These Cities Have Effectively Ended Veteran Homelessness. Can Others Follow Their Models?
Rockford, Illinois, is one of a handful of cities that have effectively tackled the problem of veteran homelessness. While higher rents in other places could pose a bigger challenge in other cities, advocates are hopeful the strategies employed can be applied elsewhere.
The Wall Street Journal:
A City Solves Veteran Homelessness
Rockford, about 90 miles northwest of Chicago, is one of the first cities to effectively end homelessness among veterans, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Officials consider its programs a model for other cities. Its goal is now to eliminate all homelessness by 2020. Rockford and dozens of other cities accepted a challenge posed by then-First Lady Michelle Obama in June 2014 to end veteran homelessness, creating a network for city officials to brainstorm and share ideas. Since then, some 63 communities and three states have followed Rockford’s lead to be certified as having solved the problem, including bigger cities like Miami, which was certified last summer. Other major metros, including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York have also signed on to the challenge. (Snow, 12/4)
In other veterans' health care news —
The Wall Street Journal:
Agent Orange’s Other Legacy—A $12 Billion Cleanup And A Fight Over Who Pays
The Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, N.J., has been revitalized. The tree-lined river that runs beside it has not. Half a century ago, the herbicide Agent Orange was manufactured along the banks of the Passaic River. Poison hosed off factory floors drained into the waterway, where it sank to the bottom and became toxic sludge. The estimated cost of cleaning it up and compensating for environmental damage could run as high as $11.8 billion. (Brickley and Morgenson, 12/3)
