Gov. Tony Evers and Veterans Affairs Sec. James Bond spoke an event for veterans in the state Capitol on April 22, 2025. (Photo via Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs Facebook page)

Two Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs programs that provide support to struggling veterans, including those experiencing homelessness, are on track to close locations and shrink in size due to a lack of funding in the new state budget.

The state budget was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in early July following months of negotiations. While Evers and lawmakers hailed the agreement as a bipartisan accomplishment, they are now blaming each other for the anticipated closure of two facilities, one in Chippewa Falls and one in Green Bay, that serve veterans struggling with homelessness this year due to insufficient funding available. Another program that provides support for veterans dealing with mental health and substance use issues will also face cuts due to the budget.

The Veterans Housing and Recovery Program (VHRP), which currently has three physical sites, serves veterans who are on the verge of or experiencing homelessness, including those who have experienced incarceration, unemployment or underemployment, physical and mental health problems. The program lasts a maximum of 24 months, but the average length of stay is six to 10 months.

The VHRP locations in Chippewa Falls, which has 48 beds, and Green Bay, which has 17, will close by September 30 of this year. The Union Grove location, which has a capacity of 40 beds, will remain open.

“We make a promise to our veterans that when they return home to their civilian life, we will support and serve them just as they have supported and served us. Our veterans should not have to worry about being able to afford to keep a roof over their heads. Period,” Evers said in a statement Monday. 

Randy Nelson, 63, has resided at Klein Hall in Chippewa Falls for about three months. He told the Wisconsin Examiner in a phone interview that it has been the “perfect place for me to come and figure some things out,” especially since his daughter lives nearby. Before he moved in, he had been experiencing homelessness and navigating substance use issues.

Nelson served in the military for three years starting in 1979 and spent much of his time working on aircraft repairs. He said he has been lucky to receive some of the veterans’ services that he has. 

Nelson said the VHRP program has given him an array of resources, including access to recovery and anger management programming, and it has also been a safe place for him to look for housing. 

“I just lucked out in getting a housing voucher this quick, otherwise I’d have no place to go,” Nelson said.

Nelson said he is confident in his sobriety now and “more hopeful about my remaining years,” but is “truly worried” about his fellow veterans, given the recent news. He said some residents are considering leaving the state to try to find a new place with similar services, even though they want to remain in the area. 

“They’re scared of getting kicked out and being homeless,” Nelson said. He said residents are still considered homeless to some degree, since they lack a permanent address, but the closure could mean some would “actually be out on the streets again.”

“There’s people that are working and saving up money here, and they don’t know what to do because they’re not making enough money to get into a place yet,” Nelson said.

The Legislature, Nelson said, is “taking away valuable resources for veterans” with the cuts to the program. 

The program was created by Wisconsin lawmakers in the 1993-95 state budget and was initially supported from Wisconsin’s veterans trust fund. It was expanded in the following years and is currently funded from a combination of trust fund payments, payments made by program participants and per diem payments, which are made to the agency by the federal government at a current rate of about $71 per resident per day. Participants can be charged up to 30% of their monthly income in rent when using transitional housing. 

Growing staffing and maintenance costs at the facilities led to Evers and the agency requesting nearly $2 million in additional state funding during the budget process, but it wasn’t included in the final bill. 

“The bottom line is that there will now be fewer options for homeless veterans as a result of the Legislature’s irresponsible decision to reject the investments,” Evers said, adding that he would be urging the Legislature to provide additional support for veterans in the fall.

Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick), Jamie Wall (D-Green Bay) and Reps. Jodi Emerson, Ryan Spaude, Christian Phelps, Christine Sinicki, Brienne Brown, Amaad Rivera-Wagner, Maureen McCarville and Angelito Tenori, quickly introduced legislation Wednesday that would provide the necessary funding.

“Republicans withheld critical funds for over a year while our region struggled with hospital closures. Now homeless veterans are the victims of the Republicans’ callous inaction,” Smith said in a statement. “These men and women served our country. We have a moral obligation to ensure they have a roof over their heads.”

Emerson called the closures “extremely alarming” in a statement, noting that the facilities  are scheduled to close just as the weather in Wisconsin turns cold.   

The co-chairs of the Joint Finance Committee Rep. Mark Born and Sen. Howard Marklein pushed back on Evers in a statement, saying his comments were “simply disingenuous.”

“The Legislature made significant investments to support veterans in our state including in this program,” the lawmakers said, noting the budget included $5 million to support Wisconsin veterans homes, $2.5 million to support the Veterans Community Project which provides housing and support services for veterans and a slight increase in the Veterans Housing and Recovery Program.

“Legislative leaders negotiated for weeks with Governor Evers and he did not bring this topic up once,” Born and Marklein said. “Evers is looking for a scapegoat to blame for his administration’s failure to adequately manage the changes to the program volume and demands.”

WDVA Assistant Deputy Secretary Joey Hoey told the Wisconsin Examiner, however, that it is “disingenuous” to blame Evers when lawmakers made the decision to exclude the funding from the budget.

