ARE YOU A HOUSING HERO?

We owe our veterans more than a parade and our gratitude. This Veterans Day, I’m writing again to give you an update on the progress of our Housing Heroes project – and to ask for your help in giving some veterans much more than a “thank you.” I need your help to give homeless veterans a home.

We’ve got great news: Since May 1, our Housing Heroes program has found homes for 82 homeless veterans. That’s 82 success stories — with more moving in every week and dozens more leases about to close.

Unfortunately, we are still short of our goal to find homes for 200 homeless vets by today, Veterans Day, November 11. We will get there by the original federal deadline of the end of the year because we are getting better and more effectively and efficiently putting veterans into homes. Consider this:

1. We’re pulling in new partners to identifying affordable housing for veterans. Affordable housing is a well-known challenge in Austin, but thanks the Austin Apartment Association and the Austin Board of Realtors, our nonprofit partners like the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition have unprecedented access to property owners and managers, making the job of getting homeless veterans into apartments more doable. This is a new paradigm for dealing with homeless in Austin that will survive the Housing Heroes program.

2. We’ve surpassed our fundraising goal of $150,000 to help mitigate risks for landlords and property owners who rent to vets. As of today, we’ve raised $375,000 thank to the generosity of the business community and concerned people like you.

But there’s still more to do. We believe that one homeless vet in Austin is too many, so we’re not giving up just because we’ve missed our goal. In fact, we’re stepping up our efforts.

First, we have increased our goal to $500,000 raised by the end of the year. Knowing what we know now about the obstacles that still exist, we’re going to need even more resources to end veteran homelessness this year.

DONATE NOW to be a part of this ground-breaking initiative. Would you consider observing Veterans Day by donating $11.11 to Housing Heroes Austin?

Second, we are reinvigorating our ask of property owners and managers who are willing to partner with Housing Heroes to commit at least one unit to veteran families that might have barriers to renting.

CLICK HERE to help lift veterans off the streets by giving them a second chance.

We’re so close to achieving what we once thought would never be possible, but it takes ambitious goals and audacious plans to achieve big things. I accepted this challenge on your behalf, and now I’m asking for your help to meet it. There is no question that homeless veterans have earned our help or that it is now within our power to find them homes. The only question is if Austin has enough heroes left to finish the job.

MAYOR ADLER