® National Coalition for Homeless Veterans Annual Report FY 2011 Board of Directors Contents Patrick Ryan, Chair President’s Report: Corporate Leadership PriceWaterHouseCoopers, LLC Makes its Mark in FY 2011 ...................................... 3 McLean, VA Expanding Service: Technical Assistance Center .... 5 Charles “Chick” Ciccolella, Vice Chair Alexandria, VA Leading Voice: Communications Report ................. 7 Gwen Muse-Evans, Secretary Special Outreach Programs ...................................... 8 Fannie Mae Bethesda, MD Benchmarks and Guideposts: Important Stories and Ron Zola, Treasurer Events in FY 2011 .................................................... 9 Tarentum, PA 2011 NCHV Annual Conference ............................ 14 John Altenburg, Jr. Greenberg Traurig, LLP Vital Partners: Corporate and Individual Washington, D.C. Contributions .......................................................... 17 Michael Armstrong Membership: FY 2011 Overview ........................... 18 Community Hope, Inc. Parsippany, NJ FY 2011 Statement of Financial Position ............... 19 Brad Bridwell Cantwell-Anderson, Inc. Phoenix, AZ Debbie Burkart Our Mission: NCHV will end National Equity Fund, Inc. Los Angeles, CA homelessness among veterans by Joseph Caringella shaping public policy, promoting Milner & Caringella, Inc. Chicago, IL collaboration, and building the Robert Cocroft capacity of service providers. Center for Veterans Issues Milwaukee, WI Stephani Hardy Altadena, CA John King Olympia, WA Denis Leary Veterans, Inc. Worcester, MA Michael McLendon McLendon and Associates Arlington, VA Robert Norris Inglewood, CA Staff at the 2011 NCHV Annual Conference. From left: Policy and Program Assistant Matt Gornick, Director of Technical Assistance Baylee Crone, President and CEO John Driscoll, Offi ce Manager Kristen Hoag, and Director of Communications Randy Brown. President’s Report: Corporate Leadership Makes its Mark in FY 2011 When President Barack Obama announced ending veteran homelessness would be a priority for his administration in 2009, NCHV met with his advisors to develop a better understanding of his expectations and vision. It was clear throughout those early meetings the President believed Corporate America would ultimately need to fi ll a signifi cant gap in the delivery of services to the nation’s most vulnerable heroes. FY 2011 will be remembered as a turning point in the John Driscoll, 22-year-old campaign to end veteran homelessness for President and CEO two reasons: Congress passed the most ambitious funding package to end and prevent veteran homelessness in U.S. John Driscoll, a Vietnam Veteran history; and several of the nation’s corporate giants took who served NCHV since 2002 as their place at the table of leadership to support the work Director of Communications and of NCHV and its network of community- and faith-based Vice President of Operations and service providers. Programs, became the organiza- tion’s third President and CEO By the second quarter of the fi scal year, NCHV was work- on July 1, 2009. ing with four Platinum Corporate Partners for the fi rst time ever – The Home Depot Foundation, Fannie Mae, New Day Financial and Others First. development, fi nance, VA and HUD programs, real estate, and philanthropy convened to explore innovative strate- As part of its Veteran Initiative – a three-year, $30 million gies to create 90,000 units of safe, affordable permanent campaign to increase housing opportunities for formerly housing in accordance with the VA Five-Year Plan to End homeless and extreme low-income veterans – The Home Veteran Homelessness. Depot Foundation became the lead sponsor for the 2011 NCHV Annual Conference, and dedicated funding for the Funding from New Day Financial – one of the nation’s soon-to-be-launched Corporate Connection. This will be a largest mortgage lenders – allowed NCHV to staff the web-based resource to connect the nation’s business com- summit and produce a comprehensive report on the work munity with veteran service providers that need support in sessions and program successes of participating service their communities. providers. The Summit Report can be downloaded at http://www.nchv.org/page.cfm?id=337. This report will The ultimate goal of serve as the foundation document for NCHV’s work to the Connection is to increase veteran access to housing throughout the next provide low-income two years. veterans and those in homeless assistance Fannie Mae provided two grants to NCHV to focus on programs with access enhancing services for women veterans and to strengthen to affordable housing, the nation’s Stand Down programs. The National Stand employment opportu- Down Registry numbered more than 150 community nities and other sup- events in FY 2011, with an estimated outreach to 