Home Depot Foundation doing more for veterans

Volunteers of America gets grant to help homeless veterans
Jun 22, 2012

Troops wait for President Barack Obama to speak to them at the Third Infantry Division Headquarters, Friday, April 27, 2012, Fort Stewart, Ga. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) / AP

Written by
The Courier-Journal

The Home Depot Foundation has awarded a $77,741 grant to Volunteers of America of Kentucky to help address the housing needs of Louisville-area military veterans.

The grant will be used to support transitional housing for homeless veterans at the agency’s campus at 1432 S. Shelby St. Among the improvements to be funded with the grant money is the replacement of 42 windows, many of which are in disrepair and not energy-efficient, agency officials said.

The funding follows a grant for $67,720 in October 2011 and $2,500 worth of gift cards in December 2011 from The Home Depot Foundation for other work at the campus.
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THE CHALLENGES
Statistics show that many veterans face severe housing needs sometimes because of a disability from combat injuries or because they’ve been particularly hard hit by the economy and sometimes because they simply can’t find affordable housing.

An aging population: 9 million veterans are senior citizens, many of whom live on fixed incomes
Disabilities:
From 2001-2008, the number of disabled veterans increased 25 percent to 2.9 million.
Low Incomes:
More than 4.3 million veterans have a combined family income of under $20,000.
Homelessness:
Statistics show that veterans are twice as likely to be homeless than those who haven’t served.
Veterans represent 8% of the general population, yet they form 16% of the homeless population.

THE OPPORTUNITIES
The skills learned in the Armed Forces are often directly applicable in the workplace, making veterans highly educated and trained employees for businesses. We know that firsthand — more than 35,000 of The Home Depot’s associates are veterans.

Leadership & Work Ethic:
Proven leadership skills, honed in the most challenging operational environments.
Top Skills:
92% of active duty military in the United States use computers at their places of duty and 40% of military personnel have job assignments that involve information resource management; 60% of the enlisted personnel can program in at least one computer language.
Education Level:
Almost 33% of young veterans have an associate or bachelor’s degree, compared to 27% of young non-veterans.

Home Depot Foundation

UPDATE This is what they did last year.

By Joe Ruble ORLANDO, Fla. — A non-profit agency that serves 15,000 veterans in Central Florida with an annual budget of $16,000 had to make a tough decision. Were they to spend their funds entirely on the needs of homeless and other veterans or finally start a badly needed renovation project in the building they have called home for 49 years? "It was coming down to hard decisions," said Brad Bouters, commander of DAV Chapter 16 in Orlando.

Then another non-profit stepped in and with the help of The Home Depot Foundation were able to pull off the repair job. The Mission Continues organized over 100 volunteers who showed up at 2040 W. Central Avenue on Tuesday morning to turn it into a new place of work.

The DAV office there is normally open two days a week for paperwork, while the rest of the time veterans are working in the field with homeless veterans, Bouters explained. Not one DAV volunteer gets paid.

"It's just veterans giving back," he said.

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And then they came out last week and did even more.