Colorado is receiving some financial help to get homeless veterans off the streets. Housing Authorities across the state were awarded a combined $1,747,469 from U-S Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
According to the latest figures from U-S Housing and Urban Development, Colorado has more than 13-hundred homeless Veterans in 2010.
That $1.7 million is equal to about 270 vouchers good toward rent payment. Willa Williford is the Director of the Boulder County Housing Authority. She says under the system veterans pay 30 percent of their income toward rent and the vouchers pick up the rest of the tab.
“Through housing we support their lease up in the private market so any landlord that is willing to work with someone with this type of voucher they could rent to,” she said.
The 270 vouchers among nine agencies statewide. Willa Williford with the Boulder County Housing Authority says her chapter received 25 vouchers or $229,620.
“About 10 percent of Boulder County’s homeless are veterans, but when you think at chronic homeless and users of the shelters that number is often more 20-30 percent. So this does just scratch at the service as what we see as the need," she said.
The Colorado Division of Housing along with local authorities in Grand Junction and Pueblo received the most vouchers at 40 each.
