Cherokee County Kicks Off Unified Effort to End Veteran Homelessness

Joseph Phillips Region IV Public Affairs providing remarks.

Members of the Thomas M. Brady American Legion Post 45, city officials in Cherokee County just north of Atlanta along with the local area community organizations, HUD's Southeast Atlanta Regional Office Public Affairs Specialist Joseph Phillips, HUD SE Community Outreach Coordinator Mykl Asanti , Veterans Affairs Office, VISN 7 Southeast Regional Homeless Veterans Coordinator Patricia Bradford, recently met to identify strategies to end veteran homelessness in the county and in support of the Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness a component of the White House's unprecedented initiative to end overall homelessness.

Post 45 Legion adjutant Lynne Rollins and US Army veteran Jim Lindenmayer initiated and coordinated the local effort which drew significant support from local elected mayors, the county as well as federal agencies and local community organizations.

Canton Mayor Gene Hobgood, Woodstock Mayor Donnie Henriques, Waleska Mayor Doris Jones, Ball Ground Mayor Rick Roberts and Holly Springs Mayor Tim Downing, as well as County Commission Chairman Buzz Ahrens, pledged to be part of the Mayor's Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness program. The goal of the program is to prevent and end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015.

"Oftentimes we do what we value most. And today, we're all here because we believe this topic, this issue, this challenge that we're facing in defeating veteran homelessness is very important to us, and it's very real," said Joseph Phillips, public affairs officer for HUD Region IV.

Chris Fields, of MUST Ministries, noted that are approximately 15,000 veterans living in the county and they believe that about around 1,000 of them are actually living below the poverty line. MUST Ministries is currently serving on average about six to 10 veterans per month through their varying support services which include a food pantry and other services, Fields said.

"We don't want to be a burden to the local government. We want to give a quarterly update of what we've done. If we see something in the community, we want to make sure we give the cities a heads up," Lindenmayer said. "Veterans talk to veterans. Our goal here is to help these veterans be productive and leverage the support from the community to do it."

One initiative that Lindenmayer believes will really help homeless veterans is helping them obtain an address through the Post and may be able to designate veterans as "honorary" members in order to provide them with a physical address to obtain their military records which are often difficult to obtain in a timely fashion and are needed to supportive services, Lindenmayer said.

The new program hopes in time to be able to direct homeless veterans to the state's Department of Veterans Services in order for them to receive timely and essential health benefits, too.

The Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness is a way to solidify partnerships and secure commitments to end Veteran homelessness from mayors across the country. Specifically, the call to action - announced by First Lady Michelle Obama and amplified by the HUD Secretary, by leaders across HUD, VA, USICH, and by the National League of Cities - is for mayors to make a commitment to ending Veteran homelessness in their cities in 2015.

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