Pairing housing with support services is the key to success.
(Boston Globe Editorial Board) Governor Maura Healey earlier this month announced a plan to effectively end homelessness among Massachusetts veterans.
While plans to end veterans homelessness are nothing new, Healey has the advantage of an influx of federal COVID-19 recovery money. Amid a seemingly intractable housing crisis, the Legislature in 2021 allocated $20 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to investments in veteran housing. Showing a distinct lack of urgency, the Baker and then Healey administrations delayed action until months before the December 2024 deadline for committing the money to projects.
Still,the funding creates new opportunities to house this important population. Healey can declare success if she can achieve her goal of finding stable housing for the state’s homeless veterans.That should include setting up the services and infrastructure needed to keep those veterans housed after she leaves office.
“We as a Legislature have for many years now been of the persuasion that the words veteran and homelessness should never be in the same sentence,” said state Senator John Velis, who cochairs the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs.
In 2011, then-governor Deval Patrick’s administration created a steering committee that developed a plan to reduce veteran homelessness. According to a federal “point-in-time” count, the number of homeless veterans dropped from more than 1,100 annually between 2013 and 2015 to 545 in January 2023. Only 33 of those homeless people were unsheltered, meaning they were living, say, on the street or in a car. The remainder were in emergency shelters or transitional housing.
Healey’s plan aims to achieve “functional zero” veteran homelessness by 2027. The term was coined by a national campaign that refers to a point when there are fewer veterans entering homelessness than finding housing, so homelessness is rare and brief. Healey’s goal is to find stable housing for those who are unsheltered or in temporary housing.