Assembly Standing Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs

Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to our informational hearing of the Assembly Committee on Military and Veteran Affairs. Before we begin, I'd like to make a statement on providing testimony at the hearing.

We seek to protect the rights of all who participate in the legislative process so that we can have an effective deliberation on the critical issues facing California. All witnesses will be testifying in person and all testimony comments are limited to the topic at hand.

Today we have a hearing that focuses on the benefits of military veterans that they have earned through their service to our country.

These men and women have risked their lives to keep us safe, and now the benefits they're owed are being stripped away and many more are in jeopardy due to our current administration's recent cuts, as well as the plans made public by the Administration for further devastating cuts. oh, you know what? And we're called to order.

Sorry, my first hearing of the year, actually, since we have an introduction and it's the first hearing of the year, I also wanted to make a comment. This is the first time we have had an all woman leadership of our Committee, which is why we're taking a picture earlier.

So I just want to acknowledge that that is a momentous occasion and very proud to work with these amazing women on this important issue. So with that, we know that all Americans are affected by the federal cuts. But these budget slashing cuts have been especially hard on those who have served in our military.

Employment, health care, housing, jobs that sustain families, and much more are on the line for veterans.

Especially because many of those who return home continue public service as government employees to compensate for the economic loss of serving in the military and acknowledge the difficulty service Members face in transitioning the skills gained in the military to civilian jobs or to navigate employment with disability resulting from their service. Veterans are given preference for government hiring.

That's why nearly a third of our federal workers are veterans, half of which have a disability from their service. And that's why these drastic cuts are cuts to Federal Government workforce that have disproportionate impacts on veterans, leaving thousands of veterans jobless. Cuts to the federal workforce are also affecting medical care for veterans.

The Veteran Health Administration workforce constitutes 90% of the VA's workforce. So cuts to the VA means cuts to health care, including mental health care, which I also just today was hearing reports of AS at one of the VA hospitals. Plain and simple, these are cuts that are devastating to veterans.

Some of you know that just a few weeks ago, my dad passed away from health issues relating to his military service. He battled cancer three times cancer that he got from exposure to Agent Orange when he was in Vietnam.

It was the health care of the VA that saved his life more times than I can count at this point. And it kept us from becoming homeless because if we had had to choose between his care when he first got cancer and paying the mortgage, we would not have been able to do both.

The VA gave my dad 40 more years of birthdays and anniversaries in our family. These are years that my parents just celebrated their 50th anniversary and he saw his children have children and we had Thanksgivings together.

And it's people like my dad who served and were exposed to cancer causing toxins like Agent Orange who are no longer assured the care that they need. That's why I was so overjoyed to see that a couple years ago.

The VA has served over a million more veterans and their survivors due to the expansion of care under the PACT Act. This includes expanded eligibility for former service Members who received VA health care for things like exposure to cancer causing toxins like Agent Orange, which is how my dad died. Exposure to toxins from burn pits.

And so since this was enacted in 2022, more than 5.6 million veterans have been screened for toxic exposure under the PACT Act. The administration's proposed 83,000 cuts to staff will make it much more difficult for the VA to provide health care to these newly eligible veterans.

It's really, you know, Orwellian doublespeak to say that you are prioritizing services to veter and veteran care when at the same time you're cutting the very staff that provide it in cuts to social services and counties, veteran crisis lines losing employees to layoffs. Around 900 of the 1,130 crisis line workers have always worked remotely.

So ending that remote work means further undermining staffing. Current data shows that an average of 17.6 veterans deaths by suicide per day. We're losing 17 veterans a day just by suicide.

Deaths by suicide remains the second leading cause of death among veterans under 45 years old and limited access to veterans, crisis lines due to layoffs will have dire impacts for veterans who are seeking support in their most critical time of need.

With overall budget cuts to the VA and federal workforce reduction, at least 350 VA researchers will likely lose their jobs. Stopping their life saving research will harm veterans well being and compromise the medical community's understanding of of substance use, mental health, veteran populations and critical insights from VA research on cancer prevention and treatment.

Numerous reports indicate that there will be drastic cuts to Safety net programs including food stamps and Medicaid, which is called Medi Cal here in California. And cutting Medi Cal will hurt veteran health as not all veterans can access the health care that is provided by the VA.

Estimates show that over the past decade nearly 10% of veterans use Medicaid and at least some of their health care benefits for at least some of their health care benefits. And 40% of those veterans rely exclusively on Medicaid for their health care. Additionally, 1.2 million veterans rely on SNAP or CalFresh in California for food assistance benefits.

With working age veterans at higher risk for food insecurity than their non veteran counterparts, many veterans did not have the money to make up for these cuts. And so these cuts literally mean cutting veterans ability to put food on the table. California has made significant strides in supporting veterans in the last few years.

We've had the largest decrease in veteran homelessness, outperforming the national average by double digits. California is working smarter by combining permanent housing with supportive services including mental health care and substance abuse treatment for veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program has helped create nearly 7,000 units of affordable veteran housing.

Now is when the time we need to expand on the progress that we have made, not let the careless decisions made by the federal Administration erase our progress and send us backwards.

I'm eager to hear from our panelists today so that we can all learn more about the impacts of federal cuts and help focus on the work ahead. Our first panel is the California Military Department. I would like to welcome up the the Adjutant General Major General Matthew Beevers as our first, first witness. Thank you General Beavers for being here.

So thanks Madam Chair and Members. First let me say sorry for your loss and we thank you for your father's service. I think probably best some new Members here to give a very, very brief overview of the Department and kind of walk you through what we did and what we continue to do relative to the LA Fire emergency.

And then finally talk briefly about how we see the impacts of what goes on right now in the Federal Government relative to what the Department of Defense is doing and how that affects the military Department of the State of California.

So first of all, I have the extraordinary privilege of leading about 18,500 California sons and daughters and they are the finest people that the state can deliver. That's exactly how we feel about it. And we tell people every day that my job, my sole responsibility is to make their lives better for having served. That's what we do.

We're broken down into four sub organizations. So the Army Guard of California, it's about 12,500 soldiers. We have the Air National Guard, it's about 4,500 folks or so. And then we have our volunteer auxiliary if you will. And we call that the State Guard.

The true volunteers, they don't get paid and they fill in and do the things that we can't, won't or shouldn't do. And then finally we have our Youth and Community Programs Task force and those folks are embedded across the state and in communities all over. And I'll walk back kind of what they do.

Starting with our youth and community programs, we have the privilege of running three charter schools, fully residential, last chance if you will, schools in three locations across the state. We run two cycles per school per year, about 200 students in each of those organizations.

Twice a year we also run what we call Starbase, which is a after school STEM program or now STEAM. They added an A. I didn't know that A is for architecture now. I guess so. And that's primarily targeting low SE Title 1 schools. And we run about 3,600 students through that a year.

Our State Guard, which our volunteer organization, again, extraordinary volunteers, they do great work. They pick up a lot of our slack relative to legal affairs, doctors, dentists, those sorts of folks that volunteer their time to make sure that my organization is as ready as it can be.

Our Air National Guard has five wings, four flying wings and an Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance wing. We fly the F15C out of Fresno every day. We protect the skies of the southwestern United States. We also fly the MQ9 Reaper drone out of our base in Riverside. They're currently flying in the Central Command area of responsibility.

Those aircraft are launched and recovered in theater and flown by pilots in trailers in Riverside. We fly the C130J out of our base in Channel Islands we affectionately call the Hollywood Guard. And we'll talk a little bit about what they did in the LA fires in a second.

We have a rescue wing up in Moffett out west and what they do primarily is rescue folks out at sea. So assume that the Coast Guard does not do that. The Navy does not do that. The International Guard of California does that.

So if you're in a disabled ship a thousand miles off the coast of California, we are the ones that come and rescue you, not anybody else.

And then finally an Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance wing is stationed up in Beale and they do a lot of high end, highly classified electronic warfare, offensive defensive space operations, some other Very, very interesting things. And then our Army national guard, again, about 12,000 folks.

We have a Infantry Division Headquarters, Infantry Brigade, Combat Team, a sustainment brigade, a combat aviation brigade. So we have all the things that you would assume the army would have and, and that exists currently in your California military Department. We did participate and still participate today in the LA Fire emergency.

I would tell you that the folks that executed the operation on our behalf did an extraordinarily good job. We put 200 service Members on the streets of LA in less than 12 hours, another 200 in less than 24. At the peak, we had about 3,500 folks employed working with law enforcement agents.

So LAPD, LA County Sheriff's Office, CA Highway Patrol and others. We still have about 432 soldiers and airmen currently deployed across the fire affected areas, both in Palisades and Altadena. And we're slowly coming off that mission as conditions on the ground improve and we're able to move off that.

So we continue that very well. Extraordinarily elegant. I would characterize our deployment there. Talk a little bit about the federal impact of what's going on, how that affects the Department.

A month ago I would have told you that the Reserve components of our armed forces would have taken the lion's share of the beating as they look to dramatically reduce the Department of Defense's budget. Today, I will tell you that's likely not the case.

My sense is that the velocity at which the cuts are currently being made, they can't get to the Reserve components quick enough given all the constitutional hurdles associated with dramatically reducing our end strength. So I think we're going to be fairly well positioned now.

And I think also the fact that we're five to eight times cheaper than our active component counterparts we call Compa1, and we're two to three times more ready per dollar than folks in the active component. And I think the Department of Defense is fairly bloated, has too many generals, too many headquarters.

I think that it's ripe for getting red. But there's a way to do that and, you know, looking forward to seeing that come to fruition. Relative to DOGE and other things that go on, I'm the first person to say that we have to look for efficiencies in our organization.

I have a line of effort in the military Department that talks about organizational discipline and accountability. And we look to reduce and improve our efficiency and reduce headcount where we can, where it makes sense.

Some of the DOGE stuff is appropriate and some of it's extraordinarily silly and I'll leave you to ask me a question on that if you'd like. Here's what I worry about, and I think rightly so, to a certain extent I'm concerned that we will lose programs that do not directly impact the readiness to fight and win.

And that's fair to a certain extent. But those programs that I talked about, our youth and community programs, are wildly popular. They're over subscribed. The communities in which these things exist, they need them. I mean, these are last chance things for a reason.

Starbase, like I talked about before, you know, it's targeted at low SE Title 1 schools, places where we need to employ STEM, places where we need to show folks the opportunity that a career in science, technology, engineering, architecture, math can deliver. So I worry about that. We're talking about veterans today.

Our Work for Warriors program, it's a boutique headhunter firm, if you will, that works inside my organization. It started here, probably 2012. It's now in 17 states across the country. We believe that if you come to work in the military Department and you're willing to serve in a part time capacity, that we owe you.

We owe you a full time job if you're unemployed or a better job if you're underemployed. And that's the reason behind Work4Warriors. And it's extraordinarily successful. And then finally, and probably lastly would be our counter drug task force. The work that we do in counter narcotics across the state is extraordinary.

It's a $50 million, 100% federally funded program with an additional 15 million supplemental in the Governor's Budget. And the return on investment in that program alone is excessive, 6,000%. And I have a hard time telling people that because they're like, you got to prove it. So I always wind up having to show the homework because the number.

So I just wish it would be about 300% and everybody would just trust me outright. But that program's taken 2 billion lethal doses of fentanyl off the streets. We've supported the seizures of 2 billion fentanyl lethal fentanyl doses just in the last 12 months. We've taken 2,800, we've helped take 2,800 weapons off the streets.

Those are weapons that are going south out of our state into Mexico, that are fueling violence in Mexico. And we have, as I said before, duty and responsibility. Interdict the flow of weapons, interdict the flow of money heading south. That's how you win. And we are continuing to do that.

But again, that's not directly supporting the readiness to fight and win. I mean, you can make a connection. That's a Homeland Security mission, because it is. It's certainly securing the homeland. But I just, those are the. Those are really the things that I worry about.

And I guess, finally, I would tell you that I do expect that we will deploy to the border sometime soon. Our 40th Infantry Division headquarters is coming off a deployment to Southwest Asia a couple of years ago, and they will be back up and available to deploy. And I think it's just a matter of time.

I don't see that happening before late 2026. But if we're there long enough that we will wind up going, and that's, you know, not a hugely bad thing. It's bad because it impacts California and our ability to do things that we need to do here.

However, my General Support Aviation Battalion is currently deployed along the southern border in Texas. They deployed under the Biden Administration. So these things continue to go on.

And I just, I think it's important for everybody here to understand kind of how we're thinking and how we believe these cuts are coming and what's going to happen to the Department going forward. And with that, I'll take your questions.

