The Department of Veterans Affairs announced on September 14 that it is distributing a record $1.17 billion in grants to 680 organizations nationwide to combat veteran homelessness, marking the largest such award in the program’s history.

Mission Roll Call is glad to see this level of investment in veteran housing stability. Record funding paired with VA’s strongest placement numbers in seven years is real, measurable progress for the veterans who need it most, and we will continue to track how these grants play out in communities across the country.

The funding will roll out in two main tranches beginning October 1, 2026, the start of fiscal year 2027.

The bulk of the money, $855 million, will flow through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. These are one-year grants aimed at case management and supportive services designed to prevent veterans from losing their homes, help them find suitable new housing, and rapidly re-house those who are already homeless or at imminent risk.
Another $318 million will go out through the Grant and Per Diem (GPD) program, funded as three-year grants. That money will support transitional housing and service centers, “transition-in-place” arrangements that let veterans stay in their current housing while working toward permanent stability, and specialized housing for women veterans and those who are chronically mentally ill, frail, elderly, terminally ill, or caring for minor dependents.

Figure 1: Breakdown of FY2027 grant funding by program.

VA Secretary Doug Collins tied the announcement to the administration’s broader record on veteran homelessness, saying the grants reflect VA’s commitment to “expanding critical services that prevent Veteran homelessness” and connecting veterans to permanent housing and long-term stability.

The grants follow a strong year on this front for the VA: the agency housed 51,936 homeless veterans in fiscal year 2025, the highest total in seven years. That figure caps a steady rebound since a pandemic-era low in fiscal year 2021, when the number of veterans housed fell to 38,401.

Figure 1: Breakdown of FY2027 grant funding by program.

VA also used the announcement to highlight other recent initiatives, including enrolling more than 250,000 new veterans in VA healthcare in 2026, opening 41 new VA healthcare facilities since January 2025, cutting the disability benefits backlog by more than 70%, and launching a Partial Claims Program that has helped roughly 173,000 veterans avoid foreclosure in FY 2025.

A full list of the 680 grant recipients is available on VA’s website.