45,000 portive services, while homeless and at-risk veterans and immediate family mem- highlighting and pro- bers. NCHV staff researched and published more than 120 moting the corporate government and private grant notices for organizations citizenship initiatives offering housing assistance and supportive services for From left : Rob Posner of New Day Financial, women and single veterans with dependent children. Kelly Caff arelli of Th e Home Depot Founda- of the business com- tion, and Maria Barker of Fannie Mae accept- munity across the Overall, corporate contributions in FY 2011 totaled ing Corporate Partnership Awards on behalf country. of their organizations at the 2011 NCHV $182,298, about 30% more than budget projections. Awards Banquet. The Home Depot Combined with additional revenue from the most suc- Foundation partnered cessful Annual Conference in NCHV history, and receipts with NCHV to host the historic “Veteran Access to Hous- from the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), corporate ing Summit” in San Antonio in late July 2011. More than partnerships helped generate the strongest year-end fi nan- 125 leaders in veteran program administration, housing cial position NCHV has ever known. 3 On Capitol Hill NCHV participated in several conferences, telecon- ferences and webinars to discuss veteran programs The fi rst session of the 112th Congress was marked with offi cials from the Departments of Labor, Veter- by intense pressure to reduce federal spending and the ans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, constant threat of deep cuts to domestic programs. By the Health and Human Services, and the Interagency end of the fi rst quarter of FY 2011, funding for virtually Council on Homelessness. all homeless veteran programs was frozen at the previous year’s levels, except for the HUD-VA Supportive Housing • NCHV continued to support the Offi ce of Warrior (HUD-VASH) program. That critical housing program for and Family Support, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs mentally ill and disabled veterans had been deleted from of Staff at the Pentagon, verifying data and informa- the budget altogether. tion on homeless veterans and service programs, and participating in discussions about transition support For the fi rst three months of calendar 2012, President and and discharge planning. CEO John Driscoll and Policy Assistant Director Matt Gornick visited all of the staffs of Congressional commit- • NCHV participated in the National Hiring Initiative tees of jurisdiction in both the House of Representatives with the Department of Labor-Veterans Employ- and Senate to help them understand the importance of ment and Training Service (DOL-VETS) and U.S. HUD-VASH in the campaign to end veteran homeless- Chamber of Commerce at the Chicago and New ness. York Hiring Fairs. NCHV provided media support and pre-event publicity for similar programs across Driscoll met with Senate leaders, participated in several the country designed to place veterans – including live television and radio interviews, and spoke privately disabled and homeless veterans – into employment with House Committee on Veterans Affairs Chairman Jeff at the scheduled events. This partnership conducted Miller (R-FL) while Gornick continued to brief various veteran hiring fairs in 100 cities nationwide. staffs on Capitol Hill. • NCHV solidifi ed its partnership with the Ameri- The efforts of NCHV during that critical juncture re- can Bar Association to support the Commission on sulted in the restoration of more than $50 million for Homelessness and Poverty, and its work to expand HUD-VASH in FY 2011, enough to fund more than 7,500 legal services to homeless and extreme low-income vouchers for veterans with disabilities and low-income veterans. Staff participated in the ABA meeting with single veterans with dependent children. Department of Labor Offi ce of the Solicitor Nicholas Those Hill visits also afforded NCHV the opportunity to Levintow to discuss USERRA enforcement issues, brief most of the staffs – both majority and minority – the Legal Assistance Forum at the University of about FY 2012 funding needs for programs that are vital Maryland, and the Tri-County Council of Southern to the success of the Five-Year Plan. The approved FY Maryland briefi ng on Homeless Courts. 2012 appropriations for homeless veteran programs in- Thank you to all of our members and partners who made cluded virtually all of NCHV’s recommendations, includ- FY 2011 such a great success. NCHV is proud to repre- ing: sent the homeless veteran service movement as we push • $75 million for an additional 10,000 HUD-VASH onward toward our goal of ending veteran homelessness. vouchers (bringing total to 49,000) • $224 million for VA Grant and Per Diem Program (increase