Thank you. I want to open it up to our, my colleagues, if they have any questions.

I just want to thank you for your service and for the help out with the LA fires. My son's an LA County Sheriff and I know he did tell me that you guys were in boots on the ground and I appreciate that.

Mr. Gonzalez.

General, thank you for being here. Thank you for the war fighters that are behind you and the ones that are serving our nation and our state. As a former war fighter, now a legislative war fighter, you know this. We started off with the VA portion of this. And help me understand, when a, when a service Member on active duty gets injured, they have medical treatment through the military.

When a service Member that is not on active duty doing their regular job, they get injured through their other jobs, they find their own way of getting through the medical system, maybe through their job, so on, so forth. So they don't get to touch the va. When does the California Military Department or anyone there within, touch the VA system?

So a couple of ways, I think it's probably best to explain. So in service of the Federal Government, the VA is going to cover them, they're going to get incapacitation pay, the military is going to take care of them until they transition up and the VA will take care of them.

So assuming you're on a drill weekend in Title 32 status, which would be in service of the state, the same thing would apply.

So the only time that the state would, would, would be responsible for taking care of you if you were injured would be much like we're doing today in LA, and that would be through scif, that we would file a SCIF claim on behalf of the service Member, but also would entitle him to, to all those other benefits downstream.

So that's all, it's cumulative effect on that. You know, we have probably, probably 50% of our formation are already veterans, maybe a little less since they're so young now, but yeah.

So once they reach their retirement or, and correct me if I'm wrong, at 20 years, an active duty person has VA privileges, so on, so forth. Is that the same thing within the va or do you have to wait, excuse me, with the military Department, or do you have to wait till you're 65 to reach that?

No, it's different. So it's different between being retired and then having a VA disability. So your retirement's not, your VA disability is not hinged on retired, being retired or not. If you're hurt in service of the state or the Federal Government, you're going to get taken care of by the VA.

And the retirement age is 60 and they've added a blended retirement system now into the military. So it's much like, I don't know, 457, if you will, or kind of an employer sponsored individual retirement account. So. And soldiers can opt in or opt out of that, depending on what they want to do.

And with these cuts specifically for the California Military Department, what is that specific impact to the California Military Department? Because we know the va, right, there's cuts there. That's, it's all over the news, right? Yeah, but what does that mean to the California Military Department?

Yeah, so two things there. First, it goes all back to readiness. So I didn't fail to mention this earlier, but I'm very concerned that as the Department of Defense looks to Fund programs and priorities going forward, that it could potentially come at the expense of the readiness of my organization.

So that's less training dollars, less flying hours, less equipment, older equipment, more tired equipment that will make us less ready. That is one thing there. And I think the second part of that is I wouldn't look at it as it affects the military Department. I would look at how it affects the people.

Because if I don't have the right equipment and I don't have the right training, then I can't deploy with the velocity that we deployed in LA might, just can't. And today we are funded at a level where we can execute these operations at great velocity with extraordinary amounts of elegance.

You reduce our readiness, you reduce our funding, you reduce the types of equipment we have. We are less ready and we're less well prepared. And the people will pay the price. Because my soldiers and my airmen, they'll do whatever it takes to get the job done right.

But you know, that might be it, that might be a day slower and then lives are impacted. So I worry more about the people of the state than I would about the organization of the Department.

So completely agree with you. As a knuckle Dragon Marine, give me the best equipment, help me do my job, help my Marines take care of my Marines. Completely agree with you on that perspective. I'm trying to look like future forward. Right. And I get the, the words that you're using. You're, you're concerned with the potential of.

And I agree with you. I would also be concerned. Right. In any Administration, doesn't matter red, white or blue. My concern is for my war fighters and their lethality, equaling readiness, so on, so forth. And of course they're families that have to serve alongside them. How do we mitigate that from a state perspective? Right.

What are the things that we can do to make sure. Because, you know, we have some say in the, in the, in the California military Department. That's kind of where we can play. Right. And we can write letters and we can hoot and holler.

But I'm looking for what are some active steps that we can take to help you and to do your mission, which is to make sure that they're lethal and they're taken care of. So what are some things that we can do to help in that respect?

I think it's the same thing that I do. Next Monday, I'll be in D.C. walking the halls of Capitol Hill, seeing our congressional delegation and then, you know, telling them what our legislative priorities are, what we need, and that those are easy. You know, I need new jets at Fresno.

Every time a jet at Fresno gets depot level maintenance, it just goes to the boneyard. There's no more depot to be fixed. And until or unless I get.

I could translate what that means for civilians.

Yeah, go ahead.

The junkyard. The boneyard. Yeah. I speak military. Yeah.

So you know the drill. So, yeah, I mean, I gotta need recapitalized jets. F15EX. Boeing makes two a month. And I'm behind the jets that are going to Kadena, which is fair. They're going to Kadena. I get that. Again, what comes after MQ9 at Riverside, and I don't want to be left behind on that.

But that platform is obsolete. What kind of vehicles is Infantry Brigade Combat Team going to have? Because God forbid, if we have to deploy and fight in the Pacific, those kids are going. They're going just by virtue of their geography and their levels of readiness because they're so close to the Western Pacific. So I need the new equipment. So when I go to Capitol Hill next week, that's what I'll be talking about.

And I'll see, you know, Chairman Calvert and I'll see Members of the California Congressional delegation that sit on HASC, you know, and so I would encourage, if you have the opportunity, to reach out and I'll give you the list. We'll be talking in sync, I promise you, but I think that's what we do. Yeah.

Well, I appreciate your comments and your perspective. And I think it's incumbent upon us in this Committee to make sure that we support our war fighters, make sure that they get the right equipment, because I've been there with the wrong equipment and it's never fun. Make sure that our families are taken care of back home.

Because my family had to. Had to do that as well. So I can guarantee you that you have a fighter on this dais as well as our chair that we will be. I'll make sure that we're looking out for our warriors. Thank you, sir. Madam Chair.

Thank you, Assembly Member Gonzalez. You know, I appreciate the conversation that you were having and I think it is forward thinking and it's a lot of guesswork in a way. Right. And that's part of the challenge I think that people are experiencing on the wide array of things that are coming down from the Federal Government. Right.

I've talked with nonprofits that are having to come up with two or three different budgets, depending on what kind of funding they're going to get. Right. And this chaos and uncertainty is really a theme that is disrupting the work that we should all be doing day to day. And so I don't know, I know you mentioned something about something being silly coming down from DOGE. I don't know if you could expand upon that.

Again, you know, I'll preface this by saying I think we all can be more efficient and more effective. And I'm not saying that DOGE doesn't have a place. But the latest Department of Defense wide DOGE mandated review was to take a look at the 520 federal contracts I currently hold in my organization and ensure there was no provision for the purpose purchase. Excuse me, no provision for the purchase of paper straws. That seems a little silly.

Yeah, yeah. I imagine that's shocking. And I think probably we could all agree that there's better use of time.

They could have just said don't buy paper straws anymore. I mean, ok, that'd have been easier. I don't know how many man hours we burned on that. Frankly, I probably don't want to know. But it was significant for sure. Absolutely. Yeah.

And on top of that, the continuing resolutions that occur every year in the Federal Government, National Defense Authorization act has to be redone every year. So to the point now where continuing resolutions, now this one's going to go on for an entire year. We've started to plan things around an expectation that the government will shut down.

We continue now to plan things assuming there'll be a continuing resolution. So we try to front load as many contracts as we possibly can and then we, and we try to be very, very proactive at securing federal resources toward the end of the federal fiscal year because the way it goes now, it's so hard to spend that money.

If we can tee things up and be ready to go, we can secure Some of that federal funding and then either obligate it or execute it within the. Within the year of execution to help our soldiers and airmen. But it's a challenge. These continued resolutions are insane.

And I know. I mean, I think that speaks to the readiness discussion that you're having, is if you're having to now shift your focus to all of, you know, spinning your wheels and trying to hurry up and make sure you have the funding you need and make sure the equipment that you need is there, you know, then just in terms of human capacity. Right. You're having to prioritize that over other things that may need to.

I think 89. Last time I checked, 89 Executive orders, about half of those affected the military Department. And every one is. I would characterize it as a significant emotional event for my staff that has to go through it and make sure that we're following the rules to the letter.

You know, it's important, I think, for folks to recognize that while the National Guard, the Governor is our commander in chief. The deal is that for all the military equipment and all the training and all the expertise that come with being in the National Guard, the deal is the Federal Government gets to determine the standards and all of the things that you do.

So I want to make sure everybody understands that we're compelled to follow the federal rules in almost every case. So I think that's important for folks more of a civics lesson on how the Constitution and the enabling legislation that created the National Guard as it is today. That's very important to understand.

And we know a lot of directives are coming around those operations you did mention in kind of pivoting to impacts on veterans and the Work for Warriors program that's partially federally funded and the impact that that's having.

You know, as we know, coming into this year, we were presented a balanced budget by the Governor, which, you know, included borrowing some from our rainy day Fund because we did have a deficit. And now, you know, we are also presented with a whole lot of uncertainty in our budget.

If Medicaid, for example, is cut by many billions of dollars at the national level, we know that California will have the lion's share of that impact. U.S. and the Department of Finance has already made it clear that they cannot backfill a deficit like that. We don't know, you know, potentially what the.

What the deficit could be around dismantling the Department of Education. And so while those are not direct cuts to veterans, well, those could be, certainly Medicaid and Medi Cal here in California. Could be, certainly Pell grants to go to college.

Could be, but also because of the strain that that would inevitably put on our state budget, then it means that if there are federal cuts that do come down that would impact work for warriors, for example, helping veterans get jobs, get good jobs, family sustaining jobs, jobs that they can put their kids through college on, we are more constrained to be able to try to pick up the slack.

And that raises a big concern for me. I'm not sure also.

No, it's hugely concerning, if you can imagine. We talk about the cost of things. I think at the height of our work in LA, I think the military Department is burning about $1.2 million a day. I think today we're burning about 300,000 a day. That all we expect to be federally reimbursed for that.

And that's appropriate and right. So much of what we get is from the Federal Government. So, you know, 75% of our challenge Academy programs are funded by the Federal Government. 100% of Starbase is funded by the Federal Government.

A lot of our construction is 75, 25. 75 by the feds, 25 by the state on a state facility or on state land. It's a 50/50 Proposition. And if you can imagine we're going to, just because it's not available, we're losing, you know, two for $1 or three for $1.

So it's frightening that we can't take advantage of that money because it's a huge value for the state's dollar. We're putting one state dollar and turn it into three or four sometimes. So, yeah, right there with you.

Thank you so much. I think it's clear that certainly while we all want to make sure that there's more efficiency, we know that this is actually a very efficient dollar spent, as you talked about in the response to the fires, for our community safety as well. So we are grateful for the work that you do.

I, you know, I'm sorry that you're having to go in so many different directions amid the chaos and confusion that's being caused. But we are thankful that you spent some time with us today to really illuminate what you're experiencing and ways in which we can be supportive. So thank you so much.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. So now we'll bring up the second, the second panel for federal benefits and claims support. So. Robert Herrera, Deputy. Sorry, what? Roberto, I'm sorry. Roberto Herrera, Deputy Secretary of Veteran Services Division for CalVet. Jim Zenner, Director of Department of Military and Veteran affairs for LA County and Mo Seder. Thank you.

Mo Seder, Legal Director for Swords and Plowshares. Thank you so much. And Roberto, if you wanted to start.

Absolutely. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee and Madam Chair, again, sorry for your loss. My name is Roberto Herrera. I'm Deputy Secretary of Veterans Services at the California Department of Veteran affairs or CalVet. The State of California has the second largest veteran population in the nation at nearly 1.5 million veterans calling our state home.

This population also reflects California's vast diversity both demographically and geographically as well. The mission of Cal Vet is to serve and honor California veterans by connecting them and their families with their earned benefits through education, advocacy and direct service.

How we strive to accomplish this mission is structured through working directly within a community based system of care that has been established across the state in service to veterans and their families.

Calvin understands that one organization alone cannot be all things to all veterans and they need to engage with community based organizations, local governments and of course our sister agencies, departments and the Federal Government is critical and not only to ensure adequate service delivery, but to also ensure cultural competence, adaptability and vigilance to any emerging or oftentimes emergent veteran needs.

Examples of this adaptability can historically be seen through the creation of Calvin Strike Teams which helped decrease average days of completion during the claims backlog of 2012 through 2015 by working in partnership directly with VA to reduce processing times by preparing disability claims to become ready for a decision from at the time was upwards of two years down to three months to Wheeling our outreach programs like the California Transition Assistance Program, working with service organizations during the early stages of COVID to ensure veterans seeking services during the pandemic still had doors open to them and could readily speak to a representative at Cal Vet or even attend one of many outreach events and webinars focusing on not only employment through partnership with organizations such as Work for Warriors and edd, but mental health and wellness events as well.

