By Heather Curtis
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON — (WMAL) Last year Montgomery County took President Barack Obama up on his Zero 2016 challenge to end veteran homelessness by Dec. 2015 and chronic homelessness by Dec. 2016. Monday morning, the county council’s health and human services committee will get an update on the progress of the initiative.

In 2015, the county found housing for 55 homeless veterans, which was every one identified according to Council President George Leventhal.

“Now we understand that veterans will continue to have crises in their lives, and they will lose their housing, and so it isn’t reasonable to say that we have eliminated the condition among veterans, but what functional zero means is that in the course of a month we will be able to identify housing for any client who is in the condition during that month,” said Leventhal.

This was made possible in large part due to Veterans Assisted Supportive Housing federal vouchers, which pay for apartments along with any medical or psychiatric care the veteran needs.

The report that will be presented to the council this morning said as of Sept. 1 of this year, there were five homeless veterans in the county and two veteran families.

“We’re also working to identify and house every chronically homeless client, and that’s our next goal, but the veterans have more resources available to them,” Leventhal said.

The federal government distributes Housing Choice Vouchers (previously Section 8) for homeless people who aren’t veterans. The county also used its own money to get those people off the streets.

As of the first of this month, the county was able to find permanent supportive housing for ten homeless people, rapid rehousing for six and other housing for four people who didn’t need ongoing housing support.

While the county’s made progress in housing the homeless, challenges remain.

Leventhal doesn’t know how much money the council will be able to include in the next county budget to house the homeless but said the council has historically been very supportive of setting aside money from the general fund to house the homeless.

“The entire council understands that these are the clients whose needs are the greatest. These are the people who really, truly need a government on their side,” Leventhal said.

When asked how realistic it is to completely end homelessness, Leventhal said that will be part of today’s update.

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