(WASHINGTON) – Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) announced today that Southwest Counseling Solutions, a non-profit organization that helps homeless veterans in Detroit, received a $999,370 grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program (SSVF). The program provides federal funding for case management, counseling, housing vouchers, child care services, and legal services to help break the cycle of veterans’ homelessness. Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency was awarded a $590,929 grant for the same purposes.
Representative Conyers issued the following statement regarding the recent grant awards to both agencies serving homeless veterans in the Detroit Metropolitan area:
 |
| U.S. Representative John Conyers, Jr. |
“According to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, one out of every six men and women in our nation’s homeless shelters once wore a uniform in service to our country. This is a moral crisis. All of our nation’s veterans should have immediate access to counseling, housing, and jobs. They sacrificed for our country, and many risked their lives doing so. The least we can do as a nation is provide them with housing and jobs. Although I support the Department of Veterans Affairs’ goal of ending homelessness for our nation’s veterans by 2015, we should still strive to end it earlier.
“I am so pleased that the Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency and Southwest Counseling Solutions with much needed federal grant dollars to help break the cycle of homelessness for our veterans in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. However, Congress needs to do more now to fund these programs.
“Many of our nation’s veterans have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating injuries and mental illness, and they deserve the dignity of having access to counseling, employment, child care, housing, and all other human services to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place. If we reduce unnecessary weapons systems, and withdraw our troops from Afghanistan in a responsible and timely manner, we would have more than enough resources to provide housing and other needed services to end homelessness for veterans once and for all in this country.
“To further fund this initiative, Congress should ask the wealthiest among us to pay their fair share in taxes in order to help our veterans to have access to good paying jobs and housing right now. I intend to continue to fight in Congress to end homelessness for our nation’s veterans.”
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©
No comments:
Post a Comment