And of course responding to the many unfortunate disasters over the years. Natural disasters over the years ensuring veterans who need assistance through recovery had access to vital military and VA records in order to prove veteran status, fill prescriptions or get connected with critical county services during their time in need.

At the core of the community based system of care is the County Veterans Service officer represented in 56 out of 58 counties. CVSOs act as a primary touch point for accessing many many of the benefits and services veterans and dependents are entitled to through their military service.

CVSOS are placed as the hub as they also provide access to two critical aspects to increase one's quality of life, access to health care through the VA and access to ongoing compensation for injuries incurred during service. Last year alone the CVSOs generated nearly 580 million in new and reoccurring payments to California's veterans filing over 300,000 claims.

Further, CalVet's partnership with CVSOs is one that requires training and accreditations of claim representatives and quality review and control through headquarters at CalVet's through headquarters and CalVet's District offices in Los Angeles, San Diego and Oakland in the VA Regional offices.

Last year CalVet trained 113 new claims representatives through the California Vet Rep Academy, an all time record adding an overall total to nearly 400 Accluta claims representatives statewide offering no cost high quality representation through CVSOs.

As the crucial relationship CalVet has with our CVSOs, the relationships developed through community based organizations allows for flexibility and innovation across many service areas and greater ability to effectively respond to changing environments where that involves providing greater cultural competency training to Non VA primary care providers on the specialized needs of veterans to providing greater access to pro-bono and illegal firms specializing in things like discharge upgrades, providing protections against eviction or serving the most difficult veterans claims cases.

The Department is positioned to react to the evolving State of veteran services to ensure we adapt and stay vigilant through our community based system of care and ensure compassion and acceptance of all those who wore a nation's uniform regardless of their age, era, length or character of service.

The existence of these partnerships reifies CalVet's commitment to ensuring California veterans and their families remain the most connected, protected and respected in the nation. Thank you.

Thank you so much and Mr. Zenner.

Hi, good afternoon Chair Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Jim Zenner. I serve as the Director of LA County Department of Military Veteran Affairs and also the Legislative Chair for the California Association of County VSOs. I served in the army for seven years and am a social worker by trade.

California is home to 8% of the nation's veterans, yet CVSOs applied for 12% account for 12% of all the claims filed nationwide. This is a testimony to us being out in the community and going where the veterans are.

That work brought in as Deputy Secretary Herrera mentioned close to 580 million in new federal benefits into the hands of California veterans and their dependents. That's nearly 580 million directly supporting health, housing, education and stability. This is real impact, but it's Happening on unsustainable foundation.

The state currently covers 22% of the total cost to operate CVSOs, leaving counties to carry the rest. One example of our current challenges is that many counties are doing more claims but getting less funding. Meanwhile, the workload is rising.

The PACT act has expanded eligibility to nearly an additional 200,000 veterans in California State alone and the VA is experiencing record numbers of claims received. One example of doing more and receiving less in funding is San Luis Obispo County. They're doing 30% more claims since the PACT act, yet receiving 30% less in subvention funding.

The VA is already strained. The current federal changes are only going to exacerbate the strain and veterans are turning to us first, not last, for help. CVSOs are answering the call and will support them however we can. But let's be clear, this isn't just about claims.

CVSOs are on the front lines of our of our state and county veterans safety nets. Veterans and their families don't come to us when they're having a good day. They're coming to us because they're in the greatest point of their life as far as need. We are not waiting for veterans to find us.

We are building pathways through mental health systems, through reentry programs, through housing efforts. You name it. We're going out there and trying to set up referral process to get veterans identified and have them referred over to us. One example of going outside of just benefits.

In Los Angeles County we created the Veteran Peer Access Network which is funded through Mental Health Service Act Dollars and places over 40 veteran peer specialists on the streets, finding veterans and their families and connecting them to county services if they're not eligible for VA and if they're eligible for va, connecting them to the va US County Veteran Service officers.

We don't have time because of the sheer volume of claims to do a lot of that hand walking. Anywhere between 11 and 15% of our veterans are not VA health care eligible. And a recent RAND study showed that those men and women are two times more likely to die by suicide and be homeless.

We have a responsibility to reach those veterans and get them to county services while we're getting them to legal to get eligible for VA services. In Riverside County, they recently received an $8 million funding stream to do reentry programs.

So going out to our to the jails, to the prison and doing workshops, doing benefits and one thing that a lot of people don't know is there's what's called an apportionment. So when veterans are incarcerated for 60 days. That 61st day, if they're 100% and their families used to getting close to $4,000 a month, that goes away due to 38 CFR 3.665. We can go in there.

If we have the capacity and we're going into the prisons and the jails, we can do what's called an apportionment and have that money go to the family Members so those, those families aren't coming into our county safety nets because they still get the income that they were used to when their veteran was incarcerated.

In Orange County, our CVSO has an employment program built into the office as well. In Santa Clara County they received a grant from the Federal Government to do suicide prevention across the state. CVSOs are the subject matter experts for our counties and we are serving as a bridge between local government, state and federal systems.

We do this work not because it's funded, but because it's necessary. But the reality is that our reach is being limited not by a lack of vision, but by the lack of funding and understanding of our potential as county Veterans Service Officers.

Often veterans interact with multiple county systems such as aging, public health, social services more often than and even before they interact with veteran specific departments. In LA County alone we have 21,000 self identified veterans coming to our DPSS offices. We have over 6,000 veterans going, getting child support services interaction.

That's 27,000 self identified veterans in two county departments. In LA County, our Greater Los Angeles VA Medical center, their catchment area is 22,000 square miles and they have close to about 80,000 unique veterans.

So two county departments and we have about, we have over a quarter of the veterans that in our 4,000 square mile county that that VA Medical center sees. This is the potential that exists in our counties to get men and women that served our country that are at their worst moment connected to a county veteran service office.

We are asking the state to recognize this and act accordingly. We know what works, we know where the gaps are and we have access to our most at risk veterans. We could do more if we were given the tools to do it.

And as veterans face more uncertainty at the federal level, California has a choice either to remain reactive or lead. Thank you for your time and for your continued commitment to those who have served. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Siedor.

Hi, thank you, Chair thank you Assembly Members for having us today. My name is Mo Siedor and I'm the Legal Director at SWORDS to Plowshares. We're a veterans rights organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Member organization of the California Association of Veterans Service organizations.

Each year Swords helps over 2,500 veterans with housing and rental assistance, employment and training, and case management, mental health care and in the legal unit where I work, we provide no cost legal assistance to veterans in their VA benefits, claims and discharge upgrades.

Our clients are all low or no income Bay Area veterans, many of whom are unhoused, many of whom struggle with PTSD and other mental health conditions. I began working in the legal unit at Swords in 2014 and have been the legal Director since 2019 and in addition have served as a Staff Attorney at Inner City Law Center's Homeless Veterans Project and Public Council's Veterans Advancement Program.

My testimony today is informed by over a decade of providing free legal services to veterans in California in their VA benefits claims, and my remarks today are expanded on in much greater detail in the written testimony provided previously.

From my experience, I know that attorneys play a crucial role in getting veterans their VA benefits, and I know that there is not enough free legal assistance to meet the growing need. And it's fair to predict that given what has happened already at the VA in the last two months, that this need will continue to grow.

Every day there are new stories of pending cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and with an aging Vietnam veteran population, a sizable post 911 population, and the relatively recent passage of the PACT act expanding healthcare and monetary benefits to both groups, the VA has seen a sizable increase in both benefits claims and healthcare patients.

Given the vital nature of these services to veterans lives, to cut staff and budgets in this moment is dangerous. So given that these are federal benefits programs, what can California do?

The California Legislature can counterbalance the anticipated harms of these cuts to VA by ensuring funding for free legal services to low income California veterans in the VA claims process, in addition to the cuts to health care that you mentioned.

Chair Another expected harm to these cuts is to the monetary benefits dispensed by the Veterans Benefits Administration to veterans with disabilities, namely that insufficient staffing and resources will delay claims processing time and decrease claims accuracy.

Access to free legal assistance to veterans in the claims process increases a veteran's chance of having their claim approved, help them get access to these benefits faster, and timely address the VA's mistakes in erroneous claims denials over the last 20 years and with the influx of post 911 veterans into the VA system, there's been a significant increase in claims.

Between 2003-2023 there's been a double in the number of veterans receiving service connected disability compensation from 2.49 million to 5.66 million, and the average payout annually has increased by 80%. It's now up to $23,000 a year on average.

And despite this uptick in claims, there's a dearth of attorneys available to help veterans in their initial claims for benefits. Why is that? In a laudable effort to prevent veterans from being taken advantage of, the VA rightfully prohibits anyone, an attorney or otherwise, from charging a veteran for assistance in the preparation of an initial claim.

And while I wholeheartedly support that, the consequence is that the private bar is therefore unavailable to be paid for this work and therefore the assistance at that initial claims level is lacking. Consequently, many veterans file their initial claims either on their own or with the assistance of a non veteran advocate.

And while many VA benefits claims can prevail at that initial stage level without an attorney's assistance, too many cases result in erroneous denials that an attorney could have prevented or are denied for a lack of evidence that an attorney could have helped develop and present.

Legal services organizations like Swords and many other nonprofits in the state fill that need by providing no cost attorney representation to low income and unhoused veterans at all stages of the VA claims process, including with initial claims. So why is it so important to have an attorney at that initial claim stage?

Right now, the wait time for an initial claim benefits decision from the VA is 142 days. On average. That's four and a half months. If you have to add an appeal to that because you are erroneously denied at that first stage, you are adding on average 97 and a half days for a higher level review.

147 days if you file a supplemental claim, and on average about 1000 days if you appeal that to the Board of Veterans Appeals. Last month we had a Vietnam veteran pass away while his claim was pending. He waited 1,345 days just to have his BVA hearing scheduled scheduled.

Low income unhoused veterans and those struggling with physical and mental health issues do not have time to wait six months, let alone 36 months to receive their disability compensation and to have their access to VA health care established.

Of course, not all VA claims require an attorney, but we have found that two types of claims in particular benefit the most from having attorney Advocacy One is complex mental health claims, for example those involving military sexual trauma, psychosis disorders and those who've experienced racist abuse in the service, as well as VA eligibility determinations for veterans who were unjustly separated with less than honorable discharges.

These cases tend to involve significant evidence development, entail the application of complicated regulations and are ripe with VA errors. And as such, having an attorney advocating for you can mean the difference between stable monthly income and free health care and a denial letter and a years long appeal.

And these are the kinds of claims that are necessarily brought by veterans who are more vulnerable, as Mr. Zinner mentioned, more likely to be unhoused, more likely to have suicidal ideation, have high acuity mental health symptoms, and therefore less able to navigate these complicated claims processes on their own, making attorney representation even more necessary.

State funding has proven to work to address this need for legal services. California already has a vehicle to Fund this work through the Mental Health Services act, which is a state where the state provides grants for VA benefits works through partnerships between legal services organizations like SWORDS and the county Veterans Service Offices.

These funds, monitored and distributed by the CVSOs throughout the state, have allowed Swords to maintain and hire attorneys who are experts in veterans law and in our MHSA projects.

The CVSO staff screen clients for more complicated mental health claims, claims, eligibility cases for those with less than honorable discharges, and appeals where an attorney's going to make a big difference and refer those clients directly to us.

Conversely, when a client comes to Swords with a claim that doesn't necessarily require attorney advocacy, we do a warm handoff to the CVSO and I'll end with giving you some quick numbers just to give Swords as an example of the application of these funds. So we have currently two MHSA grants, one with the San Francisco CVSO and the other with Alameda County.

And we receive in total between these two $165,000 a year for the legal services unit at sorts with that funding last year we helped 197 veterans and took on 78 clients for ongoing representation in fiscal year 24 for clients served.

With this grant we were able to earn $1.56 million in back pay for veterans for 50 veteran clients in terms of ongoing monthly benefits. On average, we increased the client's income by $1,560 a month over the next 10 years.

That will be an influx of $10.86 million into the State of California of federal dollars for just those 50 veterans. And each week we meet with on average seven new clients in the legal unit at Swords. And every week we have to turn away folks who have meritorious claims with very sympathetic stories because we are at capacity.

More funding means more attorneys, which means more veterans can receive this help and be less reliant on state resources. In short, legal services for VA claims work brings in more federal dollars to the state than it costs to provide.

