Gov. Terry Branstad addressed the Iowa state legislature this week and outlined new ways in which the state can provide more military benefits to its veterans. According to CBS2 News, Branstad proposed a new plan that will help veterans get the training and education they need to secure gainful employment.
Called the Home Base Iowa Initiative, the measure will allow veterans to use their military service as educational credits. The governor added that he is also working toward eliminating all taxes on military pensions.
"In Iowa, we honor our veterans – not only with words and ceremonies; but with action," Gov. Branstad said, as quoted by the news source. "To show our gratitude, let's make Iowa the leader in respect, support and opportunity for veterans."
Although the veterans initiative currently has bipartisan support, several legislative members told the news outlet that Iowa presently has many directives that aid veterans in the workforce.
Iowa is home to more than 240,000 veterans, according data from the Department of Veteran Affairs. About 9,000 Iowa veterans are currently using education benefits from the G.I. Bill, while nearly 30,000 of the state's veterans receive disability or pension payments.
A deserted building in Auburn, Wash., will be the future home of a veterans services center composed of nonprofit veterans assistance groups, KING 5 News reported. The site was acquired from the state six months ago. Now, Auburn city officials are working to get the center running within the next six months.
"We'll make a world of difference in the lives of so many who live on the edge," Michael Hursh, human services manager for the City of Auburn, told the news source.
Hursh added that while Auburn has a number of nonprofits that assist veterans with military benefits, the organizations are currently scattered across the city and King County. The goal of this new project is to bring those groups together so veterans have a one-stop center for all their needs.
The Auburn-Reporter previously noted that the 33,000-square-foot facility is expected to cost between $6 and $7 million. It will house local organizations such as the Auburn Food Bank, and receive assistance from the nearby Valley Medical Center-University of Washington.
According to the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington is home to more than 600,000 veterans and 60,000 active-duty servicemembers.
The VA in Martinsburg, W.Va., is helping homeless veterans escape the bitter cold by providing them with shelter through the Operation Veteran's Respite program. According to The Herald-Mail, eight West Virginia veterans took advantage of the program last week, when temperatures dropped below freezing throughout much of the U.S.
The veterans were given a bed, food and warm showers at the 465-bed Martinsburg VA Medical Center, VA spokesman Michael McAleer told the news source. He added that seven of the eight former servicemembers signed up for the VA's six-month-long counseling and rehabilitation program, which helps place veterans in permanent housing.
According to a recent report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, West Virginia had more than 300 veterans living without permanent shelter in 2013. Overall, about 2,200 people are homeless in the state. The West Virginia VA hosts six shelters for homeless veterans, as well as a transitional housing program. The state's VA has also implemented several other programs to aid the homeless veterans population, including emergency food assistance, a reintegration into life after service program and a comprehensive resources website that lists hotlines and soup kitchens, according to the West Virginia VA website.
A newly released report from the Department of Veteran Affairs found that young veterans are committing suicide at a higher rate than in years past.
According to Stars and Stripes, the study found that while the overall suicide rate among veterans has remained largely unchanged between 2009 and 2011, there was a 44 percent increase in suicides among male veterans under the age of 30. It's equivalent to two suicides a day.
"Their rates are astronomically high and climbing," Jan Kemp, the VA's national mental health director for suicide prevention, told the news source. "That's concerning to us."
Not only was there an increase in suicides among young male veterans, but there was also an 11 percent spike in the suicide rate among female veterans. However, the report did hold some good news: There was a decrease in the suicide rate among veterans who received treatment within the VA health system.
According to a VA report released in February 2013, 22 veterans commit suicide each day in the U.S. VA officials stated then that the department was establishing an "aggressive" hiring campaign that would add 1,600 new clinical staff and 300 new administrative workers to their mental health teams. The department is also training 800 peer-to-peer mental health counselors.
The controversial cuts to pensions for military retirees will most likely not affect veterans with disabilities, Capitol Hill aides told The Associated Press.
In late December, President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, a $1 trillion-plus spending bill that authorizes appropriations for defense activities and military benefits. The measure cuts annual cost-of-living increases for military retirees under the age of 62 by 1 percent, saving the Department of Defense an estimated $6 billion over the next 10 years.
Initially, the cuts to COLA applied to the more than 63,000 military retirees with disabilities, the news source reported. However, lawmakers say that it will most likely be reversed, and veterans with disabilities will no longer be affected by the COLA decrease.
After 20 years in the military, servicemembers are eligible to retire at half pay, and can begin claiming their pensions as early as age 38. According to FOX News, the cuts to COLA could result in a lifetime loss of $72,000 in benefits for a sergeant first class. Daniel Dellinger, national commander of the American Legion, stated in an Op-Ed for USA Today that nearly 2 million military retirees will be hit by these losses in military benefits.
