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Veterans Legal Services and Volunteers of America-Massachusetts are partnering to help more veterans and their families secure or maintain stable housing. This partnership will operate through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program at VOA-MASS.
Together, VLS and VOA-MASS seek to serve up to 200 low-income veterans annually. VLS will operate a monthly legal clinic through VOA-MASS’s Quincy office, specifically to help remove barriers to affordable and safe housing.
Areas of legal assistance provided by VLS will include:
· Eviction prevention and public/subsidized housing appeals;
· consumer debt matters;
· VA benefit denial appeals;
· Social Security eligibility and denial appeals;
· unemployment benefits eligibility, and termination and denial appeals; and
· other civil legal matters that interfere with a veteran’s ability to obtain or retain housing, including child support and tax issues.
“Homelessness and housing insecurity are among the greatest threats faced by economically disadvantaged military veterans here in Massachusetts,” said Sarah Roxburgh, Esq., co-executive director and chief of operations at VLS. “We are thrilled to partner with Volunteers of America-Massachusetts to help more veterans access and maintain housing so that they may live the healthy, happy, and dignified lives they deserve.”
The partnership marks the sixth for VLS, which operates free legal clinics for income-eligible veterans at the New England Center and Home for Veterans, in Boston; the Bedford VA Healthcare System; the Brockton VA Medical Center (part of the Boston VA Healthcare System); the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home; and the Norfolk County Veterans Treatment Court, in Dedham.
The SSVF program at VOA-MASS provides veterans and their families a wide range of services, including financial planning, employment program referrals, healthcare and counseling referrals, and financial assistance for those eligible. VOA-MASS also provides behavioral health services as well as transitional and permanent housing to veterans facing homelessness.
“Supportive Services for Veteran Families at Volunteers of America is ecstatic to collaborate with VLS,” said VOA SSVF Program Director Alba Ortiz. “This service will assist veterans facing legal obstacles with achieving housing stabilization. We’re confident this new collaboration will allow us to increase the number of veteran families we support with obtaining permanent housing in Massachusetts.”
About Veterans Legal Services
Veterans Legal Services helps Massachusetts veterans overcome adversity by providing free civil legal aid that honors their service, promotes well-being, and responds to their distinctive needs.
For more information, please contact VLS Director of Communications & Development Jeff Lemberg at jeff@veteranslegalservices.org.