And in these unprecedented times, it's hard to predict exactly how these staff cuts to staff and funding will impact the VA and the veterans that rely on its services. But it's safe to say that less resources and fewer staff is going to make it harder for California veterans to access the monetary and health care benefits the VA has to offer.

Having an attorney by their side can help move their claim along efficiently, address errors quickly and zealously, advocate for the maximum amount of benefits that they're entitled to from VA and at the early stages possible in the claims process. All of which will mitigate the damage of the decline in claims accuracy and the increased wait times that we will, we anticipate, will accompany these cuts.

The California Legislator can act to counteract these expected harms by increasing financial support for legal services and VA claims work through MHSA and other funding sources so that folks have this stable income, housing assistance, mental health care and all the other life saving benefits that the VA has to offer. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I want to open it up to the Committee for any questions.

I just want to give a little perspective on this, what you've talked about. I served 21 years and one of the challenges that I had was where do we go for help? Right. I'm broken, where do I go for help? Right.

Luckily there was someone there to kind of guide me through the process, but I didn't know all the legal language. Right. Thankfully there was a, an attorney there to kind of help guide me through this process or else I wouldn't have understood a lot of all the legalese that was going on and what I was entitled to.

Because of that, I was able to get my 100% disability eventually after a year. What is, what that means is I am, I leave the military service, I don't know where I can work because I'm broken and I don't want to mess it up and I don't have money coming in.

So how do I take care of my family of four that was living on base that now we're out in the community and I have a special needs son and what services do they get? So I, you look at that for A year, Right. Six months, three weeks, whatever that number is. It is. You feel helpless. Helpless.

I felt helpless. Someone who was very independent felt very helpless because I didn't know where to go, what to do. Luckily, I had a few people that I can go to VSOs for communities, provide a lifeline to the veteran community. And what I mean by that specifically is I'll get calls.

Hey, I have someone who's hurting one way, shape or form. Great. I don't know what services you have in that area. Get to your vso. That's, that's kind of what we know as veterans to do. I don't know what you have going on. Just go to your vso.

They'll know what services, they'll know what, what nonprofits are out there. They'll help you through the process. Step one, VSO. That being said, VSOs are significantly underfunded. I would say if LA is. Let me just pose the question to you. Do you think that LA County VSO has enough resources?

So if we take, if we take that perspective, LA and we move it to Imperial county or any of the rural districts that are dealing with a significant amount of veterans as well, they're just barely scraping by inside of a hut.

So that's something I think that we should be able to tackle here is not only understanding the funding mechanism or the lack thereof for our VSO community, because they are the first touch point, number one, to get to the lawyer. Right. And they're significantly underfunded.

Number two is prioritization within our budget for folks that have served our nation. We. We, show me your money and I'll show you where your priorities are. And unfortunately, we don't do enough to show our veterans and their families what the priorities are. Because you wouldn't be here, right? You wouldn't be asking for, hey, we just.

I have a VSO that's in a closet in my district, and that is just shameful to have veterans going there and trying to get services. And how do you fit them in? I would love to have a Lack of resources in La. Right. But that's saying a lot for the rest of the state. So I thank you for presenting here today. But also to let you know that I've been through the process.

I'm a proud graduate of a VSO who took care of me and my family, but I know a lot of service Members that didn't have that or didn't have it locally or just couldn't get an appointment because there was just not enough VSOs. They're overworked, understaffed.

So we have to do something here in California to take care of our military and veteran community because what we're doing doesn't even scratch the surface. And I'm thankful to be here.

Any other comments?

First of all, I want to say thank you so much for being here. My name is Assemblymember Laurie Davies, and I have the 74th district, including Camp Pendleton. I want to say thank you for your service and your sacrifice. Mr. Zinner, listening to what you're talking about, this is year.

I think that especially Californians, the curtain's been pulled back. Everyone feels, they feel the crunch. They see where it's going. And accountability needs to be heard. And it's time that accountability is held to the right people. And you were talking about, you know, we need the tools. Can you tell me some of those tools besides funding, mainstreaming, you know, things that we can actually work at?

Yeah, I think County VSOs, we want to free up more money for our counties to serve everybody else, especially what's going on with the Federal Government at this time. When I testified to our county supervisors regarding the budget, every veteran that we divert off CalFresh, you can look it up online.

It's $1,021 a month that goes back every veteran that we divert out of incarceration. That's over $11,000 a month. There's a real cost savings that US CVSOS provide. And that's not even talking about the quality of life improvements that the Assembly Member was sharing earlier with his experience. So we're, in my opinion, we're the best kept secret.

Really. What we need to do is look at data sharing. So a lot of our counties have information exchange, health care information exchanges. So for instance, you know, the 21,000 self identified veterans that are going through our DPSS offices.

If I was allowed to take the information on Vet Pro and match it in with our county's information exchange, that, by the way, protects phi, let alone pii. To see which one of those veterans have come across our office and which one haven't, we'd be able to proactively reach out and provide services to those veterans.

And again, these are veterans that are falling into our safety nets. They're not coming to us because they're having a good day. Right. They're struggling. And so we as County VSOs, we really want to get.

So updating your data system.

Being allowed to share data, we enter our information into what's called Vet Pro, which is a state database, and if we're allowed to data share with our county protected information hubs, we'll be able to identify veterans that have not come through our office, but are going through child support of services, DPSS, our health agencies, things like that. Is there a reason why they don't do that now?

We just started having those conversations with CalVet and we definitely, the quicker we can expedite that, the quicker we can start reaching those men and women.

Thank you. And any other tools that you know, that you know would be helpful because you're the experts. You know what you're not getting, you know what you need, please come to us, let us know because that's something that we can take action on. Thank you.

Thank you, First of all, thank you for your presentation and for your service. Assembly Member Gonzalez, thank you for your service and everybody else in this room. At the beginning of your opening remarks, you mentioned that 88% of veteran population live in the state. Do you have data that shows what are the numbers per county throughout California?

Maybe you can share that with us if you have it. And I just want to also mention that the district that I represented, 39th Assembly District, North LA county, there is a very active veteran population there and the way that they provide resources among themselves is impressive. The chair has been to our district, she's been there a couple of times.

And the way that the cohesiveness of them working together to support each other, putting aside a lack of services and finding all of those challenges that we have, I think that it's impressive to see the veteran community working together, trying to get the assistance for those that need help. You mentioned what the challenges are.

And I just want to mention that the High Desert has a lot of high veteran population and the way that they work together with organizations as well to support each other is impressive. So I just wanted to mention that to you. Thank you for being here.

And assemblymember, we can definitely get you the numbers of veteran population by county.

Thank you. So I want to say, Mr. Herrera, that I appreciate you pointed out that you serve all veterans. I think that this is a critical time to be very clear about that as we see veterans being disappeared like Colin Powell and Jackie Robinson, who is raised in California, and code talkers and others that, you know, we've heard concerns from folks that their service is being disregarded, disrespected.

And so, you know, I think it's critical to make sure that veterans in California know that, you know, service providers here serve everyone and want to support them. I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about. I know I had conversations at a recent mental health briefing with your Executive Director around.

It was at the time of the funding freeze. I think it was the next day or two days after the initial funding freeze. And can you talk a little bit about how that impacted you all when that happened, or are you familiar?

Sure. So this would have been like third week of January or maybe a little later last week of January? Yeah.

Well, I think for a lot of folks, of course, it was a shock, you know, for me personally, you know, my phone started ringing that morning from folks saying, hey, hey, Roberto, I'm trying to access, you know, GPD reimbursement and the portal is closed, the website's not there. What do I do?

And, you know, it was a stressful moment, stressful few couple days, especially, you know, looking at the 44 programs that were identified within VA and the breadth in which the breadth of the programs that existed on that list, you know, just within va, let alone other federal, federal agencies and departments.

So, you know, I would say it was definitely, you know, eye opening, seeing things like, you know, SSBF and disability compensation on that list.

But I think, you know, more importantly, it really motivated us to really begin looking at, okay, like, how can we really start preparing for what makes, you know, how are we, you know, ensuring that, as I mentioned in my remarks, as, you know, distant as it may or may not seem, you know, making sure that we're brushing off, you know, cultural competency training for Non VA providers in primary care, you know, do they understand, Are they going to be able to understand the complex needs of the specialized population that are veterans?

Are they going to be able to make the connections regarding presumptive conditions and toxic exposures when that veteran's, you know, in that primary care appointment with a Non VA Doctor? Because, of course, not only does that lead to better health outcomes, but there's also, you know, benefits associated with that.

And really looking at the tools that we have, you know, our California Transition Assistance Program, our MHSA grant program, which the applications for that would open up later this year. But particularly in that program, you know, we prioritize areas for counties to apply. Legal Services is one. Supportive Services for homeless Veterans is another.

So looking at, you know, how can we bolster that and use that as a tool moving forward to help address what, what the future may hold.

Thank you. And I mean, fortunately, that was reversed. I think at the time, you know, there were serious concerns about just being able to keep the doors Open. Right. If that funding had not actually opened back up, whether or not, you know, there would be any services moving forward.

Not, you know, not to mention all of the other ways in which veterans are impacted. I think we'll probably talk about that in one of the other panels. And you know, I think the points that you've been making, Mr.

Zenner, around the cost savings, there's a lot of frustration from myself and I think a lot of my colleagues when we're moving bills forward or budget requests forward, because so many times, you know, a small investment yields large returns, whether it's federal dollars that you can draw down or, you know, income that comes into the state, people being kept off of public assistance because they're able to support themselves, all of those kinds of things is I think what you're highlighting here today and how important that is.

And, you know, so I think it's critical that we keep that in mind when we're talking about budget priorities and making sure that we're lifting up these programs that are in fact keeping people self sustaining and healthy and happy and supporting their families. And at the same time, California is not cutting these programs.

The Federal Government is cutting these programs. California is continuing to invest in our veterans services and in the programs that we're doing. We're seeing slash and burn happen at the federal level while we can.

And I hope money is just materializing in the air for us to just Fund everything that we want to because there's so much important work especially to be done here. It's critical that we have to fight against cuts that are happening at the federal level to preserve what we're able to do here as well.

And so I think those are important things that we cannot ignore in the effort to make sure that we're supporting veterans. I want to thank you personally too, because I know you've worked with me to make sure that CvsOs are able to serve a large veteran community that I represent in Santa Clarita Valley.

And you know, and we've seen what a difference that that makes when we have a CVSO for our community. And we know how hard it is because of the limited resources to be able to dedicate them in each of the areas that were needed.

So, you know, this is an area, I think, where investment can really make a difference. And Ms. Seder, you know, I think you're really along the lines of comments around Mr. Zenner's testimony is the same thing, right?

How you're bringing critical funds back to as a small investment, it's doubled, tripled 10 times in terms of the funds that come to the State of California.

And so I think we have to look at creative ways to make sure that we're sustaining the work that you all are doing to make sure that veterans are supported at the end of the day. We also know that there are cuts that we cannot heal from. There are cuts that we cannot rebound from or backfill.

And so as much as we can do, I think, as the General spoke, to push back on federal cuts that are happening. And I think that's important for all of us to do. That's being highlighted today. So thank you very much for your testimony today. And I think, Mr. Herrera, you're staying. Staying with us? Okay. Stick around. For the third panel, which is mental health and suicide prevention.

Mr. Herrera, Amy Fairweather, who is Director of policy at Swords and Plowshares. Hi. Robert Stohr. I see you, Executive Director of US Vets. Wonderful to see you. Mr. Herrera, if you want to go first again here leading the charge.

Absolutely. Okay. So I, you know, I just wanted to just bring it back really quick to your comments on the last panel. Madam Chair. You know, some two programs that I'm going to talk about here.

I mean really I feel show resilience in the way investments in the State of California have provided resilience against, you know, changing times. And I think we're there are two programs that were both that I'm very proud of both of them and you know, those are VSSR and CVHI.

So Veteran Support Self Reliance Program and the California Veteran Health Initiative, which were funded through investments in 21-22 and 22-23.

Really, to looking at, you know, how do we provide on site supportive services for the veterans most in need, those who are aging in high acuity, in permanent supportive housing, and then also what are we doing to really be innovative in how we combat the public health issue, that is veterans dying by suicide, which, you know, occurs in nearly twice the rate of non veterans.

And that really holds true in however you look at that veteran demographically, age, race, gender, it's pretty much double when you compare it to their non veteran peers.

So historically, one of the things that that Calvet has done through, as I mentioned before, through our MHSA program was in an effort to increase the amount of mental health services available to veterans in the community, was using this pot of money that we had. It was mhsa.

