7 Essential Elements to End Veteran Homelessness

By Shawn Liu, National Homeless Program Manager, VHA Homeless Programs Office

July 16, 2026

All across the country, Americans are passionate and committed to reducing and ultimately ending Veteran homelessness.

And for good reason, too! No Veteran should be homeless in the country they fought to defend.

But if you’re going to end Veteran homelessness in your community, in your state, or in our country, you’re going to need these seven essential elements.

1. Prevention services

Founding father Benjamin Franklin once said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And this is true for homelessness.

Each day, many Veterans begin to experience homelessness. In fact, over the course of one year, tens of thousands of Veterans could start to experience homelessness for the first time. We often call this “inflow.”

So, to actually end Veteran homelessness, you not only need to move Veterans out of homelessness—we call this “outflow”—but also prevent Veterans from becoming homeless in the first place.

When the “outflow” of Veterans exiting homelessness exceeds the “inflow” of Veterans becoming homeless, you start to see reductions! That’s where prevention comes in.

Prevention services assist Veterans who are at risk of homelessness (i.e., will become homeless within 30 days).

VA’s primary tool for homelessness prevention is our Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which provides:

• Crisis resolution to address the immediate risk of housing loss.
• Temporary financial assistance, which covers things like rental and utility arrears and other housing-related expenses.
• Case management that assists Veteran households in connecting to necessary resources to achieve long-term housing stability.

2. Outreach

This probably goes without saying, but to help homeless Veterans, you’ve first got to find them!

At VA, outreach to homeless and at-risk Veterans falls into two buckets:

• Traditional Outreach (e.g., paid advertising, events, press releases, articles, video, social media): Effective for reaching Veterans at risk of homelessness and mobilizing secondary messengers.
• Direct Service Outreach (i.e., case management staff reach out to Veterans in the context of direct patient care): Effective for reaching literally homeless Veterans living in encampments and shelters.

Homeless Veterans have unique barriers to communication: no TV, telephones, internet, transportation, or mailing addresses. Addressing these unique barriers often requires clinical staff going out into the community to the sheltered and unsheltered settings where homeless Veterans live. You’ll also need to mobilize secondary messengers such as the general public, homeless service providers, Veteran organizations, first responders, and others who may encounter homeless and at-risk Veterans.

VA’s tools for outreach include:

• Homeless Veteran Stand Downs: 1- to 3- day resource fairs.
• Health Care for Homeless Veterans (HCHV): direct service outreach to Veterans who are not currently receiving services and engaging them in treatment and rehabilitative programs.
• HCHV Community Resource and Referral Centers: one-stop access to community-based, multiagency services to promote permanent housing, health and mental health care, career development, and access to VA and non-VA benefits. 
• Veterans Justice Outreach: direct service outreach to Veterans in jails.
• Health Care for Reentry Veterans: direct service outreach to Veterans in prisons. 
• The National Call Center for Homeless Veterans: 24/7 hotline and live chat.

3. Interim housing

When you find homeless Veterans in need of support, many of them will be unsheltered.

As a concept, “unsheltered homelessness” may feel redundant, like saying chai tea, pita bread, or ATM machine. Aren’t “unsheltered” and “homeless” the same thing?

No! In fact, unsheltered homelessness is a specific kind of homelessness where Veterans live in places not meant for human habitation, such as cars, parks, sidewalks, abandoned buildings, and literally on the street.

This is in contrast to sheltered homelessness, where Veterans live in sheltered settings such as emergency shelters, transitional housing programs, or other supportive settings. These are short-term programs that provide case management and supportive services to set Veterans up for long-term success. We also call this temporary or interim housing.

Unsheltered homelessness is one of the most dangerous experiences a person can face, so there’s no time to delay in getting Veterans off the street and into interim housing.

