Veterans News Bureau

Washington, DC – Today, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Bob Filner (D-CA) conducted a hearing to better understand the challenges that face the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the future and what is needed to transform the agency into a 21st century organization. VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki offered his assessment of how to improve the structure and implement necessary changes to provide veterans the best care and benefits in the most effective and efficient way possible.

“We are not looking for a piecemeal approach to structuring VA to best address the needs of America’s veterans,” said Chairman Filner. “Rather, we want to hear about your vision and your assessment of what tools you need, including a proposal that would amend Title 38 to add an additional Assistant Secretary and eight Deputy Assistant Secretaries. Our hope is to come out of this with a plan we can all get behind that meets the needs of the Department and our veterans.”

Current law provides for “not more than seven Assistant Secretaries” and limits the number of Deputy Assistant Secretaries to a number “not exceeding 19, as the Secretary may determine.” As part of its restructuring efforts, the VA is seeking legislation that would authorize an additional Assistant Secretary and eight Deputy Assistant Secretaries. This section was last amended in 2002, when one Assistant Secretary, one Deputy Assistant Secretary, and an additional Assistant Secretary function covering “[o]perations, preparedness, security, and law enforcement.”

Secretary Shinseki discussed his proposal to add an additional Assistant Secretary and increase the number of Deputy Assistant Secretaries by 40 percent. He testified that adding positions “is not about creating a new layer of bureaucracy – it is about streamlining and aligning our organization in ways that will better align our priorities with the most responsible use of funds entrusted to the Department.”

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The number of Veterans homeless on a typical night dropped 18 percent as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) entered the second year of its campaign to eliminate homelessness among Veterans within five years.

“It will take the dedication, creativity and hard work of many parts of American society to end homelessness among Veterans,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “But mostly it takes the resolve to say: It is unacceptable for a single Veteran to spend the night on the streets of America.”

VA’s Community Homeless Assessment Local Education and Networking Groups (CHALENG), which conducts a widely cited, annual census of homeless Veterans, estimated 107,000 Veterans were homeless each night last year. That figure was 131,000 in 2008 and 154,000 in 2007.

“The reduction was achieved through VA’s commitment to end homelessness among Veterans through enhanced collaboration with other federal, state, faith-based, Veteran service organizations and community partners,” Shinseki said.

VA has approximately 4,000 agreements with community partners. Last year, more than 92,000 homeless Veterans were served by VA’s specialized homeless programs. This is an increase of 15 percent from the previous year.

An important program that has helped Veterans leave homelessness began in June 2008 when VA partnered with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. VA provides dedicated case management to homeless Veterans, and HUD provides housing vouchers to Veterans and their families. Since the program, called HUD-VASH, began, 20,000 housing vouchers have been given for homeless Veterans.

A recent VA study of Veterans discharged from VA-funded residential rehabilitation and transitional housing programs indicated that 79 percent remained housed one year after discharge.

Many homeless Veterans are treated in VA mental health programs. National policies on suicide prevention, medication management and substances abuse have improved the lives of homeless Veterans.

“To eliminate homelessness, we must help more than Veterans currently without a place to live,” said Shinseki. “We must prevent approximately 27,000 new Veterans who are at risk of becoming homeless from crossing that tragic line each year.”

Information about the CHALENG process and previous CHALENG reports about homelessness can be found on the Internet at http://www1.va.gov/HOMELESS/chaleng.asp. The 2009 report is projected to be published in spring 2010.

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WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to announce today that it will fully automate how it pays claims for illnesses related to exposure to the chemical Agent Orange to keep an overburdened system from collapse.

It is the department’s first effort at automating claims processing in its 80-year history, says VA chief technology officer Peter Levin. It comes as the agency struggles to cut a backlog of more than 1 million disability claims, appeals and other cases.

The system “is likely to break” if nothing is done, Levin says.

“Look, the bottom line is why the hell they didn’t do (automation) 30 years ago,” says John Rowan, national president of Vietnam Veterans of America. “The question is whether they will do it right.”

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The Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense today announced the next phase of the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) Health Communities Program. This initiative improves care and services to our nation’s heroes by sharing health information using the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) developed under the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

DoD and VA selected the Virginia/Tidewater area of Southeastern Virginia as the next area to partner with due to its high concentration of veterans, military retirees, members of the guard and reserve, and active duty service members and their dependents.

In the Virginia/Tidewater area, VA and DoD will partner with private sector hospitals who have joined a regional health information exchange in this area. The Virginia/Tidewater pilot builds on the continuing success of the first pilot in San Diego with Kaiser Permanente.

Service members and veterans in the Virginia/Tidewater area will be invited to participate in this health data exchange program scheduled to launch this year. Individuals who choose to participate will authorize their public and private sector health care providers and doctors to share specific health information electronically, safely, securely and privately.

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Unable to ignore the sheer number of complaints, the Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to revisit the disability claims of thousands of veterans of the Gulf War. According to advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense, more than 200,000 military personnel who served in the 1990-1991 conflict have reported multi-symptom illnesses. The VA’s Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses Task Force has been conducting a comprehensive examination of health problems affecting veterans and may soon recommend new policies for how the department should handle such cases.

Nearly 700,000 service members deployed to the Gulf region, and about 300,000 eventually filed health claims with the VA. Some of the symptoms reported by soldiers included headaches, skin problems and chronic respiratory infections. Exposure to ammunition and bomb casings containing depleted uranium and other radioactive and toxic waste has been blamed for many of the ailments.

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