This comes out of the at the time it was 5% state administrative money out of MHSA directs of the Department. It used to be 270,000. Now it's I believe in 2017-18 that got increased to 1.27 million, which really allowed us at that time to really start getting creative with how we use this money.

And of course, the topics of veteran suicide and serving those who are homeless or need illegal services was was at the top of the list. And Then also in 2017, the passage of AB 1618 created the certified Veteran Service Provider Fund. And what this Fund allowed the Department to do is to actually do formal granting.

The MHSA program, it's not a bona fide grant program. It's interagency agreements that the Department makes with counties who then make an agreement with nonprofit organizations to do that that that work.

AB 1618 allows us to begin granting directly to NGOs and the regulations that were required through 1618 define eligibility for the Veterans Certified Veteran Service Provider Fund has to be an NGO has to show demonstrate alignment through their through the work in their NGO alignment with this CalVet strategic plan through the federal VA strategic plan among among other things with being in good graces with the state and whatnot.

So our very first installment into the Certified Veterans Service Provider Fund was the Veterans Support Self Reliance Program and that program is designed to improve on site delivery to veterans 55 and over and who are high acuity in permanent supportive housing and assist them to maintain their quality of life and age in place.

Critically, research has demonstrated that experiencing homelessness contributes to accelerated aging and the medical conditions that are related to that. Further, those experiencing homelessness also demonstrate co occurring mental health conditions that can exacerbate wellness costs.

This equates to a greater need to assist those in permanent supportive housing with challenges such as isolation hoarding, improving activities of daily living, providing occupational therapy and outpatient psychotherapy.

In response, the Veterans Support Self Reliance NOFA we designed it to be flexible enough to meet the unique staffing needs of individual housing sites but prescriptive enough to allow for proof of concept over a three year observational and reporting period.

The VSSR NOFA was released on the California's grant portal on October of 22nd and awards announced later in that December since award there are nearly 420 veterans that are actively enrolled in the pilot that receive services through VSSR and the grant awards were competitively awarded to six permanent supportive housing providers and each grantee during the application process had to select various staffing combinations as prescribed in the NOFA and staffing models included the inclusion of service assistance, peer support specialists, social workers, mental health Clinicians, transportation assistants, occupational therapists, registered nurses.

I think that was. I think I got them all. There might have been one or two more. So once staffing began on sites, you know, we first wanted to establish a baseline regarding the health quality and quality of life of the residents. 78% reported major impairment on health problems that limit their activities.

49% reported three or more major impairments that limit their activities. 35% reported they had walking, mobility problems or other ailments, among other things. There was a report submitted to the Legislature I believe a few weeks ago regarding the first year of vssr. It is also on our website.

But if you need a bump as to where to find it, feel free to reach out to me directly. More than happy to share it. Over the course of the last Year or the first year of the pilot shows improvements from baseline to the fourth quarter in several key areas. Missed medical appointments are down by 81%.

Use of specialty care has increased by nearly 30%. Medication adherence has increased by 17%. Alcohol use has dropped by 65. Emergency room visits are down by half. Veterans are now socially engaging with others, participation, group activities, et cetera. RAND Corporation is the impact evaluator for vssr.

And outside of the initial report, there'll be another report to Calvet this July, another report in January of next year, and a final report on August 26. And again, even though those reports aren't required to the Legislature, we're more than happy to share them.

We want to keep you in the loop as to the progress this program's making, particularly, and my apologies if I didn't explain it well in the beginning, but really the idea here is how do we increase the level of service being provided in these settings, particularly in permanent supportive housing that is highly dependent on vash to where, you know, the only thing that may be provided on site.

Nothing against our VA partners, they do amazing work and they're in demand, but would be, you know, intensive case management that's on site. You know, on an interim basis. This actually brings those services, those supportive services on actually in the location to where the veterans are living.

So again, as those reports come out, you will be hearing from us and the communication will be solid regarding this program. The second program that was funded under the certified California Veterans Service provider program in 22-23 was California Veterans Health Initiative.

And really this program was provided to increase outreach, increase mental health access through grants from the Department. This is a mental health focused opportunity that's designed to really address the public health issues that come with veterans dying by suicide. It was mentioned earlier 17 veterans dying by suicide a day. Tragic.

That number fluctuates, you know, every year when the VA puts out their report. I think there has been a small decline from several years ago, but, you know, it's a tragedy nonetheless.

And, you know, working in this, in this field for, you know, a little over a decade, you know, when it comes to, you know, what's really pushed the needle regarding prevention and early intervention efforts outside of standard gatekeeper training for a lot of folks, you know, and, you know, being comfortable with asking veterans if they're, you know, how are you, you know, there needs to be something more to that.

So strategizing for the implementation of cvhi, we want to first perform a needs assessment and the key findings of that needs Assessment showed of course longer than average wait times for initial appointments. Some veterans having wait times upwards to six months. And this is just to talk to someone.

This is, you know, I feel like I'm at a place to where I need to reach out and doing that and not being able to get an appointment for quite some time, which of course is a tragedy in itself. And that you finally get to that point where you reach out and then you can't access it.

Veterans with oth discharges or bad paper having rates of mental health disorders at 1.6 times higher than veterans with honorable discharges. And you know, at this time, VA was also in the process of implementing the Staff Sergeant Fox Suicide Prevention Grant. So we wanted to see how that rolled out.

That program was based heavily in suicide prevention screening with referrals back to va. So obviously with that referring veterans back to a system that already has a six month wait time, we wanted to be innovative around that fact. So in response, the NOFA that we developed encapsulated statewide access through our outreach regions.

We have eight outreach regions throughout the state. We had an outreach requirement to underserve veteran populations, no discharge error length of service requirements to receive counseling.

Under this program we required grantees to focus on community based outpatient clinical counseling at no cost to the veteran or their identified family Member with no supplanting of funds allowed by the organization because the concept was to increase access to mental health appointments and also emphasize with each grantee the use of associate Clinicians to build a workforce of counselors in California who have experience serving veterans and their families.

The round one NOFA was released in March 24. All agreements are currently in place with the majority of them being put in place in late 2024. We've granted 11 organizations with awards up to 11. 4 million coverage service area covers all 58 counties in the state and we calculate that this program equates to over 100,000 no cost mental health appointments available to veterans and their families over the course of the next three years.

So these two programs, VSSR and cvhi, constitute how the State of California is dedicated to developing innovative solutions to public health issues that are critical for these programs Illuminate the important role our community based organizations play in filling gaps that federal VA may not be able to address either through their own capacity or eligibility. Thank you.

Thank you and Ms. Fairweather and just want to note we are a little bit behind so folks can be kind, concise. I appreciate it. Thank you.

I'm going to talk fast. My name is Amy Fairweather. I'm the Director of Policy at Swords to Plowshares. We house over 500 veterans in permanent supportive housing, project based permanent supportive housing every, each and every day. We provide emergency housing. We provide mental health services, legal services, employment services and drop in services.

I've been working in this area for 19 years and we work on community education, program development, evaluation and technical assistance from my team. First of all, California has recognized that, you know, veterans are citizens of the state.

And as such, even though the VA and the feds arguably are really responsible because the military is a national institution, that that doesn't take away the citizenship and the residency of our friends and neighbors who are veterans.

And that California needs to contribute to their care and has been, you know, a vanguard and a bellwether in that as in so many other things. What's going on at the federal level right now is terrifying. We are at a crisis point. If these programs go away, I don't know what we are going to do.

I don't know how we're going to continue to pay our staff and, you know, provide these services. We have clinicians on site, but also we are very close with a lot of clinicians at the VA. We hear from them, they are working under tremendous pressure.

They are people who have dedicated their lives to providing counseling for veterans and they are passionate and good at their work and importantly, they are experts in veteran specific, culturally appropriate care. And that will be lost if we lose to basically the dismantling of the VA.

This has been going on for quite a while where the privatization, the community care. This will make VA not a provider of care, but a payer for care. There'll be nothing more than a HMO or an insurance company. And that would be incredibly tragic given their expertise over so many decades of specifically treating veterans.

So turning back to California, you know, we and our partners in CAVSA throughout California have been, well, this is before my time, so I can say at the forefront and did wonderful work in bringing in funds from the federal, you know, administrative departments in pushing the ball forward in terms of veteran care and veteran housing.

Prop one just passed. Well, not just, but recently, of course we supported it, CAVSA supported it, and it's a mental health initiative. But for the veterans, and I don't want to sound ungrateful for the bond measure that throws down significant money for bricks and mortar, but we could build the most beautiful buildings.

We can put veterans in the most fantastic little apartments in the world. But if we put them in there, we shut the door. We're warehousing them and these are veterans who've experienced chronic homelessness, ptsd. All of our residents are disabled.

Oftentimes they also have co occurring substance issues or have had them over the course of their life and their chronic homelessness. So it really takes work to be able to keep those people there. It's permanent supportive housing.

We've got to have the supportive in the supportive housing and you know the Vash case managers are great but they're sort of capacity, they're there for limited hours.

So the VSSR has been absolutely spectacular and but we also need to think about when we're going to, you know, build this housing under homekey plus, you know, how are we going to pay for these services within them. Also I want to say that because of where these veterans are, they're aging, an aging population.

They are much older than their chronological years because of their disability and their homelessness and their substance use.

And we want to allow them to age in place which in the long run is much cheaper than any kind of advanced nursing care and also just give them the safety and security and dignity in what has been maybe the first home they've had in a long, long, long time and you know, will probably be their last home.

And we want to make it a safe place. So when we go to the VSSR and you talked about some of the successes that we're seeing in terms of people using regular health care and so the emergency visits are going down, those are extraordinarily expensive.

So again it's sort of the pennywise pound foolish of if we make these little investments what we can get back from them, we are seeing success. We're very proud of that. Also, Full disclosure policy team acts as the design consultant, technical assistance and process evaluator for the, for the program.

So we've worked with all of these pilot sites and in 18 months, unless we get replacement funds, all of this is gonna unravel. And you know, we had hoped quite frankly that we wouldn't see the Federal Government dismantle veteran care and that we could get some more support from the feds.

But I don't, you know, that's gonna be a long time in coming. It's certainly not gonna happen in the next four years. And we really, you know, these programs need to be continued and extended with support from California and similarly with the cvhi.

Again so wonderful forward looking Governor Newsom and the Legislature sees the need, really understands what veterans need, what we can do to save lives. But money is money and so these are a step down funding mechanism. People stand up these programs and first year's full funding, second year's 50%, then 25%.

And you know, in this landscape, how are these organizations going to find, you know, $1.0 million a year extra? I want to point out very quickly that 0.2% of private philanthropic dollars go to veteran support. So it's a super uphill battle for us.

So, you know, I realize, you know, everybody's in trouble, but I'm telling you that our veterans are going to be in a lot of trouble. And we really, you know, we're so thankful for what California has done and, you know, really hope that we can have consistent, sustained funding.

And just finally, very quickly, historically, the MHSA veterans have gotten very little to no support, excuse me. So we cannot think that those funds are going to help. We need to find sustainable, permanent funding streams to go to California veterans through the VA or no, through Cal Vet. And I thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Mr. Stohr.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and I am sorry to hear if you're lost. And thank you all Committee for being here to be able to listen, take your time and energy and pay attention. My name is Robert Storr. I'm the Executive Director of one of the sites of US Vets.

US Vets has 14 altogether, four of them right here in California. I think we're opening a fifth. And my site in particular is the only site without a residential facility. So maybe this is a bright spot in suicide prevention.

I know that's an oxymoron, but I hope with the California Veteran Health Initiative and what we've been able to do. So I'm entering my 10th year. Prior to US VETs, I was the Executive Director for the Suicide Prevention Center for Los Angeles and Orange County.

And that was 14 years ago when I began to really hear a veteran suicide statistics that I wasn't aware of. So I made sort of a pledge to myself that if something opened up, I would move over. And at that time, the job opened up at US Vets.

My particular site, because it doesn't have residentials focused on prevention and early intervention. In other words, it's my job to go upstream while we are downstream with our other sites being able to look for veterans on the streets, put them in transitional housing, move them into permanent housing.

It's my job to go upstream, find the veterans that may be in danger, our men and women that are coming home right now or that are leaving the service after a period of time. So what we've done is. And we've done this for the last nine years. We've gone out to 16 community colleges.

Aid in Orange County, actually, we started with one clinician, and we're up to six. And the reality was we went right in the veteran resource centers and we spent our energy looking right there and letting veterans know you didn't have to call the va.

In fact, if you just went between class, you could get the mental health support you needed. And very interesting things happened. We also developed an employment program. We spent $1.0 million that we raised to develop a women program, a women veterans program, and we developed a peer program.

