#VAFail - VA Spends Millions on Artwork for VA Facilities - Concerned Veterans for America

By Emilye Bell

08.02.16

#VAFail – VA Spends Millions on Artwork for VA Facilities

Looking to take in some breathtaking works of art? Thinking you will have to travel overseas to Le Louvre or to Washington, DC, to visit the National Gallery? Pricey artwork may not be as far away as you think; they could be as close as your local VA facility.

According to a recent report, the Department of Veterans Affairs has spent a whopping $20 million on art over the last 10 years. OpenTheBooks.com did some research into exactly what that $20 million
was spent on, $16 million of it being during the Obama administration,
and what the found is a little absurd. Keep in mind that there are still
hundreds of thousands of veterans waiting to see a doctor or hear back
on a disability claim as you read these.

VA decorators have fine and exquisite taste when it comes to sprucing
up their facilities. Just a few of the items purchased include a
$21,000 artificial Christmas tree, $32,000 worth of “local pictures” for San Francisco’s VA, and artwork totaling $610,000 to beautify a new facility in Puerto Rico.

Most likely the worst expenditure that OpenTheBooks brought up is the $670,000 spent on two sculptures. Yes, that is bad enough, but wait.
These sculptures were purchased for the Palo Alto Polytrauma and Blind Rehabilitation Center in California. Expensive art was purchased to decorate a center for blind veterans.



Taxpayer dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Benefits for Landlords

Benefits for Landlords (Taken fron US Department of Veterans Affairs)

• Guaranteed income: See reliable monthly rental payments through the local housing authority and fair market rent on your property.
• Having a say in security deposits: Set your own amount based on local standards.
• Annual property re-certification: Third-party inspections help to maintain quality.
• Benefit of VA services: Ongoing case management provides a safety net for tenants and lowers default risks.
• A chance to honor those who served: HUD-VASH landlords are part of the solution to ending homelessness among Veterans, who sacrificed so much to keep our country safe and free.

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This is the true benefactor of HUD-VASH program, LANDLORDS!!!  There is more outreach to bring in landlords with these overwhelming benefits.  The HUD-VASH benefits landlords greater than veterans just as stated above with very little oversight, on time delivery of payments, no immediacy to correct housing issues brought by the veteran and if so; there's a long if ever process of resolving the issues.

Veterans are constantly under the gun to comply to guidances designed to exit them from the program.  Landlords are not subjected to financial oversight and questioning of every penny found in their old jeans, substance abuse violations, consistent review of your viability as well as an indifference to you as a client.  There is nothing altruistic that landlords are doing to assist in housing veterans.  Through this program, landlords are doing better while doing the least as compared to the open market of renting properties. In the HUD manual, property owners are assured that VA caseworkers who are assigned to each veteran under the VASH program, will keep any veteran inline over any concern to the owner.

Veterans are conduits for the tax-payers money to flow fast and furious into the coffers of landlords while being penny-pinched from HUD-VASH and receiving little to no support from the VA or HUD in critical concerns for veterans health, finance, self-determination and ironically; the return to homelessness..

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