Investigation Complete: VA OKS VOA

I am disappointed, but not surprised, that the Veterans Health Administration has reported back that the Volunteers of America Sheridan Community Homeless Shelter is considered “in compliance” with the VA Per Diem Grant Program.
On May 30, I received a letter from U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, in which he forwarded to me a copy of the report he received from the VA.
The gist of the report is that the shelter is fine, and that I am more than likely unstable. They discovered that I am not a veteran, which, apparently makes me much easier to dismiss.
Of course, there is no department of quality of care to go to in the system, otherwise many of the abused veterans in the Sheridan shelter would have contacted these. If there is such a place, it is a well-guarded secret.
If you will recall, I made the following list of issues of non-compliance to the VA:

1. The “reasonable assurance” that not more than 25 percent of participants at any one time will be non-veterans was not attempted in the calendar year of 2007. The per diem “assurances” were consciously ignored.
2. There is certainly nothing being done to establish transitional housing outside of the walls of the shelter. If the per diem grant assumes progress in the area of transitional living, no such progress exists.
3. There is no follow-up on the part of the shelter with veterans who have acquired permanent housing. Once they leave the threshold of the shelter, they are left out of contact, unless they have to return to the shelter because their living situation failed somehow.
4. Programming and goals for are dictated to the veteran by the shelter director. Most of these vulnerable individuals simply accept their fate at the shelter, because they need a place to live. Also, veterans are routinely kicked out of the shelter and placed on a “not-welcome-back” list, which certainly stops the flow of care, while the grant monies continue.

The report to Enzi did not address any of these issues.
My letter to the VA included this question: “I am writing you to find out whether the items above, which I consider improprieties with regard to conditions expected from the per diem grant award, are in fact improprieties. If so, how will your office address these? If not, please assist me where I am misunderstanding this.”
Obviously, the “reasonable assurances” included in the grant program are not “serious reasonable assurances,” as the VA disregarded the fairly substantial items 1-4 above, and spent more time figuring out ways to discredit me as the person asking the questions, to whit: “Mr. Cummings was not a veteran and had acted repeatedly in a hostile manner toward VOA and VA staff involved in the project. As a result Mr. Cummings was asked not to return.” The VOA is ticked that I won’t be quiet, so they are adding a dash of vilification. I expected as much.
True, it may be too optimistic to expect the VA to take upon itself a quality control issue in a tiny shelter that has a contract for 16 veteran beds. Fortunately, this is only one of the many trees I intend to bark up.