Surge events aim to get unsheltered Veterans off the streets
By David Walter, Public Affairs Specialist
A new national initiative to address homelessness among Veterans is building on work already taking place at the Milwaukee VA.
On Thursday, July 17, the Milwaukee VA’s Community Resource and Referral Center, 1818 N. Martin Luther King Drive, Milwaukee, hosted the first of three surge events, designed to identify unsheltered Veterans in Milwaukee County and provide them services and resources to get them off the street and into stable housing.
The surge events, to continue July 24 and 31, are part of VA’s “Getting Veterans Off the Street” nationwide initiative.
During the surge events, Milwaukee VA homeless program workers and its community partners are focused on engaging unsheltered Veterans through proactive street outreach, enrolling them in a same-day interim housing program, and enrolling them in a permanent housing program.
“The goal of the national initiative is getting Veterans off the street, so we’re just working to engage with as many Veterans as we can and offer them same-day housing and get them a plan for permanent housing,” said Amy Mauel, Milwaukee VA’s Homeless Prevention Programs Manager.
In contrast to sheltered homelessness, where people live in emergency shelters and other temporary settings, unsheltered homelessness refers to people sleeping outdoors in public spaces like streets, parks or under bridges, or in locations not meant for habitation, like vehicles, tents or abandoned buildings.
Meeting Veterans where they are
On Thursday, Milwaukee VA Medical Center Executive Director Jim McLain accompanied Bobbie Zerfas, assistant program manager for the Milwaukee VA homeless program, and Matt Fetrow, Health Care for Homeless Veterans outreach coordinator, as they visited with known unsheltered Veterans and attempted to connect with others.
Zerfas said that finding and connecting with homeless Veterans is what she and her staff do every day. The difference with the surge events is the confluence of other programs and community partners.
“We’re really trying to bring all the parts of our program together,” Zerfas said, noting the involvement of numerous social workers as well as Housing and Urban Development-Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing, Center for Veterans Issues, Veteran Justice Outreach and Supportive Services for Veteran Families, among others.
“We have people at the different meal sites throughout the city, also doing outreach and trying to set same-day access to Veterans,” she said.
The surge events also aim to bring homeless Veterans to the CRRC, where they have access to showers, a food pantry, computer stations and a host of other resources, including social workers and mental health specialists.
“(Today is) an opportunity not only to find permanent housing, but also to link them up with benefits … they didn’t know they had,” McLain said. “We can put them in a place where not only are they permanently housed, but they’re receiving medical or other benefits as well.”
Dispelling myths
The outing also served to dispel assumptions and myths surrounding those who are homeless, McLain said, noting that homeless people are often dehumanized.
“What I saw today was (Zerfas and Fetrow) engaging with individuals where they are, engaging with them as human beings, making a huge difference,” he said.
Fetrow agreed.
“It’s seeing them as the humans that they are,” he said, noting that some have made a conscious choice to live on the street. “It’s understanding the person as a whole and not judging them.”
Working to get homeless Veterans off the street isn’t as easy as one would think. Sometimes it takes days, weeks or months of building relationships to get things moving in the right direction.
“Some of these Veterans we’ve known for a while,” Zerfas said. “We know they are outside. We know where they are sleeping. We are working on relationship development and trust to get them inside.”
“Sometimes it is as simple as showing up with a bottle of water and just having a conversation with somebody before they’re even ready to talk about where they want to live,” Fetrow said. “That goes a long way.”
“It’s this personal engagement that makes a huge difference in catching these individuals,” McLain said.
VA making progress against homelessness
While “Getting Veterans Off the Street” is the VA’s latest initiative to address homelessness among Veterans, the issue has been a focus for many years.
Between 2023 and 2024, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Point-in-Time Count showed a 7.5% decrease in Veterans experiencing homelessness, dropping from 35,574 Veterans to 32,882.
This is a record low in Veteran homelessness since measurement began in 2009.
Overall, the data show an 11.7% reduction in Veterans experiencing homelessness since 2020 and a 55.6% reduction since 2010.
In 2023, the Milwaukee VA’s Homeless Prevention Program and its community-based outpatient clinics permanently housed 387 homeless Veterans in Wisconsin.
Where to go for help
Veterans experiencing homelessness or at risk for homelessness can call the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at 877-4AID-VET