Technology Improves Veterans’ Access to Safe, Affordable Housing

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) permanently housed more than 40,000 homeless Veterans in 2022, providing them with the safe, stable homes that they deserve. A technology tool that is helping VA officials and partners on the front lines is VA‘s Status Query and Response Exchange System (SQUARES).

Case in point. In late 2021, in Wilmington, Del., an unhoused man had set up a tent in the parking lot of a local shopping district, leading passersby to call municipal law enforcement officers. When police officers — members of a specialty unit, the Veterans Response Team—arrived, they saw that the man’s tent carried colors and markings resembling Army fatigues. The Wilmington police officers’ unit collaborates with the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Justice Program, which trains officers to question homeless individuals and learn if they have service histories.

After the officers connected the Veteran to the local VA medical center (VAMC) via their mobile phone, staff members at the VAMC learned that the Veteran was not registered in the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS).

“He had no documentation on him,” said Cecilia Gonzalez, Homeless Programs Supervisor at Wilmington VAMC, who spoke to the Veteran via the police officer’s mobile.

Unfortunately, this Veteran was not alone in his challenges. For millions of Veterans Nationwide, finding and keeping affordable, secure housing can be an uphill battle. The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic compounded the existing historic challenges unique to the Veteran population, including mental health or physical disabilities resulting from active service, unemployment, and substance abuse disorders.

To quickly adapt to evolving circumstances that imperil Veteran safety, VA’s Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Homeless Program Office turned to VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) for help finding solutions. One of these solutions was to quickly update the innovative IT product Status Query and Response Exchange System (SQUARES) that had initially debuted in 2015.

Agile Innovation is Transforming Veterans’ Lives

SQUARES is a web application that provides VA employees and external homeless service organizations with reliable, detailed information on eligible Veterans. VHA and OIT launched an updated version of SQUARES on Salesforce’s FedRAMP-authorized Government Cloud Platform. This search engine-style database enabled service providers to access VHA eligibility data, demographic information, and the Veteran’s profile. Better security measures for data encryption and sharing were also implemented.

Within months, the collaborative effort dramatically improved outcomes for Veterans struggling to qualify for housing, health care, and other essential services, exemplifying OIT’s agile mindset — and its commitment to delivering best-in-class digital and IT products that are positively transforming the Veteran experience.

In short order, thanks to the additional detailed information the Veteran in Wilmington  provided to the responding law enforcement officers, Ms. Gonzalez swiftly determined via the SQUARES interface that the Veteran was indeed eligible for critical services, including housing assistance programs.

“I read to him what SQUARES was reporting as far as his service,” and worked with the police officer on scene to upload a screenshot of the SQUARES findings, Ms. Gonzalez said. 

The law enforcement officers on-site with the Veteran later shared a promising observation with Ms. Gonzalez: In real-time, as the Veteran learned his accurate eligibility status, his entire demeanor changed, said Ms. Gonzalez.

“I explained [to him] the accurate VA health care eligibility criteria and how he was not alone regarding having misinformation about eligibility. He was completely shocked. He said he wished he would have known years ago, as it would have saved him a lot of hardship,” she said.

The earlier investments made by OIT to develop SQUARES, followed by timely, responsive updates executed during the COVID-19 pandemic in collaboration with VHA’s Homeless Program Office specialists, produced bold, timely solutions for the Veteran in Wilmington.

Thanks to the agility, dedication, and strategic thinking of OIT leaders and workers, the Veteran received immediate, impactful assistance. It is one of many vivid examples of how VA is distinguishing itself among Federal public sector agencies by constantly delivering state-of-the-art services to Veterans and families Nationwide.

“It’s great to have such an easy to use and accessible tool that can clarify the direction of care not only for providers, but for Veterans themselves,” said Ms. Gonzalez.

Vision-driven Execution

Here’s how SQUARES works:

As an online platform available to VHA and VA’s Homeless Programs Office staff and VA-approved providers Nationwide, SQUARES leverages cloud technology that empowers users to quickly determine Veterans’ eligibility and connect them to housing and other critical health-related programs and resources.

Most importantly, SQUARES accelerates the process of assisting Veterans in obtaining housing and other vital services when they most need them.

By contrast, prior to SQUARES’ initial debut in 2015, Veterans seeking emergency housing or counseling endured a cumbersome process involving lots of paperwork and lengthy processing times while VHA administrative personnel conducted eligibility reviews and records searches, followed by regional searches for appropriate providers and housing resources.

Today, fresh technological and database updates provide VA staff in VHA’s Homeless Programs Office and its outreach units seamless access to Veterans’ service records, along with other necessary data points to determine eligibility for housing and other resources such as counseling.

And now, in cities and towns Nationwide, the SQUARES capability is vastly improving housing access for Veterans. By late 2021, the Homeless Program Office and VHA personnel could access more than 2,200 service providers Nationwide via the SQUARES dashboard.

In practice, the increased speed in Veteran eligibility determination and improved visibility of resources provided by SQUARES is dramatically transforming Veterans’ lives.

“We often come across Veterans who, due to homelessness, have misplaced their discharge paperwork, which most of the Veteran-specific programs require for verification purposes,” said Leslie Luo, Veterans Outreach Supervisor of Transition Projects in Portland, Oregon.

With SQUARES, VHA personnel such as Mr. Luo can quickly aid Veterans in locating necessary documentation and move to the next steps — identifying approved vendors and securing VA benefits and resources for housing or other urgent services.

The agile mindset driving OIT’s digital and IT transformation efforts aligns with industry practices and distinguishes VA as a leader among its Federal sector agency counterparts. Significantly, as applied to addressing the urgent needs of unhoused Veterans, the rapid technical updates made to SQUARES are creating positive impacts on Veterans’ lives.