80% of the funding came from endowments or businesses or corporations. I'm the only site of the 13 other sites that doesn't depend on federal money.

But our other sites now impact me and my work because of the fear of losing the money or it being reduced, and we are in a hiring freeze, we are reducing salaries and potentially reducing staff and taking away some of our other benefits. So it is a very frightening time.

Fortunately, with my opportunity to work and now receive some of the money from the Calaveter and Health Initiative, it is my plan to continue the work. And I know it will make a difference and does make a difference. And I'll be very brief by sharing one final story. What I do know is this is how it happens.

A veteran came in to one of our counselors, and one of our counselors shared with that gentleman our employment program. So he came into our office to look for a job. Now, I work in cubicles, and I have the far left cubicle next to one of the employment counselors.

It's not that I eavesdrop, but I was hearing the interview going forward, and I was thinking, this man's extraordinary. He was learning Spanish on his second masters because he had Cuban heritage. He also had a master's in in business. He had an exemplary service record that I was hearing, leadership skills.

And as he went on with the interview with the deployment rep, I thought, what is the problem? He could not find a job anywhere. And so I walked around, grabbed the employment. I said, we need to have this guy here. Long story short, I was able to hire him. And of course, he was an exceptional employee.

Now, the interesting thing is I work with Cal Vet every year and the Department of Military and Veterans affairs to put on the conference for suicide prevention. As long as I've been in suicide prevention, it's been my business to make sure that we get that information out. I train, I work with the American foundation for Suicide Prevention.

And I do everything I can. And so I work with our other organizations in capsa and I train and I talk and I share. At any rate, this veteran that I had hired, I came across and I'm very comfortable and open about talking about suicide prevention. And I shared, you have to come to this conference.

I said, it'll be really important. You're a new staff Member. I want you to attend. So he did. And then later that week, he came back and he said to me, it's a good thing I went to the conference, saw the conference virtually at home because he said my wife was there.

And he said, I sobbed through the entire conference. And I asked him, why would you share some of that? He said, I lost my best friend in the service and I was suicidal when I was coming into your office and thought I wasn't going to make it.

And he was about to have his first child, he had no job, and as a result, being with us just a year, he ended up in a major company making much more than I was able to pay him.

So the reality is, what it did for me, and I hope does for you, is, as you know, these people are all around us. He looked perfectly sane, comfortable, problem free, competent. And he was, with the exception of he had trauma in a military situation and he was not able to transition back easily.

So it's my mission to continue that and let you know there is a bright spot, as mentioned by my colleague here, it will be important as the money steps down. I am familiar with how to go around and make that money every year, so that's fortunate.

But I wanted to let you know to continue to support that, if you can, that program, it's extremely successful. The program for women veterans. We had women driving from all over LA, which is virtually impossible for up to 12 sessions in our offices. And that just surprised me to no end. It took us a while.

We had to develop case management along with mental health, because you don't build a program for women veterans without them knowing who you are because they've been notoriously mistreated, underserved. So after we built that reputation, that program flourished as well. So we will continue the work.

But I wanted to tell you I appreciate, and I appreciate the opportunity to get the support from CalVet. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Committee Members. Yes, sir.

Mr. Herrera, just a quick question for you or quick couple questions. You were talking about significant wait times for veterans to receive services. What is impacting the significant wait times for veterans to see providers?

Well, you know, I would. It's. It's just. It's an access issue. I mean, it's, you know, access and impaction. You know, I mean, there's a workforce element to that as well. You know, I mean, just for, you know, anyone trying to access a clinical appointment through Kaiser or Sutter, it's still a significant amount of time.

And, you know, when you have a specialized population that are veterans, you know, that are more prone to having traumatic experiences, you know there's going to be a greater demand for those services. So I would just say that. You. Know, having more clinical counselors available to take appointments is key.

And that's why in CVHI we doubled down on the model using a supervising clinician with associate Clinicians. Because the last thing we wanted to do was Fund organizations that could not hire fully, couldn't find and hire folks that had the experience and were able to work for the amount that the grant was able to provide.

So, yeah, the associate clinician model definitely allows for that constant stream of Clinicians to be available while at the same time putting more Clinicians out in the field that have the cultural competency and experience.

Serving veterans practice is the biggest, is. The big piece that we're trying to hone in on. Obviously, I get the cultural because, trust me, when I went in trying to explain my job to someone who didn't understand it, it was very challenging. So I get that. Are non veterans allowed to use the. VA services through cvhi?

Or when you say VA services, do. You mean you were talking about earlier that there are significant wait times for VA providers? So my question is, are non veterans allowed to use VA services or VA providers?

Non veterans accessing federal VHA programs? Those would be family Members of veterans who are 100% service connected.

Let me clarify. So I'm referring to veterans and dependents. I let me couch that as one, right? Other than veterans and their dependents, are non veterans allowed to use VA services?

No.

Are there currently non veterans using VA services?

I mean, I'd say no, of course, but not that would. I mean, what's your definition of veteran?

Well, that's what. Well, that's what I was honing in on was veterans and their dependents have access to obviously to the VA services and providers. So are outside of those, anyone else allowed to use that?

I would say no.

Yep. Well. Just to clarify something there, there's a nuance with the Vet center program. So this is kind of this, you know, offshoot from VHA. It's, you know, it's counseling based. This is established during Vietnam and where, you know, counselors would work with veterans that would not interact with, with their local hospital.

The record sharing between the Vet center and VHA was very non consequential. It was supposed to just be a safe space for veterans who needed counseling to get it with very few questions asked as to why they were there.

Within the Vet center program, which exists today, their definition of a family Member is the veteran identifies who their family is is. So that could be their friend. If they say this person is my family Member, then that per.

And it's their neighbor, they have no blood relation to that individual could go in for group counseling with that veteran.

As well as a caregiver. Really?

Sure.

You just clarified as a caregiver, right? Is that what you just said?

Well, if they're, if they have a relationship and they're a friend who's, you know, the strongest relationship, they're, they're probably a caregiver in some sense.

I guess the nuance that, because I've personally seen it, the nuance that we have to look at from a fiscal perspective is absolutely. Veterans and their dependents, 100%. I have no problem with that.

The challenge that we have is in a environment that we're in currently in California when we're allocating dollars and we say this person is family, but they're not family or they're not a dependent, as we would classify it under paperwork through the government. Right. We could end up spending a lot of money for that. If it's a VA or veteran service for a non veteran. Correct. if we had the Numbers,

I mean, I, you know, I've never seen a figure on that. I just know that that's the Vet Center's policy regarding how they identify family Members. I, but I, you know, I would just say from, I'm not, I'm not a clinician. My, my grad degrees in public health.

But I, you know, I would imagine that the clinical outcomes of allowing those individuals who that veteran identifies as family and in some cases, even if, you know, let's just say, for example, there's a DV element to it, excluding folks that the veteran says this person is not my family Member has benefits as well, clinically.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Just to follow up on that question, I mean, it doesn't sound like it's a widespread issue that you have heard of at all that non. Veteran, non family Members using.

No, ma'am.

Is it? Are we hearing about this? No. Okay. Just curious. So I, you know, I appreciate your testimonies today in the ways especially, you know, highlighting, I think, the important programs that California has lifted up to support veterans and make sure that we are, you know, stepping up and filling a need that, you know, very clearly.

Is there a need that there's even more. More that we can do and more that we need to really prioritize doing. And I'm very concerned to hear that you have a hiring freeze, that you're doing salary cuts and possibly staffing cuts.

I think one of the concerns since I got elected over two years ago, one of the concerns that I have heard from nearly everyone who came into my office, especially public sector, was about the challenges to fill vacant positions, how hard it has been to be able to find staff, find staff that will work for what public positions will pay.

Because it is a labor of love. It's not for the money. When you go into public service, and especially in the mental health realm, it's been so hard to find clinicians to find mental health workers who have this experience and expertise.

And so when I hear about the federal cuts and cuts that are just kind of happening with a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel, when you're just anyone on probation, we're just laying them all off. We're firing them all. And these are people.

When I think about people who are on probation, other than people who had just been promoted and maybe are back on probation, new staff.

You had to invest so much money to hire them, to find them, to train them, to get them up and running, and, you know, finally they're in place to provide the services that you need them for, and then poof, disappears.

It's terrifying.

Right? And I don't. So I don't know if you've seen this or seen the impact of this or, you know, and you're in the process of doing a hiring freeze yourself, so you're living it.

Right. Well, one of the things we were able to do with Roberto talked about is because clinicians are very difficult to find, as you've all heard, has developed an internship program, and now we're finding veterans with degrees that want to be therapists.

So we're actually kind of economizing by using one therapist with three interns so that we can, like, triple our workforce that way. But, yes. Yeah. The idea, what went through with the recent freeze and the threat of further cuts, I mean, we have 14 sites from D.C. to Hawaii.

So all of us are impacted in the sense of what's the future of our jobs, what's the fiscal. I mean, as a nonprofit, as you know, we don't generate revenues. So if revenue is taken away at any point, that's an immediate danger to the health. So thank you for recognizing that. That's true.

And I mean, you all, I think, was referencing, actually, US vets earlier, the experience that you had with the funding freeze and, you know, concerns about being able to keep doors open, funding. You know, the challenge, I think, is that it's not just the va, obviously, that impacts veterans. Right.

It could be HUD, you know, to pay rents for veterans. There's a number of different departments and their funding that can impact it. And what. So what was the reality that you were looking at if these programs, these funds disappeared?

Well, very seriously, we look at what our cash flow is at the time and how long we can sustain operations. Is it 60? Is it 90 days? And what do we do with the 3,500 veterans that are sleeping in beds that we're facilitating across the country? So, yeah, it was a very terrifying moment and.

And one that's difficult that we still look at, which is why those immediate measures were taken to keep every penny in place, where it is right now, in case we do have to do something like that. So, yeah, it's very insane, crazy.

And it ripples from us into the veterans we serve and into the employees that are trying to serve the veterans.

Thank you. And I think, Ms. Fairweather, you talked about the crisis point that you're, you know, facing and the dismantling of care. You know, I think, especially when you talk about the va, you know, the criticism and critiques that we've all heard for many, many years. Right. Is delays, wait times, things like that.

We know that the VA is incredibly efficient in providing health care, that, you know, they have a 2 to 4% overhead versus insurance companies that are 16% Administration. Right. And so we know the VA is incredibly efficient in terms of making sure that the dollars that come in go to care, go to supporting veterans.

The challenge, I think, has been back to the staffing issue, right. That there hasn't been enough staff. So finally there was kind of this glimmer of hope, I think, with the PACT act going into effect, understanding and recognizing.

Because a lot of times we just throw a bunch of new people into a program and don't add any funding, which happens all the time. But this time there was actually investment in additional staff. There was investment in staffing up and making sure that we addressed those wait times.

We were able to serve the screenings for exposure and be able to do those things. So. So on the mental health side, how are you seeing this kind of impact, the work that you all are doing?

Well, for one, all of this stuff going on is exacerbating veterans anxiety. So it in itself is bad for veterans mental health. And we're seeing our friends and colleagues who we work very closely with the va.

We are a community based organization, but we are seeing them working under pressure, feeling also that they are under constant attack, and that filters through to the veterans who come to see them. And prior to this Administration, and in terms of the waiting, there were hiring freezes. And also the VA could really improve their hiring process.

It is ridiculous. That would be a good thing to fix, but freezing or reducing the number of people who can see veterans is really awful. One other thing is they partner with many of our best schools in California.

And so what is going to happen with that, with the interns from ucsf, UCLA, Irvine, Stanford, who are also providing services through their medical training and their mental health training.

That's an excellent point. My dad was treated twice at Stanford with the VA for cancer, you know, as a result of his Agent Orange exposure. So I want to thank you all. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your testimony. And we will bring up our final and very important panel on housing and homelessness.

So, Michael Blecker, Executive Director Emeritus of Swords to Plowshares, Stephen Hernandez, Regional Director of Nation's Finest, and Jennifer Seeger, Deputy Director of the Division of State Financial Assistance for the Department of Housing and Community Development. Thank you so much for being here. And Mr. Blecker, if you would like to start.

Okay. Okay. Well, thank you. So, you know, to talk about homeless, that's a lot. That's a long story. Not a happy one, but it's a long one. Goes way, way back, of course.

But if we just look at it, you know, for a lot of us who were involved, and I've been involved with swords since 76, but if you think about it, you know, a lot of it was some of the legacies of the Vietnam War, where a lot of Vietnam veterans left the service and there was very little for them.

