What is One Team?

By Jill Albanese, Director of Clinical Operations, VHA Homeless Programs Office

July 14, 2026

No Veteran should be homeless in the country they fought to defend.

That’s why VA is committed to finishing the job of ending Veteran homelessness. It is our nation’s duty to ensure that all Veterans have a place to call home.

The VA Homeless Program Office’s One Team Operational Framework directly supports this goal through a coordinated, community-wide approach that rapidly connects Veterans to health care and housing services. 

Breaking barriers, focusing efforts

One Team is fundamentally about breaking down barriers to Veterans accessing the services they need and want to end their homelessness and pursue their goals. It improves on how VA, VA-funded organizations, community organizations, and other stakeholders work collaboratively to engage homeless and at-risk Veterans and connect them to the services those Veterans want and need.

Driving this framework is the belief that it is a community’s collective responsibility—rather than the responsibility of any single program or provider—to end Veteran homelessness. Thus, this framework encompasses activities ranging from individual Veteran housing and service plans to the collaborations required to achieve goals across a given homeless system.

Setting the vision for an end to Veteran homelessness

As part of the One Team Operational Framework, VA has developed operational outcomes and standards set forth a vision of how communities’ homeless responses systems should function.

• Operational outcomes focus on describing essential elements and accomplishments of the community’s response
• Standards serve as important indicators of how effectively that system is working on an ongoing basis.

Together, these operational outcomes and standards help communities drive down the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness to as close to zero as possible, while building systems that support long-term, lasting solutions that can effectively and efficiently respond to future needs.

Operational Outcomes

These five qualitative statements describe the required system capacity and capabilities associated with an effective response end to Veteran homelessness.

• Operational Outcome 1: Identification of All Veterans: Comprehensive identification and engagement of all Veterans experiencing homelessness.
• Operational Outcome 2: Immediate Shelter Provision: Capacity to immediately offer and provide low-barrier interim housing to any unsheltered Veteran who wants it, while assisting them to swiftly move to permanent housing.
• Operational Outcome 3: Rapid Access to Permanent Housing: Capacity to quickly move Veterans into permanent housing without barriers, applying housing-focused principles, with a permanent housing intervention identified for all Veterans.
• Operational Outcome 4: Connections to Maintain Stability: Ability to connect Veterans to VA health care and other services to ensure long-term housing stability and reduce returns to homelessness.
• Operational Outcome 5: Sustainability: Resources, plans, partnerships, and system capacity to address future needs and maintain a sustainable response system.

Standards

These are quantitative measures that serve as important indicators of whether the system is working effectively on an ongoing basis, are meeting the expectations outlined in the Outcomes above, and is making meaningful reductions to the number of Veterans experiencing homelessness in the local community. The indicators are calculated using data from the community’s by-name list.

• Standard A: The number of Veterans experiencing homelessness has declined and there is an extremely low number of unsheltered Veterans.
• Standard B: Veterans have quick access to permanent housing (average of 120 days or less from identification to move-in).
• Standard C: The community has sufficient permanent housing placement capacity (number of Veterans exiting to permanent housing is greater than or equal to the number entering the homeless system).
• Standard D: Returns to homelessness are minimal, with the number of Veterans returning to homelessness within 12 months below 10%.

Building the team

The One Team Framework is powered by seven domains that provide actionable steps necessary for successful implementation:

• Domain 1: Leadership Structure: Dedicated cross-partner leadership teams focused on improving services and housing outcomes for homeless and at-risk Veterans.
• Domain 2: Outreach, Engagement and Same-Day Access: Coordinated outreach and engagement strategies that ensure all Veterans have direct access to health care and housing services.
• Domain 3: By-Name List Management: Use of by-name lists to manage care coordination, prioritization policies and Veteran outcomes.
• Domain 4: Coordinated Entry and Housing-Focused Systems: Access and referral protocol that expedite housing linkages across access points and partners.
• Domain 5: One Team Housing Fundamentals: Elevating coordination referral, enrollment and housing navigation services to expedite housing placements and retention supports.
• Domain 6: Case Conferencing and Barrier Busting: Use of community-wide case conferencing to bust barriers and overcome Veteran-level housing challenges and delays in care.
• Domain 7: Sustaining Long-Term Tenancies: Coordinated strategies to promote Veteran access to complementary and primary services that support tenancies, with a focus on primary care, income growth support, suicide prevention, and connections to other VA and community-based services and systems.

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.
• Learn more about the seven essential elements for ending Veteran homelessness.
• Connect with your local VA homeless program. Email us at homelessvets@va.gov to get connected.