Budget POTUS Wants Can Hurt Homeless Veterans?

Trump's budget could hurt efforts to curb veteran homelessness
Associated Press
Jennifer McDermott
March 28, 2017

Navy veteran Stephen Matthews sits for a photograph in the bedroom of a relatives home, in Warwick, R.I., on Dec. 11, 2016. STEVEN SENNE/AP

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The push to end homelessness among veterans would suffer without the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is up for elimination under President Donald Trump's proposed budget, nonprofits and local officials say.

The council coordinates the efforts of 19 federal agencies that play a role in preventing and ending homelessness among all Americans. But the strides made with veterans — for whom homelessness has been effectively ended in three states and dozens of communities amid a concerted effort — make the proposed cuts particularly upsetting to advocates.

Homeless advocates in any given state consult the council, whose annual budget is about $3.5 million, on which strategies are working elsewhere as they seek to house veterans. They worry momentum will slow.

"We've learned how to end homelessness," said Nonie Brennan, chief executive of the nonprofit All Chicago. "It would be a tremendous shame if we were not able to continue to implement these strategies in our communities across the country."
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