There were no programs at all. It took them a decade and a half. After I got out back from Vietnam, before they had the Vet Center program, there was no recognition of Agent Orange. There was no recognition of post traumatic stress disorder. There was no, you know, invisible wounds, were invisible.

And so veterans really had to struggle to the point where, no surprise to us, who work with our fellow Vietnam veterans, veterans became a significant disproportionate number of the homeless veterans. Homeless veterans, they actually did some early, I remember back in like 86-87 they did some early studies of who was staying at some of these shelters.

You know, these faith based groups, the Salvation Armies, St. Vincent, Nepal, Catholic Charities, those were the groups that ran the quote shelters, as they were called. At some point, something like 40%, especially in cities, said they had served in the military. 40%. And veterans were barely 12% of the General population.

Yet 40% of those who were homeless, you know, astounding numbers. And that's why, you know, the, you know, the community based organizations, you know, we started doing some heavy lifting there and dramatization and we started the stand down movement, if you will. Vietnam Vets of San Diego started to stand down in 1989, Robert Van Kuren and others.

And we followed close. We did one in 91, 92, 93. The idea was like, do this, gather all these vets in San Francisco. We had 700 homeless vets and one high school football field that we put tents around and had showers and food and so forth. So the city could not deny there was a problem.

So that dramatized the fact that we have a homeless problem. It's not just a problem, it's a crisis. And we started working from there. And it took a while because we really had to drag the VA initially kicking and screaming into that issue.

They were not really outside their hospitals, they were not really outside out in the communities where veterans, especially homeless and low income vets were. But I think a lot of groups, community based organizations, work hard and advocated.

And to the point where back in 2010, Eric Shinseki, who was the secretary of the VA, he announced that he was going to eliminate veteran homelessness in five years. And really as a result of that campaign and our efforts and partnerships, we were able to get the VA to start doing more and start creating veteran homeless programs.

And it went from an initial, like they had a transitional program which later named Grant per diem to actually create a VASH program where they got HUD to give the VA and desit aside Section 8 vouchers just for veterans and then the VA would match that voucher with wraparound care and that became the HUD VASH program.

And after that we fought for what they called rapid rehousing which essentially was rental assistance with support. So somebody would actually we'd be able to get funds to pay rent for up to two years. And these were game changers. Some of these programs, va, HUD, Department of Labor created this HVRP program, Homeless Veterans Reintegration.

Excuse me, but it was all about recognizing that we had this crisis, not a problem, but a crisis. And they went about addressing it. And as a result today we have a 45% reduction in the number of veterans who are on our street.

And that could not have been done without the feds pulling their weight coming in there. But also with the community based organizations, with the states, with the local areas and I think we have, you know, extraordinary success there. What disturbed me was the recent VA secretary saying he hadn't seen any success in homelessness.

You know, I reject that premise. 45% reduction. And so they're talking about, well I haven't seen much success in that or suicide prevention. So that kind of sounds that we're hearing out of the Federal Government is really disturbing. And it's created a crisis among our clients. They're nervous about what's going to happen to them, their needs.

And of course today they're no longer, you know, used to be called the Young Vets Program. Well, Vietnam vets are not young and they're now seniors and they're very frail and they're a population that if you disturb their healthcare, you know, you can really cause some serious life threatening situations.

And that's what we're dealing with right now, life threatening situations as population. So that's just the 1.0 I wanted to make about homelessness. And like I said, I will say the VA has stepped in a big way. Stepped up in a big way. But as you said earlier Chairman, that we actually made some good.

How do we keep it going? Let's not get the rug pulled out from under us because you have folks who don't recognize what exactly their Department is doing. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you so much, sir. Mr. Hernandez,

Hello everybody. Thank you for having me here today. So at Nations Finance our mission is to support America's military veterans and their families with the comprehensive approach to housing, health and employment that helps them achieve achieve self sufficiency and reach their full potential.

Nation's finances serve veterans in our community since 1972 and in California we operate with approximately $25 million in federal funding. California Nation's Finest offers several grants to meet the needs of vulnerable veterans to include Supportive Services for Veteran Families SSVF which uses a Housing first model to address homelessness grants and per diem GPD health care for homeless veterans.

HCHV offer transitional housing options the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Program allows us to offer mental health crisis interventions to veterans at risk of suicide in California. We currently offer three permanent supportive housing locations, two of which participate with the VSSR program.

As we move through this, I'll go a little more in depth of each of these, but I'd like to get started by sharing some more of the higher level overview information of Nation's Finest and our service delivery models.

In 2023, Nation's Finest provided 120,000 meals to veterans in our transitional housing programs over the course of 41,238 bed nights. 56% of our clientele is 60 years of age or older, highlighting the importance of ongoing programs like VSSR.

57% of the clients we serve report at least one mental health issue and another 61% report at least one type of a disability. While we While we follow the Housing First Model and other best practices culturally, we realize that the journey of veterans we serve is not limited to their pursuit of housing.

We use a human centered approach to meet the veterans we serve where they're at. This is seen in the ways we practice our service delivery to veterans we serve.

In our approach, we have observed that the needs of this community are access to housing resources once in housing, access to mental health services and suicide prevention, and ongoing financial assistance for service providers so they can provide a safe and healthy environment where veterans experiencing trauma and uncertainty can focus on their healing and recovering journey.

As I begin to talk about the programs we offer, I would like for you all to keep in mind some of the basic considerations that the veterans we serve and their care teams consider in Sacramento. In our Sacramento office, the average SSBF participant is age 57 to 63.

They generally receive a full allotment of Social Security at $967 a month and the majority of them are Service connected at 30% or $537 a month. This gives a monthly income of roughly $1,500 a month where the average one bedroom apartment in Sacramento is 1,790.

So what this tells us is that the typical veteran accessing services through us and through our partners don't have the income to cover rent, let alone to meet the criteria of property management for income and earnings and other living expenses.

Because of this, our staff work closely with veterans accessing these programs and our partners to find ways to meet their needs. Of the best practices we've encountered, Room shares, family reunification and Community return with the appropriate social social safety net in place have been the most successful in serving the veterans that we work with.

While the VA does provide services through HUD Vash and prolonged rental subsidies with shallow subsidy and SSVF as grantees, we can't continue to rely on the funding dollars that have thus far been allocated.

While Secretary Collins and the current Administration have stated there will be no cuts to homeless programs or the homeless program offices, it remains unclear how pending staffing reductions will impact service deliveries for nonprofit Department of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development.

Additionally, Nation's Finest participates in a community case managed pilot in partnership with VA and HUD Vash. Staff at Nation's Finest and other nonprofit organizations currently assist veterans going through the vouchering process to be awarded a HUD Vash voucher.

Without these funding cuts in place, nonprofit organizations and grantees are already taking over a portion of the work that HUD Vash has traditionally fulfilled. While still maintaining our own service requirements In GPD and HCHV, we've provided over 5,000 clinical hours in California since 2023.

We provide on site clinical support to veterans accessing treatments for mental and behavioral health needs and this is done by Clinicians facilitating clinical groups and one on one appointments in addition to coordinating community partners and stakeholders to conduct in services and through dedicated case managers that are willing to work with service Members to bring them from point A to point B.

Often some of the best outcomes we see are the result of peer engagement like we see with bssr and while not grant cost allowable, we also find community outings and field trips bring much value to the experience of the veterans accessing our programs. Here too, we worry about a loss of program funding.

Without program, without funding to operate our shelters, we can't provide the services that our clients rely on as a matter of life and death. What funding loss means is the inability to provide meals, the inability to provide shelter so that veterans have a safe alternative to the streets.

Over the last several years I've developed an appreciation for an admiration of the VSSR program. California has taken wonderful steps towards ensuring the veteran aging population has a safe and secure environment in which to age. Much of the case management provided at permanent supported housing level comes from HUD Vash.

As we consider the vulnerabilities associated with funding cuts in addition to the loss of vouchers, I would urge everybody to consider what the loss of clinically trained personnel would look like from the va.

While VSSR does offer the provision of clinical services, the requirements and expectations are different that of VA social workers and how HUD VASH recipients maintain their vouchers. California Veteran Health Initiative CVHI will be a great supplement to the Staff sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Program.

Nation's Finest has served approximately 200 veterans between Sacramento and the Santa Rosa service areas over the last two years. We provide veterans with clinical interventions either directly through staff or via community referrals.

We're currently in the process of onboarding CVHI at Nation's Finest and on behalf of Nation's finest and the 18 veterans a day that complete suicide, I would like to thank California for addressing this need.

Again with the uncertainties of Federal funding on this pilot is in place does much to alleviate some of the concerns that are a result of that uncertainty.

In the beginning of my remarks I stated that there was a need for ongoing financial assistance so that providers in California can ensure a safe environment that is an alternative to the streets. Nation's Finest in the Sacramento region has the capacity to serve 106 veterans in our transitional housing beds.

In March of 2024 that number was reduced to 84 when we lost 22 of our substance use recovery beds due to flooding and water leaks in one of the buildings that we have on site. Then in December 2024 we lost another 32 beds for comparable reasons.

Nation's Finest went from 106 transitional housing beds on January 1st of 2024 to 51 by the end of the calendar year. While the VA and Prop 1 offer funding for the procurement to buildings so that these services can be provided, they don't offer the resources for ensuring capital projects can be completed.

While I recognize the upkeep of buildings operated by non public entities cannot be totally resolved with tax dollars, I also recognize that without those buildings we can't provide the care that our veterans so desperately need and that our communities rely on capital projects and ongoing maintenance needs are not allowable in our grants and when grantees have to redirect operational dollars to these expenses, it reduces the quality and quantity of the services that we're able to offer.

I would ask this body to pursue options that would increase funding for operating expenses so that facilities could be appropriately maintained and staffed. Again, with the uncertainty of this administration's distribution of unallocated funds, we need to consider how we will continue to ensure the safety and well being of California's veteran population. Thank you all for your time.

Thank you so much. Mr. Hernandez. Ms. Seeger

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Jennifer Seeger. I'm the Deputy Director of the Division of State Financial Assistance at the Housing and Community Development Department. Today I want to Discuss Some of HCD's efforts to expand housing opportunities for veterans and address veteran homelessness. Kind of focused on two programs.

The first is the Veteran Housing and Homelessness Prevention Program, commonly called VIP or VHIP or VHHP. We've got lots of names. And then secondly the Homekey plus program, but first kicking off with VHIP.

So this program was created by AB639 in 2013, which restructured the Veteran Bonds Bond act of 22,008 to allocate 600 million for multifamily housing for veterans.

The program required a minimum of 50% of the units to be funded through the program to be affordable for extremely low income households and that 60% of those units would be permanent supportive housing.

With the approval of Proposition 41 by the California voters in June of 2014, the Department of Housing and Community Development, in collaboration with CALVET and the California Housing Finance agency, released its first notice of funding availability in 2015.

To date, we've completed eight funding rounds and we've awarded funds to 98 projects creating 6,683 new units to serve veterans. 66% of those units are 2,248 units are affordable to extremely low income households. That exceeds the 50% requirement set forth in statute.

35% of the units are reserved for those experiencing chronic homelessness and 19% of the units are reserved for homeless individuals with disabilities. The current round of the multifamily supernofa, which was released in February of this year, includes the final amount of funding available under the VIP program totaling just $12 million.

It is anticipated that these funds will be awarded in August of this year. I did want to highlight Before I move on to the homekey plus program, I wanted to highlight two critical changes applicable to the implementation of the VIP program that will help with its ongoing implementation and also the fiscal health of the projects overall.

AB 1386 was enacted to resolve issues with matching unhoused veterans with vacant supportive housing units restricted to veterans.

So this allows a sponsor to petition to temporarily redesignate units that were originally restricted for 30% AMI to veterans with incomes up to 60% AMI to quickly fill up any vacant units that we have sitting that are restricted to the 30%.

It requires sponsors to demonstrate really good faith efforts to house extremely low income veterans before we approve any type of redesignation on the Federal side, HUD also has taken action related to the exclusion of disability benefits. So now that all HCD funded programs exclude military service connected disability payments from income calculations for HUD VASH participants.

Moving on to the Homekey plus program Homekey plus was funded through Proposition 1, passed just recently in March of 2024 and authorized 6.38 billion in funding to develop and expand behavioral health treatment, residential care setting and supportive housing.

HCD in collaboration with Cal Vet is responsible for administering approximately 2 billion of that funding through the Homekey plus program. The Homekey plus program focuses primarily on the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing buildings for the conversion to permanent supportive housing.

Approximately 1 billion or 50% of the funds available under the Home Key plus program are dedicated to provide permanent supportive housing units for veterans that includes homeless, chronically homeless or veterans at risk of homelessness that are living with a behavioral health challenge.

