Elected Officials Fire Off Letters After Feds Cut Funding To A Veterans Program
WAMC
Allison Dunne
September 19, 2017
Christa Hines is executive director of Hudson River Housing. She says the VA has funded the program since its inception in 2012 in about the same amount, and the program has served more than 458 homeless or at-risk veteran families.
The federal government recently informed a housing organization in Dutchess County that it will cut funding for a program that serves homeless veterans by the end of September. The surprise announcement is prompting local officials to band together for a solution. On Tuesday, two members of Congress from New York asked the Department of Veterans Affairs secretary to reverse the decision.
The Veterans Affairs Department notified Poughkeepsie-based Hudson River Housing at the beginning of September that it would not fund the organization’s homeless veterans program that works with people throughout Dutchess County. Now, in a September 19 letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney say that cutting this funding breaks a promise to care for veterans, especially the most vulnerable. The letter asks the secretary to do the right thing, as the Democrats put it, to reverse the decision.
“We’re shocked and devastated,” Hines says.
Is this what POTUS meant when he said he'd take care of veterans? Can they stay at some of his hotels?
Indeed a terrible news for the veterans who were about to get their own home. Federal government should think over the issue and resume the society for the deserving.
ReplyDelete