Will Florida Govenor Scott Do More to Help Florida Veterans When HUD and the VA Made Serious Cuts in Funding

Inverness, FL, December 7, 2016 (Newswire.com) - ​​​​​The Mission in Citrus is proud to announce that they have achieved a 97% success rate for this fiscal year. They have been helping Veterans since 2008 and continually work outside the box to make it all work. It was all achieved with Veterans helping Veterans. They constantly see miracles happening, as many former residents keep in contact and visit regularly, which rarely ever happens with a homeless shelter.

Their new goal for next year is to put one hundred more Veterans into homes. Many go by paperwork data alone. The Mission keeps up with them, knows where they live, work, and are always there for help. And they accomplished it all on one of the lowest budgets around. They value every dollar and stretch a dime into a dollar.

Everyone should be helping our Veterans. They sacrificed a lot to protect our freedoms.

James Sleighter, Founder

This year, HUD decided not to make shelters a priority and it effects many of our Veterans. Shelter is needed to get them prepared for a better life. Further education, working on their disability and many other services that are provided are hard to accomplish without shelter. Florida Governor Rick Scott needs to give the many hard working shelters some relief. And President Obama needs to get HUD back on the right track as many shelters are starting to close. Our Veteran's have been through enough, and not enough is being done to help them.

​A recent letter from John Stewart to the Citrus County Chronicle is featured below. He is an amazing man constantly helps Veterans. Most would have taken their minutes of fame, but John talked about helping Veterans. They hope many of you will help by taking a minute and emailing the Governor. He promised, so please help by making it known it should be done. God bless all.

"I sent a letter to the Editor at our local newspaper, the Chronicle. I don't have a copy of the final draft sent in due to a computer problem but this early draft pretty much says what I wanted to state about a recent event:

First of all, I would like to thank the Chronicle for a recent article and editorial concerning my induction into the Florida Veterans Hall of Fame. I was so fortunate to be selected alongside 10 other Florida veterans for 2016, including 3 former Governors, and was completely overwhelmed by this honor. You can learn more about this tremendous program at www.floridaveteranshalloffame.org/index_Web.html.

I would not have received this honor without outstanding support and dedication from many local veterans, their family members and private citizens. I will not attempt to list all the names here but each of you were ultimately responsible for my receiving this award and you have my heartfelt thanks.

After Governor Scott presented the award I had an opportunity to speak. Rather than using a prepared speech, I reverted to an impromptu talk about the large number of Florida’s homeless veterans and our unbelievable Mission In Citrus Homeless Shelter for veterans here in Inverness.

GreatNonprofits.org, a leading platform about shelters, recently rated Mission In Citrus as number three in the top 62 veterans shelters in the United States. Unfortunately it lost $125,000 worth of funding this year due to HUD not making shelters a priority

I asked the Governor to take a look at the funding loss and on three occasions during the ceremony and at a venue afterwards he promised to do so.

I also mentioned that I had returned from Virginia earlier in the week after dealing with a family emergency, but while there learned that in November 2015 their Governor had announced that any veteran in Virginia wishing shelter had received it. In other words, there were no more homeless veterans there unless they chose to be so. I told the Governor we can do that in Florida but not with cuts to shelter budgets, particularly when you realize there was no federal funding for our shelters this year.

What really concerned me was that government waste continues as our veterans suffer and that wasted money could be used to completely end veteran homelessness everywhere. As example, the U.S. government paid an Afghan construction firm nearly $500,000 in 2012 to build an Afghan police training center that began to disintegrate in the rain four months after the project was finished. U.S., authorities found that the bricks were made mostly of sand, with little clay to prevent them from turning to mud when wet.

Not learning a lesson from that fiasco, the Department of Defense spent almost $43 million to build a compressed natural gas station in Afghanistan that would have cost up to $500,000 anywhere else and it may no longer even be operational. Imagine using that money to support Florida’s homeless veterans in providing shelter, job opportunities, food, etc.

So, as you can see, I tried to use the moment of award to perhaps help my fellow veterans and their families. Again, that opportunity would not have occurred without the support of many, many Citrus County people. But, I call upon each of you one final time. Please contact Governor Scott and express your opinion about this situation. I found him to be a very, very good person and receptive to support of veterans. You can send him a message at the website link www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/email-the-governor/. Tell him my message.

Finally, Chronicle, one again, thank you for the kind words and please continue in your outstanding support of our veterans in Citrus County."

John Stewart
CMSgt, USAF (retired)

Source: Mission in Citrus Inc

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