"Military retirees and their families depend on those benefits, and they do not deserve to be singled out for penalization," Dellinger wrote.
A court specially designed for veterans who committed non-violent crimes may debut soon in Portland, Ore.
According to The Oregonian, legal officials at the Multnomah County Circuit Court have been working on creating a veterans court for those with substance abuse and mental illness disorders. Judge Julie E. Frantz, who headed the program's committee, told county officials this week that the veterans court was "ready to launch." However, it still needs approval from the county commissioners.
The proposed veterans court will work in a similar way to treatment courts used for substance abusers, steering veterans away from jail or prison time and instead providing them with treatment, counseling and other services, the news source reported. However, they will still be on probation.
"It's an initiative that invests in upfront prevention to get people on the right track, that's not only going to strengthen the individual, but their family and their community,'' Cameron Smith, director of Oregon's Department of Veterans' Affairs, told the news outlet.
Although veterans treatment courts were just established in 2008, there are currently around 130 of these courts in the U.S., The Associated Press reported. The most recent data on veterans in prison is from 2004, when the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 10 percent of state prisoners reported having previous military experience.
Established in 2009, the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans has been working to reduce veterans homelessness through research. Located in West Philadelphia, the center receives an annual budget of $2.3 million from the Department of Veterans Affairs to fund its mission, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Executive Director Vincent Kane told the news source that the center's 12 researchers help the VA strategize on how to eliminate homelessness among veterans. According to Kane, one of the most effective ways is through providing homeless veterans around the country with permanent shelter. While previous VA programs have focused on treating the underlying problems facing veterans, such as mental illness, the agency is now focused on moving veterans into housing before directing them to other services. This housing-first approach has been a "game-changer," Kane said.
The veterans homeless population in the U.S. has decreased substantially since the National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans opened in 2009. A 2013 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that, on a single night in January, there were roughly 57,800 veterans living without shelter in the U.S. Although the population is still large, there were more than 75,000 homeless veterans in 2009, according to the news source.
Veterans enrolled at Ohio colleges and universities may find it easier to live on-campus with the establishment of private, military-only housing.
The Beacon Journal reported that Hiram College, located in rural Portage County, will be opening a residence in January for military veterans. Called the Freedom Center, the residence at the newly renovated Henry Hall will feature single rooms. While the college doesn't have a large veteran population – only 10 students – developer Hiram DeJesus, whose company Patriot Development LLC is renovating the dorm facility, told the news source that the new living quarters will help attract veterans to the campus. As incentive, the college is also offering free housing for the first 20 veterans who enroll.
"Our goal is to provide the best environment for the successful transition from the military back into civilian life," DeJesus said.
Tim Bryan, a spokesperson for Hiram College, added that the college may provide additional land for the development of veterans-only townhouses.
Veterans-only dorms and residences are currently on the rise in the U.S. According to Inside Higher Education, one of the latest universities that began providing housing for its military students is New Mexico State University, which established on-campus units tailored to veterans with families.
A pilot program in Arizona is helping homeless veterans find gainful employment by placing them in positions with the Arizona State Parks system, local news outlet KJZZ reported. The new government initiative has already hired five veterans as Arizona park rangers, including Joel Macejak, an Air Force and Army veteran.
"I thought it was a golden opportunity, not something you come across very often because most state and federal park service jobs are snatched-up as quickly as they're available," Macejak told the news source.
Macejak found out about the program, which launched in November, while staying at a local shelter, the news source reported. Although the program was the brainchild of Bryan Martyn, who serves as the executive director of the Arizona State Parks, the local Veterans Administration office provided some assistance.
According to a recently released report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were more than 57,000 veterans living without permanent shelter in the U.S. in January 2013. The report found that Arizona had an increase in its homeless veteran population in the last four years. Currently, the state has about 390 veterans who are living without shelter.
The Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week that the agency was on track to eliminate its disability claims backlog by 2015.
According to Stars and Stripes, the VA has already reduced the backlog by one third since last March, when the backlog peaked at more than 600,000 pending cases. At the beginning of December, the agency had about 390,000 cases that were still awaiting responses after the VA's standard 125-day wait.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki claims that the reduction has been helped by updated computer systems and the mandatory overtime policy for claims processors, which was introduced last March but suspended by the VA in November, according to Reuters. Shinseki also implemented several other policies over the last year to streamline the processing system, including one that solely focused on the disability claims that have been pending for more than two years. The news source reported that 99.4 percent of those claims have been processed as of November.
While the VA has been making steady process with its disability claims backlog, Stars and Stripes added that the agency's on-going efforts do not take into account the backlog of disability claims appeals. Currently, there are more than 260,000 appeals pending a response.