President Obama is on record as being “personally committed to ending homelessness among veterans within the next five years.” His new campaign of “Zero Tolerance for Homeless Veterans” can only be achieved through the difficult and honorable path of ending all homelessness in America.

The president has taken an inspiring and powerful stand against the continued suffering of more than 150,000 veterans currently homeless in the United States. Today’s homeless veterans are spread widely throughout every system of service and across every category of homeless.  Further complicating matters, many veterans resist shelter, treatment and services through veteran specific resources. 

President Obama’s approach to ending homelessness among veterans must be driven by the needs and demands of homeless veterans and not by the systems built to serve them.

Already the VA has drastically increased spending to prevent and reduce homelessness among veterans, but even with those increases the problem isn’t going to go away until we recognize one simple truth: trying to end homelessness among veterans will never work until we end all homelessness.

As long as we fail to address the overall problem of homelessness in America, tens of thousands of homeless veterans will remain forgotten, with thousands more falling into homelessness each year.  

Today you can help by sending a letter to President Obama affirming his personal commitment to ending homelessness among veterans in five years and validating his administration’s stand of zero tolerance for homeless veterans. But in order for the president’s commitment to be fulfilled, he must see the path towards his success through bringing all Americans home.