HEAR, HEAR

BREMERTON - Bremerton and Kitsap County, Washington have good reason to celebrate. They've done something many other cities, counties or states want to do but haven't yet accomplished.

A city of 40,000, Bremerton's some 13 nautical miles due west across Puget Sound from downtown Seattle. It's been a Navy town for almost 125 years and, as the U.S. Navy's third-largest base, today is home to Naval Base Kitsap, the homeport of the carriers Stennis and Nimitz, the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, more than a dozen Trident submarines a few miles away in Bangor and Naval Hospital Bremerton.

One out of every three Kitsap County residents have a connection to Naval Base Kitsap and support for men and women who've answered their nation's call runs strong and deep. That extends to homeless veterans. After all, they could have been your shipmate, a brother or sister in arms.

So, it should be no surprise that Bremerton didn't hesitate - nor did Kitsap County or the City of Bainbridge Island - when a Mayors' Challenge to End Veterans Homelessness was launched in 2015. They enlisted right away. "No one should be without a home," said Mayor Patty Lent (http://www.ci.bremerton.wa.us/Calendar.aspx?EID=957), "especially those who have worn a uniform and served our country."

"Ending veteran homelessness," said Kitsap County Commissioner Charlotte Garrido, "will take a united community efforts." And that's exactly what the effort - soon named Homes for All Who Served - delivered, committing to achieving "functional zero" - the bricks-and-mortar capacity to provide housing to any veterans who were or were at risk of becoming homeless - by Veterans Day in 2016, just over a year away.

No time was wasted. Coordinated by the Kitsap County Department of Human Services, an extensive outreach campaign staffed by volunteers from veterans advocacy groups set out to create a "master list" of all the homeless veterans so that they could be matched with the caseworker or service they needed. Resource lists were produced and a crisis response protocol developed. The Bremerton Housing Authority sought and won 42 HUD VASH rental vouchers and recruited 25 private landlords with affordable units to rent. The Kitsap Community Resource Center began a weekly drop-in center where veterans could get help qualifying for benefits like Social Security or Food Stamps. Working with the Metropolitan Development Council and Catholic Community Services the V.A. has provided housing assistance for three dozen families of homeless vets. The concerted, coordinated efforts, Mayor Lent said, has "mobilized unprecedented levee of resources."

But it missed its Veterans Day 2016 goal. Why? Simple - the need was greater than anticipated. Initially there were 45 homeless veterans on its "master list." In 2016 alone, the County's homeless services manager Kirsten Jewell told The Sun, 379 veterans sought and received help. On a typical day, five or six names "hovered" on the master list of those for whom housing wasn't available.

Until Thursday, April 27th, when, for the very first time, there were no homeless veterans on the master list. Bremerton and Kitsap County had achieved "functional" zero.

"A significant accomplishment," observed, The Sun's (http://www.kitsapsun.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/05/02/our-view-success-story-homeless-veterans/101035838/). Inevitably, the numbers will change. So be it. The "success story" is that the effort provides an "answer for any veteran who needs a hand."

Only one other city or county in Washington has, to date, also attained "functional zero." Homes for All Who Served, says The Sun, also "provides a model for other communities" and that some of the tolls and resources used might just as effective in addressing family homelessness, youth homelessness and chronic homelessness.

And it provides something else. These days many despair that homelessness has become an inevitable, inescapable, intractable fact of life in 21st century America. "The response in this targeted initiative" in Bremerton and Kitsap County, The Sun argues, "inspires hope that it is not." Hear, hear.

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