire shortage of funding for pre-development costs such as environmental, engineering, market and land use studies, conceptual design development, site evaluation, planning, grant writing and approvals.
  • The VHAF will try to meet this need by granting or lending pre-development funds to organizations with promising projects to develop housing for homeless Veterans.   

Who Holds and Administers the Fund:

  • The VHAF is national in scope.  Its first project is located in Connecticut. 
  • The VHAF is housed within the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (the “Foundation”). 
  • The Foundation is a philanthropic institution that was established in 1928.  It is one of the largest charitable organizations in the region with a cumulative endowment valued at approximately $300 million. The Foundation administers designated, donor advised, preference, unrestricted, and agency endowments. For more information about the Foundation, please visit its website at http://www.cfgnh.org/

How Grant Recipients Are Selected:

  • Recommendations for grants or loans in furtherance of the Fund’s purposes are submitted to the Veterans Housing Assistance Fund Committee. 
  •  The Committee evaluates applications for grants or loans under established written guidelines that allow it to identify those that they regard as most worthy.
  •  An initial short outline would be presented describing the project.
  •  An initial assessment would be undertaken by the Committee, and if approved, the applicant would be asked to fill out a more detailed final application.
  •  That application would be reviewed by the Committee and, if approved, the Foundation would be advised of the Committee’s recommendation and would disburse the funds.