Recap on 100-Day Challenge Community Debrief
Jessilyn Averill
Gabe Parra, Chief of the Healthcare for the Homeless Veterans (HCHV) Section at the VA (Veterans Affairs) Ann Arbor Health Care System, welcomes everyone to the event. Thank you to those who joined us at Washtenaw Community College on February 21st!
The WHA joined Continuum of Care (CoC) partners to host a Community Debrief recapping the 100-Day Challenge we collaborated on between late September 2024 and January 23rd, 2025.
The Challenge, part of our community's work with the Built For Zero movement, was designed to bring together community leaders, service providers, advocates, and other individuals to accelerate progress on achieving an end to Veteran homelessness. Our goals were:
Identify barriers Veterans face when seeking housing, specifically through feedback from Veterans with lived experience, and help remove those barriers.
Expand our community partnerships.
Engage with landlords willing to provide safe and affordable housing for Veterans.
Reduce the number of Veterans entering the homeless system through expansion of prevention and diversion services.
By the end of the Challenge, 25 Veterans experiencing homelessness were permanently housed. And! The number of unhoused Veterans tracked on our system's By-Name-List stayed under 20 during each month of the Challenge, down from the monthly high of 25 in 2023.
(Left) April McKie from Community Solutions and (right) Andrew Kraemer from the Office of Community and Economic Development both touched on how the variety of resources, services (including housing and prevention), and funding streams leveraged to end Veteran homelessness are a proof point for how our community can envision an end to homelessness for other populations.
We kicked off the event featuring Haile Brown, who is a Field Representative for Congress member Debbie Dingell's Office. Haile shared about Representative Dingell's commitment to ending Veteran homelessness and her Veteran-focused congressional work.
April McKie, Systems Improvement Advisor at Community Solutions, explained the Built For Zero movement and how they helped the community through our 100-Day Challenge. Andrew Kraemer, CoC Data and Evaluation Specialist at the county's Office of Community and Economic Development, or OCED, presented data about the Challenge and the overall steady decrease our coordinated homeless system of care has seen in Veterans experiencing homelessness since 2018. Both speakers' presentation slides are available here.
A memorable moment of the night came when David Saims and Brian Martin of Washtenaw County Veterans Affairs told the story about a time their office uncovered a critical error in a client's VA benefits claim, "an error that had gone unnoticed for years and had cost [the client] the financial security he was entitled to. We immediately acted, filed the necessary forms, and advocated for a correction. Because of that, this veteran was awarded a 100% disability rating with 20 years of retroactive payments." The Veteran's Relief Millage, renewed last fall by Washtenaw residents, provided the funding so the County VA could help this Veteran.
Gabe Parra from VA Health Care Ann Arbor closed the event by speaking on the significant role their office has in connecting Veterans to housing, health care, and other services. The takeaway: there is no wrong door for a Veteran experiencing homelessness or housing instability to access services in Washtenaw County - they can call the VA office directly (734) 845-5058, contact Washtenaw's Central Call Center (734) 961-1999, or walk into the Delonis Shelter at 312 West Huron Street in Ann Arbor.
(Left) Auston Schneider from the Salvation Army and Brian Webber from Michigan Ability Partners both presented Certificates of Recognition to landlord partners Diana Watches (right) and Sara Elgin (not pictured).
Part of the success of housing 25 Veterans during the 100-Day Challenge came from close relationships with local landlords. Many thanks to Brian Webber from Michigan Ability Partners, Auston Schneider from Washtenaw County Salvation Army, and Sharon Lapides from the WHA for presenting recognitions to three landlord partners who have been instrumental in connecting Veterans to permanent affordable housing:
Diana Watches of Northwood Property LLC
Sara Elgin of Laurel Bay and Carleton Court Apartments
Lockwood of Ann Arbor on East Ellsworth Road
Thank you from the 2024 100-Day Challenge Team!
Ann Arbor Housing Commission
Avalon Housing
Community Solutions
Michigan Ability Partners
Re!nstitute
Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Health Care
Washtenaw County Salvation Army
Washtenaw County Veterans Affairs
Washtenaw Housing Alliance
Washtenaw Office of Community and Economic Development
Stay Involved and Join Us In Finally Ending Veteran Homelessness!
Please share with us how you can commit to the work to end Veteran homelessness by submitting a brief contact form here.