The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it housed 47,925 veterans experiencing homelessness in fiscal year 2024, besting an earlier goal.
That’s the largest number of veterans experiencing homelessness the federal agency has housed since fiscal year 2019 and 16.9% over its goal of 41,000.
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A plethora of federal agencies have spent well over $200 million attempting to alleviate homelessness in Washington state over the past 17 years, only for the number of people living on the streets to keep rising.
Federal agencies like the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS), among others, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since 2007 on grants to third parties intended to mitigate homelessness in Washington, federal spending data shows. Despite the nine-figure sum of taxpayer dollars spent, the number of homeless people in Washington grew by about 20% between 2007 and 2023, according to a report produced by HUD.
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A group of states filed a friend of the court brief supporting a transgender veterans group that filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs seeking gender-confirmation surgery for 163,000 transgender veterans.
The Transgender American Veterans Association lawsuit, filed last month, seeks an order that the Department of Veterans Affairs act on the group’s 2016 rule-making petition for gender-confirmation surgery.
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Tennessee U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN-03) recently announced his work with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in helping secure an expansion of the Chattanooga National Cemetery.
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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti joined a coalition of 17 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the Western District of Texas in the case of Carter v. McDonough.
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Representative Jody Hice (R-GA-10) joined forces with Representative Vicky Hartzler (R-MO-04) in a new effort to get Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis Richard McDonough to grant vaccination exemption requests to Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employees in a statement on Monday.
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Under the Trump administration, the VA Mission Act (VAMA) was enacted in 2018 to provide veterans access to healthcare outside of the Veterans Administration healthcare system in order to provide more options and speed up accessibility to medical care. Unfortunately, veterans are reporting that the VA under the Biden administration has cut back on that expansion.
VAMA allowed veterans who could not get a medical appointment within 20 days or who had to drive more than 30 minutes to a VA facility to use alternate private healthcare providers instead. This was crucial, because veterans were dying while stuck on waiting lists for medical treatment, Josh Stanwitz of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) told The Arizona Sun Times.
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Whistleblowers—and the truths they tell—far too often become the first casualties in the clash of bigger forces with other agendas. People tend to oversimplify complex stories to fit their preferred political narrative or to protect their own interests.
If the facts do not fit neatly into a convenient set of preconceptions, too often they are ignored, dismissed, or twisted to cater to well-known biases. This tactic is common among those who are the subject of whistleblower disclosures. They often attempt to change the subject to avoid accountability by pointing a finger at the whistleblower, even if they don’t know who it is.
It’s probably just a “disgruntled employee” who has “an axe to grind.” The implication is that there is no need to look into it. Nothing to see here. Move along.
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U.S. Rep. Dr. Mark Green (R-TN-07) is seeking answers as to why the Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System abruptly closed its clinic in Dover.
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U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Jon Tester (D-MT) are fighting to keep the VA on target and transparent on its roll-out of the new $16 billion commercial electronic health record system for 9 million veterans. Blackburn and Tester introduced the VA Electronic Health Record Advisory Committee Act to establish a third-party oversight committee to monitor the implementation of the record system, Blackburn said in a press release Tuesday. The VA is undertaking a decade-long transition to bring veterans’ health records into the 21st century by ensuring that they can have access to a seamless electronic health record across the VA and Department of Defense health systems. https://tennesseestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/EHR-ACT.pdf “A crucial part of giving our veterans better care is improving the way DOD and the VA organize their health records,” Blackburn said. “The EHR Advisory Committee will be entirely devoted to ensuring the implementation and transition is done as smoothly as possible. Comprised of professionals who have experience in the health care field, as well as veterans currently receiving care at the VA, this committee will have the knowledge and expertise to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the VA’s services.” Tester said, “The new electronic health record system is too…
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by Max Jungreis Pfc. Nichole Bowen-Crawford said she was walking to lunch on her Army base near Nasiriyah, Iraq, in 2003 when she received her daily proposition from a passing fellow soldier. “Hey, Bowen,” the officer tossed out, “let’s go f— in the bunker.” Bowen-Crawford told VOA that while this was the most shocking example of the day-to-day regimen of verbal sexual harassment she experienced while in the Army between 2001-2004, it was not her worst experience — she had been assaulted by a higher-ranking sergeant earlier that year. When she reported the incident to a male supervisor, she was advised to stay quiet for the sake of her career. Bowen-Crawford’s experience is not universal, but far from rare. Suicide rate A work environment tolerant of sexual assault and harassment is believed to be one of the causes of high suicide rates among female veterans, which soared more than 45 percent between 2001 and 2015, according to data from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA). The rate among female veterans is lower than that of male veterans, but not compared to their civilian counterparts. Female veterans are almost twice as likely to kill themselves as civilian women. “Certainly…
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Outgoing Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Thursday that he was fired because of his stance against privatizing the department. “I think that it’s essential for national security and for the country that we honor our commitment by having a strong VA. I was not against reforming VA, but I was against privatization,” Mr. Shulkin said on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”
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Five hundred and forty-eight Department of Veterans Affairs employees have been terminated since President Donald Trump took office, indicating that his campaign pledge to clean up “probably the most incompetently run agency in the United States” by relentlessly putting his TV catchphrase “you’re fired” into action was more than just empty rhetoric. Another 200 VA workers…
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President Trump signed a law Friday that makes it easier for the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire employees for wrongdoing and adds protections for whistleblowers in the VA. Responding to an Obama-era scandal in which veterans died waiting for doctor’s appointments, Mr. Trump said the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of…
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A notoriously corrupt Department of Veterans Affairs manager fired the first day of President Donald Trump’s presidency—to rousing acclaim from veterans who heralded it as a sign of lasting reform—has been returned to work by VA officials after he filed a civil-service protections appeal. The return of the Puerto Rico hospital director is the latest example…
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