WASHINGTON, May 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans will be celebrating 20 years of leadership in serving the nation's veterans in crisis during the NCHV Annual Conference at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C., June 21-23. Representatives of community-based service providers, federal agencies invested in their work and corporate partners will assemble to advance President Barack Obama's and Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki's Five Year Plan to End Veteran Homelessness.

The partnership between the service providers NCHV represents and the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Labor and Housing and Urban Development has been credited with decreasing the number of homeless veterans on the streets of America by more than 50 percent in the last six years. The success of these programs has helped forge the most comprehensive Congressional agenda to end and prevent veteran homelessness in U.S. history.

Secretary Shinseki will open the conference with an update on the Five Year Plan and advise service providers on emerging opportunities in their communities. The VA is developing programs to extend services to single homeless veterans with dependent children, provide supports for extreme low-income veteran families who need assistance to remain housed, partner with HUD to expand housing for chronically homeless veterans, promote establishment of veterans courts nationwide, and encourage localities to develop early intervention strategies to prevent veteran homelessness.

Interagency Director Barbara Poppe will discuss the new Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness, and the role of community-based veteran assistance programs in the plan. The American Bar Association will announce its initiatives in support of the VA's Veterans Justice Outreach (VJO) Initiative, designed to help veterans overcome legal issues that deny them access to housing and employment.

The three-day program will be highlighted by the Annual NCHV Awards Banquet the evening of June 22. Department of Labor-Veterans Employment and Training Service Assistant Secretary Ray Jefferson will serve as the keynote speaker. The event honors those who have distinguished themselves in the national campaign to end veteran homelessness.

Previous recipients of the NCHV Jerald Washington Memorial Founders Award -- the highest honor bestowed in the homeless veteran assistance community -- will anchor the Public Policy session the afternoon of June 21. VA Office of Homeless Programs Director Peter Dougherty and HUD Assistant Secretary for Special Needs Programs Mark Johnston will give updates on the impact of new Congressional initiatives to expand and improve veteran assistance programs. They will be joined by Gordon Burke, Department of Labor-VETS Director of Operations and Programs; Anthony Love, Deputy Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness; and Vincent Kane, Director of the VA Center on Homelessness among Veterans and national coordinator of the HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program.

More than 30 workshops will offer instruction on program development, federal agency guidelines, grant compliance and reporting issues, new focuses under the Five Year Plan, community collaboration, and developing housing opportunities and legal services to homeless and at-risk veterans.

Registration forms for the conference are available online at www.nchv.org; click on the conference icon.

SOURCE National Coalition for Homeless Veterans

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