Department of Veteran Affairs case managers failed to refer veterans experiencing homelessness to the VA’s supportive housing program, due to understaffing, high turnover and staff burnout, according to a recent watchdog report.
The Government Accountability Office’s report found that the VA, during a time period covering both the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, suffered from high case manager turnover that left many veterans not properly supported. As a result, just over 174,000 veterans were not referred to a federal voucher program between 2020 to 2024.
The Government Accountability Office’s report, published last week, looked at eight VA sites around the country to see how the Housing & Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program is being handled. The VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) jointly operate the program. Under it, HUD provides vouchers to veterans experiencing homelessness to get them into homes, while the VA offers case workers to help them connect with that housing and other services. Staff at all eight sites told GAO investigators “there were not enough HUD-VASH case managers to support the vouchers allocated to their communities or expressed concerns about the workload of existing case managers.”
Top Stories This Week
GAO investigators found that a majority of veterans interviewed spoke positively about their case managers. However, staffing shortages led to reduced services for veterans, ranging from delays in connecting with housing to not providing mental health support. Case manager turnover ranged from 20 to 26% during this time period, the GAO said.
Roughly 33,000 veterans experience homelessness a night, according to the 2024 point-in-time homelessness count. That is out of 770,000 unhoused Americans in total. Overall homelessness fluctuates throughout the year, with more overall becoming unhoused for some period of time per year.
The GAO also found that although the VA has worked to fill those vacancies, it hasn’t kept track of why veterans weren’t allowed into HUD-VASH. Of the 174,045 veterans not referred to HUD-VASH, the VA didn’t document why 151,296 of those were not.
The review came as a result of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, in which Congress directed the GAO to look into issues around veteran homelessness, including the supply of affordable housing and VA services for veterans experiencing homelessness.
The GAO recommended that the VA develop a method to make medical centers collect data on why veterans aren’t referred to the voucher program, including whether it is due to understaffing at VA facilities. The report notes that the VA has agreed to the recommendation.
In comments from the VA included in the report, Chief of Staff Curt Cashour said that the VA’s Homeless Programs Office will update or create new systems for collecting data on veteran cases. That includes adding understaffing as a reason for why veterans are not referred to HUD-VASH. It will also take steps to inform case managers across the VA’s network of the updates and how to better collect information on delays on vouchers. According to the VA, it intends to complete all of those changes and updates by October 2026.
