Changes at MHA’s Valor House
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Changes at Missoula Housing Authority’s Valor House
Since 2005, Missoula Housing Authority (MHA) has operated Valor House, Montana’s first transitional apartments for homeless veterans, in partnership with the Veterans Administration and the Poverello Center. Valor House’s goals are to help homeless Veterans achieve residential stability, increase their skill levels and/or income, and obtain greater self-determination. Program participants live at Valor House for up to 2-years while accessing supportive services addressing the issues that led to homelessness with the goal of transitioning into sustainable permanent housing.
Over the last eighteen years, we have realized these goals by serving as many as 275 veterans. Missoula Housing Authority is a recipient of The National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) Award of Excellence in Program Innovation for Valor House, recognizing outstanding innovation and achievement in housing and community development programs throughout the country.
The redevelopment of the Poverello Center’s Housing Montana Heroes, transitional housing for veterans, creates an opportunity for the Missoula Housing Authority to return full-time to providing permanent housing. This fall, MHA will exit the space of transitional housing and create new permanent housing for Veterans at Valor House, addressing a rising community need for permanent housing solutions for veterans.
Valor House’s permanent housing will include the placement of HUD VASH vouchers at the site. HUD VASH is a highly successful collaboration between the VA, which provides supportive services, and MHA, who provides housing through HUD VASH vouchers. For the remainder of the year as we complete the grant, veterans currently living in Valor House will continue to receive services and assistance with moving to permanent housing.
“Valor House has been successful in no small part due to the wonderful collaboration of our partners at the VA and the Pov,” says Jim McGrath, Director of HUD Programs at MHA. “We are very grateful to our partners. We also are excited to explore new ways of collaborating with them to provide critical permanent housing for veterans, not only at Valor House but in future projects,”
Veterans face many challenges and housing should not be one of them. The Missoula Housing Authority is honored to continue to be a part of the path to permanent housing for our community's Veterans.
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About Missoula Housing Authority (MHA)
Missoula Housing Authority (“MHA”) is an independent nonprofit public organization with a portfolio of 776 rent-restricted apartments and housing choice vouchers, providing affordable housing to more than 2,300 very low-, low and middle-income veterans, families with children, elderly and disabled, foster youth and homeless, as well as working Missoulians.
MHA is the second largest public housing authority in Montana and is recognized as a progressive, forward-thinking agency that creatively implements services and uses innovative development financing. Missoula Housing Authority’s mission is to provide quality housing solutions for low and middle-income households in Missoula and the surrounding area through creative partnerships and innovative development. MHA has been creating quality housing solutions since 1978.
Contact: Sara Stout
sara@missoulahousing.org
www.missoulahousing.org