On Saturday, January 30, we invited veterans and civilians to join us at Civic Hall for a "Draft Day" to get into the details of the policy solutions we want to see addressing Affordable Housing & Homelessness Prevention (in the morning) and Mental Health & Suicide Prevention (in the afternoon).
We had a great turnout, and identified a number of areas in which we needed better data and further information, which will be collected using a series of online surveys.
Below is an outline of issues we covered in our discussion:
AFFORDABLE HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS PREVENTION
Potential Actions by the new Department of Veterans Services:
Have DVS build a better definition of homeless veteran that also includes prevention of becoming homeless
Build a plan to have site visits for veterans homeless shelters and transitional homes
connect tax incentives to veterans preference
Push 421a veteran friendly messaging to Govt
Oversight of comprehensive housing & homelessness prevention program for NYC veterans
Collect data on SCRIE and DRIE
Where are the rent controlled apts?
Housing Data collection
Rotating housing specialists
Website resources
Longer-term NYC/community actions:
Prescreen veterans and put their handy skillsets to work in their building
Address oversaturation and placement of veteran shelters
Positive messaging and presentation and community activity
Not counting VA compensation as disability income
Get developers involved to build affordable housing for city owned properties
Market rate 80/20 split
Potential Actions for the NYC Veterans Alliance:
Data- student vet survey to find out what student veterans are getting BAH and what their end plan it (where they are going to be after their BAH runs out), and do the same for aging vets
Build the criteria for housing specialist in DVS should be responsible for knowing
Have an annual training and certification for VSO’s who wish to have the MOVA seal of approval
Build CSS & CUCS veterans relationships and data publications.
MENTAL HEALTH & SUICIDE PREVENTION
Potential Actions by the new Department of Veterans Services:
Website modeled after Los Angeles veterans services
Change city language to be more inclusive of overall health
P.S.A. Campaign de-stigmatizing PTSD (what it is vs What it isn’t, consider the entire spectrum)
Broadening population of PTSD community (rape victims, muggings, etc)
Positive post traumatic growth video series (highlight veterans who are doing well)
Publish ideal model for veterans
Track veterans who apply for jobs and work for the city and combine with IDNYC
DVS sponsored resource fair on mental health & suicide prevention
Sucide prevention training required for organizations receiving city funds
DVS SOTU
Longer-term NYC/community actions:
Primary care Physcians change scope of questioning and wording to use wording
Drop the D of PTSD when discussion of medical diagnosis is not germane
Data Collection
VA Choice program- Lobby federal legislators, write bill
Potential Actions for the NYC Veterans Alliance:
PTSD- refer it to as PTS in public messaging
311 timeline
NEXT STEPS:
Our next steps for developing our 2016 Policy Agenda will be to continue discussion of these issues using our member Slack Team and crafting a series of surveys to gather information based on questions we've raised and inputs we've received thus far in our process since September. Stay tuned!