All applicants need to demonstrate coordination or efforts to work with their county behavioral health departments and veteran serving projects will need to have the cultural competency and experienced serving veterans or commit to completing a certification or training to gain those competencies. We just recently released the Homekey Plus Nofa in November of 2024.

It's an over the counter application process which is now open and ongoing. Applications received to date total nine applications and I'm happy to report that 34% of the units proposed in those nine applications are targeted specifically to veterans and we anticipate awards later this summer. Happy to answer any questions or dig any deeper.

Thank you so much Committee Members, anything?

Thank you so much for being here. I want to kind of give you a little hope here I think of really what our priorities are not just in this Committee that we have but housing committees and forth and one of the big things and sadly with the fires happening it finally brought attention of how we have to streamline housing because we know that that's one of the biggest things that just, you know, it can go on and on and on, lawsuits, sequel and so forth.

So we're going to be making sure not only with the fire but this is something that we'll be having bills coming forth to go across California. So I think that's one of the biggest things because we know the longer this takes the more expensive the housing becomes and then you're almost backwards by the time you get that.

Also one of the things that we're working on and I came up here in 2020 and again veterans Military has been very dear to me. I live in Orange County. We've had adopted Units.

And I have a good portion of veterans living in Oceanside Camp, Oceanside Vista, all around that area is we're the only state that still taxes our veterans pension and retirement. And honestly, to me that's the most shameful thing there could be when every other state doesn't do that.

And we know that our veterans are leaving here right and left because not that they want to leave, they love this state. You know what they fought to be able to be where they're at. So we're not giving up on that. There are some, there are some options there. I'd like to see it completely go.

And so do know that we're fighting for you on that, that that is a priority. And again with the housing also when you were here, gentlemen, back there, when we were talking about housing, it isn't just putting somebody in a house.

We have to have resources and making sure that if we're going to be putting people into housing that the resources are nearby. When you look at drug rehabilitation type navigation centers, it comes to them. You're in a community where you can just go from here to here to here.

And that's very important to make sure that it's there, it's available to them. So we're hearing you, we're watching. Another thing too is reevaluating where the money is going. Isn't it going to the right places?

When we look at the homelessness that we did the audit, four years of homeless, $25 billion of our taxes and there was no accountability for it. No one asked to see any results. We don't know where the money was going. And so now, I mean, I'm grateful that we're going to be doing that.

But this is money that I do know goes here because I watch all of the nonprofits that we have here and it does get used and it gets used properly. And so that's something that it's really important now. It's like accountability.

We want to see results where our tax dollars are going and make sure that they go to the right place and not going into someone's hands. So do know that we are fighting for you and there's a lot of good things happening up here with the committees and you are a priority. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate the words of the co chair, words of encouragement there. I mean there are, you know, to that point, a lot of wonderful things that are moving this year that have moved recently.

I was happy to carry the Bill that excluded disability income and housing to make sure that it opened housing Access up for even more veterans and carry that Bill last year. And so, you know, we've been really, I think, working on expanding and improving the supports that we're providing to veterans. And as you mentioned, Mr.

Blecker, about, you know, 45% reduction in homelessness is something to be incredibly proud of. And like I said earlier, not a time that we want to take our foot off the gas, but ensure that we are continuing to do that work that's led to that kind of success.

And you know, and really a leader nationally in that work and you know, and needing the VA to continue or the federal, you know, federal agencies to continue to be a partner in that because we know it is a team effort. Even though California has recognized that we have a responsibility to veterans too.

We're not going to just expect the Federal Government to do all of the heavy lifting. Certainly it's an important role that they play and we cannot do it on our own. We need them to continue to step up as partners in this work.

So I, it was especially not lost on me when you mentioned that removing care is life threatening. I know at the end of my dad's life he really needed all of those appointments he was going to. It was critical to making sure that his lungs didn't fill up with water or fluid. And so to miss those appointments is absolutely 100% life threatening.

That's why I think that VSSR program is important, because it recognizes that you can't just do wellness checks. You have folks who are seniors who really are struggling to break out of their isolation. They have no sense of community.

If you're homeless, it basically means you don't have much family, you don't have any caregivers, in other words, really. And so it's really important to us to have folks who will like drive folks to their appointment, help them with grocery, pay attention, connect them with their community. And that's like life saving, really.

Yeah, absolutely. And as we heard, you know, from the earlier panel, which was not on housing and homelessness, but you know, from Us vets serving and providing housing to thousands of veterans that could disappear if these cuts go forward. So want to thank you so much.

I know we're a little bit over time, so we do really want to get to public comment as well. But thank you so much for your updates and information and the work that you are all doing.

And, and absolutely, as my Vice Chair mentioned, we're, you know, we want to be here as a resource and a partner to support the work that you're doing and to make sure that we are continuing to move forward and not backwards in the state here in California. So thank you.

So we now. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I was just saying. Oh, yeah. Thank you. I want to open it up now for public comment, folks. There's a microphone in the corner of the room. Please come on up. And if you can state your name and organization, and if you can keep it to two minutes, we appreciate it. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I'm Mari Lopez, legislative advocate for the California Nurses Association. Thank you, Chair Schiavo and the Committee for holding this important meeting today. CNA proudly represents thousands of VA medical center nurses throughout the country.

The recent proposed cuts to VA staff will impede the VA from providing the health care benefits that our veterans need and deserve. After the Trump administration's initial Executive orders, VA hospital facilities lost housekeepers, dietary staff, supply chain staff, technicians, and transportation staff, all of which play a critical role in providing quality care to our veterans.

Nurses are stepping in for pharmacists, transportation staff, and other VA workers that have been cut. But that means nurses are taken away from patients, and this puts patients in jeopardy. At the San Diego va, nurses are being pulled from different departments to float on new hospital units to fill the gaps without proper training and education.

But it's not right for staff to do this. Nurses are feeling fear and anxiety coming into work, and they don't know who's next on the chopping block. But what we do know is that cuts will impact veteran patients.

They will experience longer wait times, and they will likely see reduced access to the specialized veteran care that VA facilities provide. Less staff and more patients means there will be an increase in patient mortality. And this means more veterans will die because of these cuts to the va.

Nurses will not stand by and watch Veterans Healthcare be dismantled. We owe it to our veterans to care for them when they are come out of service. And we must stand together with veterans, VA nurses and other staff to oppose the proposed cuts to the VA workforce. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next Speaker.

Well, thank you. My name is Michael Harris. My day job is Director of California Black Farmers Working Group. And I was, I'll say solidly middle class. My father was an intern with Lieutenant Governor Reinecke. So this was like my playground, the state capitol, for like 50 years.

And then one day I got hit by a car, almost died. And I got, you know, I was halfway healed. I got hit again. So I just recently got on a bike. But Stephen will tell you I was probably one of the difficult cases at nation's finest. I tell the story.

They saved my life because my grandfather, my great grandfather's a veteran. My grandfather's a veteran. I got two daddies, both of them were veterans. And I got the long straw. I said, I'll go. My two brothers aren't veterans. But I never thought I would need the services. But I found myself like, kind of like that picture.

I was looking at that picture. I said, that was me one day because I was like literally in a pup tent on the side of the road, like homeless. And it wasn't nice. But Nation's finance helped me out. I got back on the street. I'm HUD Vash.

I'm thinking that I was like, I'm like two years from graduating from that program as well. Never been. I mean, you know, maybe when I was a child on welfare. I know it, but you know, it's like our organization is the working group. We don't like not work. That's what we do.

That's what you do when you become a man. You grow up and you work. When I was a kid, I threw the paper. So working is not a problem. But you know, when your brain is not working right and your body is like leg, you got to move. You got to get up and move.

So we don't need to be cutting programs, but with money being cut, programs are going to have to be cut. That's just reality. But the people that served our nation, you're going to cut them when they need you. And they saved it. So, you know, part of what we do, things hit capitol all the time.

And you know, California is not. We don't celebrate the title 5 Holidays of Juneteenth here. It's a quasi optional holiday like the Civil War and slavery is optional. But right now we got a bigger issue about veterans today. That serve dying. You know, we'll get to the history 160 years.

We can wait two more years, but we need to take care of veterans today. Tonight. We don't need to be cutting services for Nobody.

Thank you, sir.

Hello, my name is Nick Bussey. And thank you Members of the Committee for doing this. It's very imperative that we have our legislators and leaders that are going to collectively engage our veteran community, but also represent us. I've actually come here for some good news. I too served in the military 13 years.

My last seven years after field artillery, I put people in boots. But what I do know very well is putting boots in suits. So following my military career, I transitioned into being the head of military engagement and talent programs for my company today, but also found myself still serving in a different aspect, different capacity, sit on the board of the Veterans or the Placer County Veterans Monument.

I'm CEO of a veterans nonprofit here locally, but I come here today as a steering Committee Member for bosh. We hear a lot of things about connecting resources, trying to get veterans to those resources and employment and boosting the workforce.

And the question I think of all the time is how do we capture and consolidate all these resources for somebody to be right at their fingertips? So In December of 2024 to December 13, Bosh became a recipient of the Chips and Science act, also known as just the Chips Act.

And luckily, one of the things that they had to do in part of that CHIPS act is create a veterans workforce collaborative for those who don't know. Right now we have four steering Committee Members and about 24 Subcommitee Members and four different priority committees working on that initiative right now to capture and consolidate these resources.

This is great because it's going to increase our economy. This is going to create jobs for our service Members and their families and eventually make its way into connecting them to education nonprofit 501Cs. And so we could try and close that gap.

And it's also very important, because you said it best, Madam Chair, that veterans need to come together collectively in trying to solve these problems. And that's exactly what we are doing.

So I actually come here to not only inform you that this is happening right now, but I want to cordially invite you guys to our next meeting for Bosh and all of the steering Committee and Subcommitee Members, so hopefully we can garnish your support, but also so you can see what is going on and maybe see how we can collectively make this happen together as we are looking to bring as many large organizations in the greater Sacramento area to be in this one stop shop platform to help our service Members and family Members.

And maybe because it's the first of its kind for Bosch, which is a, I believe, a global Fortune 500, we hope this becomes a model nationally. So thank you for your time and I hope to see you guys soon and work with us. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other public comment? Okay. Well, you know, I really want to thank the panelists who are here today. It's really clear from the testimony that we heard that careless cuts by the Federal Government are already creating chaos and uncertainty for veterans and their families across the country and in California.

And what's worse is that plans for additional cuts will cause veterans support programs to close delays and benefits and ultimately make it harder for veterans in America.

You know, California has made so much progress, as we've talked about today, to support our veterans with access to health care and mental health support, housing and reducing veteran homelessness by 45%. We really cannot allow these reckless actions to be done by our Federal Government to stand.

And we have to make sure that what we've already seen from the federal Administration back to the budget that could force billions in cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, on top of the 2,400 VA employees who've already been fired, and the planned reduction to 83,000 VA employees to be cut, these are cuts that are devastating to veterans who often rely on these programs truly to survive.

So, you know, we heard testimony today that talked about, you know, rents that could not be paid if these federal funding is cut. We heard about, you know, agencies that literally question their whole existence and being able to continue to serve the veterans who need them in the community.

We, you know, heard how important it is for us to make sure that our voices are heard, that we push back on these cuts. You know, part of why we wanted to have this conversation today, to make sure that it's clear the impact that could be made and really how the people will be impacted, right?

Veterans, everyday, veterans who are trying to survive, trying to be healthy. You know, one of the folks in the audience today stated at a previous press conference we were at together about how 90% of veterans are actually doing great.

And part of that is because a large part of that is because we have these programs because we have been successful in so many areas to support veterans in getting jobs and getting healthy and accessing mental health and housing, in supporting their families in addition to the veterans themselves and providing, you know, in California, we wave tuition for veterans and family Members.

That's one of the reasons I was able to get a college education is because of that. We really have made sure to make these investments over the years and we cannot see this disappear, this progress disappear to all of those who are here in the room or watching or listening, who have bravely protected and served our country.

And to those who love them. We're here to say so we have your back. In the next few months, we will be hearing bills in this Committee to provide tax relief, to make housing more affordable, to expand education and job opportunities even more, and extend services.

And in contrast to how veterans are being disrespected and Disregarded by Washington, D.C. California is here to say that we. Are open for business, that we are working to protect veterans. And instead of going backwards, California is building upon our progress.

You have my commitment that I will fight to fulfill the promises that we have made to those who have served our country. And with that, this concludes the hearing of the Assembly Military and Veteran Affairs. Thank you so much, everyone.