Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Susan Collins, Steve Daines (R-MT), and Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-NV) sent a letter to Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer expressing their opposition to a recent change to the Homeless Veterans’ Reintegration Program (HVRP) application. HVRP is a grant program that provides employment opportunities and career training to homeless veterans.
“Under the recently issued notice FOA-VETS-25-01, prospective grant applicants must maintain a physical location within 50 miles of any county they wish to serve. This follows the previously proposed “hub and spoke” model. Both Congress and the first Trump Administration considered and rejected this approach. Congress held public discussions regarding its implementation in 2019 and ultimately decided not to pursue the model,” the Senators wrote.
“The hub-and-spoke model consistently fails rural veterans and creates unnecessary and arduous barriers for organizations that seek to assist them. It is simply not practical for veterans’ service organizations to maintain physical locations in all or even most counties in rural states like ours, which limits the areas they can serve. We hope that you and your Department will take corrective action and rescind this rule to ensure that rural veterans receive the service they deserve. Our nation owes a debt to our veterans, and we must ensure that the federal government is working to get them more support, not less,” they concluded.
The complete text of the letter can be read here.
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