On the recordApril 29, 2015
Before I begin, let me express my appreciation and thanks to my good friends, Chairman Dent and Ranking Member Bishop, for their hard and constructive work in shepherding this legislation to the floor. Chairman Dent and I worked together constructively for many years on the Homeland Security Committee and has always distinguished himself as one of the most bipartisan members of the House. And Ranking Member Bishop has for years been one of the ablest Members of this body; I thank them both for commitment to the important work of ensuring that our veterans receive the care and support they have earned from a grateful nation. The Jackson Lee Amendment makes a modest but important improvement to the bill by increasing the amount of funding for the ``Supportive Services for Veterans' Families'' account by $2 million, offset by a reduction of the same amount to the $4 billion allocated to the VA's ``Information Technology Systems'' account. Today, in our country, there are approximately 107,000 veterans (male and female) who are homeless on any given night. And perhaps twice as many (200,000) experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. The VA's ``Supportive Services for Veterans' Families'' Program helps veterans, and their families, who may have fallen on hard times or hit a rough patch in life and need a little help from the country they selflessly risked their life to defend.…
