Derrick Van Orden

So, if we can get a younger person, 18 years old, send him to school, or her to school, get a CDL, and they are walking out with zero college debt earning $60,000 a year, that is a hell of a good deal.

I am concerned, looking at your testimony, that you may be trying to skip a generation like the rest of the Biden administration is doing in an impractical manner.

I came here to get tasked by you and I am going to get down and I am going to sit down, as I said, with Ranking Member Levin here and come up with some solutions.

I want to thank all the dedicated organizations, the practitioners, and the experts who are here with us today.

I will tell you what, I have learned several different things that were disconcerting during your testimony and, again, a lot of these problems keep me up at night.

This approach will require the input, expertise, and hard work of every person in this room.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about how they believe what works, what needs to be improved.

I want to find the answer to that question because, again, we have to start doing upstream solutions.

I guarantee if we keep these people and our veterans on the forefront of our minds that we are going to come to an equitable solution.

Listen, no veteran should be going unhoused. We just--we just should not, and some of my veteran brothers and sisters, unfortunately, you know, wind up in that situation.

There is not a single cure-all to veteran homelessness just as there is not a single cause of veteran homelessness.

I look forward to working closely with Ranking Member Takano to address this real obstacle to ending veteran homelessness.

I am working with Ranking Member Takano on a policy roadmap that will outline key areas where Congress can remove barriers at both VA and HUD to ensure a veteran's path to a home is smooth and quick.

The rate of veteran homelessness in San Diego County has dropped by nearly 30 percent over the last 4 years.

As difficult of a time as we faced during COVID-19 we learned quite a bit about what is going to--what it is going to take to end veteran homelessness and the three key elements of that solution, urgency, resources and flexibility.

I hope that you know our commitment to doing that on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Okay. Yes, that is unacceptable. We are going to work on that.

Thank you all again for participating in today's hearing.

Permanent housing is an essential component to a stable life.

I found the Department of Defense to be obstructionist when it comes to allowing us to access our Transition Assistance Program.

I had a terrible experience with the Transition Assistance Program. I thought it was nearly meaningless.

Thank you, Representative Kim.

I now recognize Representative Kim for 5 minutes.

That is unacceptable. We are going to work on that.

I want to try to deconstruct that problem so we can prevent getting here.