“They can try and paint it however they want,” Hoey said. “If they wanted to fund it, they could have put it in the budget.”

The agency worked with lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee during the budget cycle, agreeing to eliminate over 200 positions that were unfilled. Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) thanked the head of the agency for working with them during the committee’s June 12 meeting. 

Hoey said the agency had hoped the budget would reflect that collaboration and would include funding for the Veterans Housing and Recovery program (VHRP) or the Veterans Outreach and Recovery program (VORP). Ultimately, it did not.

The VHRP program’s base funding was about $2.1 million, including $1.3 million in federal funding, $677,500 from the veterans trust fund and $115,500 from rent payments.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) laid out the stakes for the program in a memo to lawmakers as they were writing the state budget. 

“Without additional funding, the Department would not have sufficient resources to maintain the program’s three sites,” the memo stated. 

One of the funding issues outlined by LFB was the rising cost of staffing. According to the memo, about two-thirds of VHRP costs went towards Lutheran Social Services, the organization providing management and supportive services at each location. Lutheran Social Services has incurred higher staffing costs in recent years. Evers dedicated $500,000 in ARPA funds to those increased costs in 2023-24, but that funding has run out.

The facilities were also proving a problem, Hoey said. Evers had requested $24 million in his capital budget to build new facilities in Green Bay and Chippewa Falls, but lawmakers declined to fund them.

“The physical upkeep was also above what we had calculated or budgeted,” Hoey said, noting that the Chippewa Falls building had roof leaks and the HVAC system was old. “We were paying people to repair it and Band-Aid it. In Green Bay, we had problems, and every time you have a problem and you can’t have a resident in a room… you’re not getting that $73 per day from the federal government. It’s a double whammy, and that’s why we thought new facilities would fix that for Green Bay and Chippewa Falls.” 

Evers had proposed providing $1.95 million across the biennium for the program.

Lawmakers provided an adjustment to the program of $100,000, which they are touting as a 15% increase. Hoey said in an email, however, that the funding is an adjustment that reflects what the agency has already been spending and still falls “well short” of the funding the LFB identified as necessary to keep the sites open.

Hoey also noted another program administered by the WDVA will face cuts under the new state budget.

The Veterans Outreach and Recovery Program (VORP), which serves veterans dealing with mental health and substance use issues and aims to reduce the suicide rate among veterans, is set to lose seven employees. Evers had asked for seven positions and more than $1.1 million to help support the program. 

The program launched in 2015 with the help of a federal mental health grant, and has since become state funded. ARPA funds were used in 2023 to expand the reach of the program, but with those funds running out the agency sought state funds to continue its current size. The positions expire in October 2025.

“We had expanded to 16 regions where there was somebody who was living in that part of the state, and now we’re having to go back to 11 regions,” Hoey said. “They wouldn’t fund that.”

Those positions had helped the agency reach more veterans, provide support in a more timely manner and give veterans more time, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The program provided services to 2,222 people in 2023-24 — nearly 70% more contacts than in 2021-22 when the program served 1,329 people. 

“It was really very disappointing, because these are two programs that have incredible track records of really helping veterans who need it,” Hoey said. “It was really disappointing being in Joint Finance when that vote came up. My heart was breaking, sitting there thinking ‘Oh, my God, all these people who won’t get served.’” 

Hoey shared an anecdote of a former program participant who recently returned to the Chippewa Falls site to give people an update on where he was, to illustrate the effectiveness of the programs. The VHRP, Hoey explained, is a monthslong process to help struggling veterans get to “the point where they can return to society in a stable, functioning way.” 

“He came in and wanted to tell everyone that, you know, five years ago, he was homeless, and now he’s married with a kid, and he had just bought his first house and was so proud because he had paid his first property tax bill,” Hoey said. “That’s the kind of result these programs have… Between the two programs you’re looking for $4 million and we couldn’t find that.” 

Wisconsin DVA Secretary James Bond said in a statement that the agency remains committed to assisting veterans. 

“We have a duty to support veterans, especially in their darkest times,” Bond said. “VHRP has been integral in helping veterans find stability and succeed in their communities, and along with our partners on the ground, we intend to still carry out that mission to the best of our ability.”

Veterans who are currently residing at the two facilities will be offered alternative placement options and will continue to receive assistance through supportive services.

Hoey said even as the Department of Veterans Affairs continues its work, the cuts and closures will likely mean fewer veterans will be served and it could be more difficult to reach veterans across the state. He said wait times could also become more of an obstacle for veterans seeking services. 

“Most of these veterans, they want to go to a program that’s somewhat near their community so they can count on whatever support systems they have, so… it’s unlikely we’ll be able to serve as many veterans in the majority of the state, since the home that’s existing is near Milwaukee.” 

Hoey said the agency decided to retain the Union Grove site, located just south of Milwaukee, because upgrades and repairs that were funded with state and federal funds were recently completed.

“The VORP team, instead of referring someone to Chippewa Falls, now they have to refer them to a program in Minneapolis, so we’re going to still try and get people the help they need,” Hoey said. “It’s just going to be harder.”

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