CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The mission of the United States military is to fight to secure the country’s freedom, but Meg Kabat’s current mission is a different fight.
She is the chief of staff of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Kabat and her team are working to make sure the men and women who served have a safe place to call home.
“Thousands of men and women, many of them veterans themselves, [and] some of them formerly homeless veterans, who are work tirelessly to go out to shelters, under bridges, encampments,” Kabat explained. “Homelessness is not a situation that any of us can solve on our own. What we’ve done this past year is bringing together individuals on the federal level, the state level, the city level, the county level, [and] even the neighborhood level."
She said it’s thanks to those collaborations, along with getting veterans into housing and then providing wraparound support, that has allowed the agency to permanently house more than 41,000 people across the country.
It’s a figure that meets the VA’s original fiscal year goal a month early.
“For many veterans, reentry from service back to civilian life can be a really hard transition,” Nate French, the director of community impact for Community Solutions, said. “If you got a weak safety net on the economic front, and then you got some other complicating factors, a mental health issue, addiction issue, those can kind of pile up for somebody.”
Community Solutions is an organization also dedicated to ending homelessness, especially among veterans. Charlotte is one of more than 100 communities active in its Built for Zero movement. It’s a data-driven approach that brings different entities, including the VA, together.
“With that data in place and with some goals set from a leadership team, we then help them articulate a path forward,” said French.
Earlier this year, Community Solutions bought an east Charlotte apartment complex. The goal is to make it both affordable and available for veterans, who make up 7% of Mecklenburg County's homeless population.
“We want to see a percentage reduction in the full number of veterans experiencing homelessness. I think it’s exciting that Charlotte has seen a 25% reduction in veteran homelessness in just this calendar year,” French shared.
According to the VA, in 2022 and 2023, the agency housed nearly 87,000 formerly homeless veterans.
Contact Nick Sturdivant at nsturdiva1@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, X and Instagram.