VA’s tools for interim housing include:

• Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans: residential treatment for homeless Veterans.
• HCHV Contracted Residential Services: short-term emergency shelter and supportive services.
• HCHV Safe Havens: safe haven-style emergency shelter for Veterans with serious mental illnesses.
• Grant and Per Diem: mid-to long-term transitional housing and supportive services. 

NOTE: Veterans living in interim housing are still homeless! You’re not done supporting them. 

4. Permanent housing

For basically all homeless Veterans, permanent housing is the goal.

“Permanent housing” is more of our jargon and can feel a little confusing, especially after discussing interim housing.

It’s not a Veteran’s “forever home.” Instead, permanent housing describes places such as apartments or houses that Veterans could rent or own, often with financial subsidies to help make the housing affordable. Permanent housing also includes situations where Veterans are reunited with family and friends.

Most importantly, when you move a Veteran into permanent housing, their experience of homelessness ends. They’re no longer homeless.

Although all of VA’s homeless programs support Veterans in obtaining permanent housing in one way or another, two tools get the most attention:

• Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF): short-term rental assistance and supportive services. 
• Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH): intensive case management and long-term rental assistance.

5. Landlords and multifamily property owners with affordable housing

It may surprise you, but VA can’t build our own permanent housing.

It’s not that it’s not a good idea, but we lack the authority to do so. Executive Branch departments and agencies can only do the things Congress authorizes us to do.

That’s why we rely on strong partnerships with landlords and multifamily property owners who provide homeless Veterans with places to rent, either:

• When the Veteran has a HUD-VASH voucher.
• When the Veteran is getting temporary financial assistance through SSVF.
• When the Veteran is self-pay.

Learn more about how landlords can help end Veteran homelessness.

6. Supportive services

Although VA’s homeless programs are housing-focused, we’re not just housing.

As anyone who has ever moved knows, once you get your keys to your new home, the work is just beginning. From finding furniture to learning the rhythms of a new neighborhood, settling into a new home can be equal parts exciting and overwhelming.

To help Veterans maintain permanent housing and have long-lasting stability, you’ll need to connect them to robust supportive services provided within VA homeless programs, throughout the Veterans Health and Benefits administrations, or within the community. These include:

• Case management through VA homeless programs
• Mental health and substance use treatment through VA mental health
• Medical care through VA medical centers or special Homeless Patient Aligned Care Teams
• Employment assistance through Homeless Veterans Community Employment Services
• Legal assistance through Legal Services for Veterans
• Food assistance through the Food Security Office
• Dental care through the Homeless Veterans Dental Program

7. Working together as One Team

All of these elements are necessary, but they’re not sufficient to end Veteran homelessness in your community.

That’s because these elements are distributed across different groups: VA, nonprofits, faith groups, your city and county government, and others. Each of these groups has its own mission, its own performance metrics, and its own stakeholders it is accountable to.

Also, coordination among these groups can be difficult for a number of reasons:

• Communication barriers amongst group members.
• Discouragement over a perceived lack of immediate progress being made.
• The need for certain groups to give up some power or autonomy for the greater good.

But getting these different groups coordinated, all with their own missions, visions, and goals for the future, is absolutely essential.

That’s where our One Team Operational Framework comes in.

One Team is fundamentally about guiding how these groups work together toward a shared mission to end Veteran homelessness in your community.

Driving this framework is the belief that it is your community’s collective responsibility—rather than the responsibility of any single program or provider—to end Veteran homelessness.

The framework includes:

• Operational outcomes that focus on describing needed components and accomplishments of your community’s response system.
• Standards that serve as important indicators of how effectively your system is working on an ongoing basis.
• Domains that provide you with actionable steps necessary for successful implementation.

This framework also relies heavily on by-name lists—status-based rosters of every Veteran experiencing homelessness in a community.

Join the (one) team

Want to be part of the solution? Here are some ways you can help:

• Check out our One Team Toolkit, which you can use to implement the One Team Operational Framework in your community.
• Connect with your local VA homeless program. Email us at homelessvets@va.gov to get connected.