Veterans Northeast constructed 18 housing units at the former St. Rita’s Church.
Veterans Northeast Outreach Center, 10 Reed St., Haverhill, has received $2,020,000 in federal funding as part of the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program.
SSVF helps “very low-income veteran families prevent homelessness,” according to a statement released Thursday from Massachusetts Third District Congresswoman Niki Tsongas. The award, through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, comes after Tsongas’ visit Monday to Career Resources Corporation, Haverhill, to “hear about their Veteran’s Employment Services program,” conducted in partnership with Veterans Northeast Outreach Center.
“The Veterans Northeast Outreach Center has a strong history of supporting veterans and their families to help prevent veteran homelessness. Their extensive outreach allows the center to reach approximately twenty-five percent of veterans and veteran families in Massachusetts, giving them the ability to make a widespread and long-lasting impact on the reduction of homelessness amongst veterans and their families,” Tsongas said.
Tsongas supported the Veterans Northeast Outreach Center’s application. She has previously written letters of support on behalf of the center and participated in the opening of their new housing facility last year. As WHAV reported then, 18 housing units were built as part of its main campus, the former St. Rita’s Church.
Veterans Northeast Outreach Center Executive Director John Ratka.
“During the last three years the program has assisted housing more than 1,500 families in Middlesex and Essex Counties,” said Veterans Northeast Outreach Center Executive Director John Ratka. “A special thanks to Congresswoman Niki Tsongas and her staff for their overwhelming support in obtaining this funding and their continuing support of Veterans and their families.”
The Veterans Northeast Outreach Center was founded in 1985 to address the needs of veterans and their families throughout the Merrimack Valley. The center offers information, referral, advocacy and support to local veterans.
Not a single reference in this article on “why” veterans are struggling to stay in their homes in the City of Haverhill.
The FACTS are that the city has been run into the ground by an incompetent tax and spend mayor. Property taxes have DOUBLED since he has become mayor. He has increased the fees for ALL city services, and added new taxes like paying to park downtown and a meals tax where ever he can. He even invested taxpayer funds for the sole purpose of buying a vehicle and hiring personnel to drive around downtown and ticket as many cars as possible. Is it any wonder veterans, and everyone else that lives in this city, is struggling financially with this incompetent hack running the city?
Has anyone been fired yet regarding the VA scandal ? I didn’t think so and that is one of the main problems. Steal and lie and get away with it….wait, they are only following the lead of Hillary ! Never mind.
That’s Niki for you. VOTE to send our men & women of to die or get injured and give them a fucking bandaid when they come home, if they come home.
If she really supported Veteran’s, she would stop voting for more war and pork-barrel spending for the DoD contractors in The Third District. Imagine the BILLIONS of money that could be used here domestically, like this Veteran’s Center to really help Veterans and Americans alike. $2 million sounds like a lot, but in the bigger picture of a hundreds-of-billions budget spent on war, I mean “defense”, it’s an insult to all of us who have been deployed and/or served, especially in that Third-World hell-hole in The MIddle East. If Niki and her crony donors want their profit margins, make them pay out of their own pocket for their blood profits.
Over 25 years since my deployment over there and the ONLY thing that has changed is the number of flag draped caskets and maimed military members coming home. Fuck Niki Tsongas – Her VOTES are not only destroying this country, but its PEOPLE.
Amen to everything you said! The VA has been royally screwed up for at least 50+ years, and there is NO END IN SIGHT! One would think that people like Niki Tsongas (who is old enough to know better) would consider what HER votes to go to war are doing to our young people.
Maybe Niki will take credit for the reduction in Veteran suicide, instead of 22 Veterans per day attempting or succeding in killing themselves, it’s now down to “only” 21 per day.