Southern Maryland has the second highest concentration of veterans in the state of Maryland. Homelessness is becoming an increasing issue for that veteran population. The issue of homeless veterans was the topic of a briefing Friday for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D; MD 5th) by members of agencies which supply services to veterans. The briefing was held at the St. Mary’s Housing Authority offices in Lexington Park.
Three Oaks Center, founded in 1994, provides a variety of programs to the homeless. Currently they are serving 40 men, 31 women and 51 children in their Supportive Housing Program (SHP). Of them, 19 are veterans.
Three Oaks Executive Director Lanny Lancaster said that his agency secured a grant from the Veteran’s Administration (VA) called Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) that has allowed the agency to provide re-housing for 51 veterans in addition to the 19 now being served. The goal is to serve 100 veteran families during the grant’s first year. Lancaster credited Hoyer with helping to secure the grant.
Hoyer noted that Congress has eliminated earmarks, which he called unfortunate. He said programs such as are being provides by Three Oaks are essential to communities and exactly what earmarks by members of Congress were supposed to do.
The rap on VA services in the area has been consistently that they are overly bureaucratic to secure and often not available locally. There may be a shift of thinking at least regarding local services, however. Lancaster said, “The VA has finally, I think, seen the value of pushing resources to the community-based programs like ours to help veterans who would otherwise fall through the cracks because they are unable for a whole host of reasons to access services in the city, Washington, DC and to some degree Baltimore.”
A VA Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC) has been established at Charlotte Hall Veterans Home. Although the clinic is open Monday through Friday, it does not offer many services there full-time, especially for mental health. Although transportation is provided to a VA clinic is DC, sometimes the trip is too daunting for veterans with mental health issues. Erin Medicott, the state’s Southern Region Resource Coordinator for Maryland’s Commitment to Veterans, said once the bus drops off the veteran they may not know how to navigate the system from there.
Of the VA System, Lancaster said, “It is too large, and its processes are fraught with red tape. At the direct care level, the veterans are often treated with indifference, which is simply inexcusable. Executives within the VA are truly interested in changing this. I see genuine concern from VA leaders in my meetings with them, but there is a cultural issue at the direct care level that must change.”
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