The Lee County Homeless Coalition, along with the Fort Myers Housing Authority, the American Red Cross, Veterans Affairs and other agencies, is in the midst of a campaign to house 50 homeless veterans in 100 days.
The challenge is part of a nationwide effort coordinated by the 100,000 Homes Campaign. It aims to make progress toward the Obama administration’s goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.
Lee County Homeless Coalition executive director, Janet Bartos, said so far the campaign has been a success.
“We’re ahead of our goal,” said Bartos. “Currently we have 36 veterans housed. We have five that are actively looking for housing. They do have their vouchers and 19 are in the pipeline. So we feel like we’re doing very well on this.”
The Coalition received an additional 35 housing vouchers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program to help out with the campaign.
Overall, the local campaign aims to house 241 veterans by December of 2015. The Lee County Homeless Coalition is soliciting donations of gently used home furnishings as part of the effort.
“A lot of posters that we’ve put out for this campaign; they talk about our veterans,” said Bartos. “They fought for our homes, so it’s our turn to fight for theirs and that’s kind of how we feel about this…We believe that the two words ‘veteran’ and ‘homelessness’ should never be used in the same sentence.”
The initial one hundred day push ends July 26.
