MHA receives federal money to assist homeless veterans
The Meridian Housing Authority will soon offer housing assistance to local homeless veterans.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has indicated that Meridian has a high population of homeless veterans. It has chosen MHA as the entity to help these homeless veterans find permanent housing.
Today during a press conference, MHA announced that HUD had given the authority over $61,000 for housing vouchers.
“We were fortunate enough to be one of those cities to be chosen to initiate this voucher program. HUD issued us 10. But we feel that this process is going to be a very successful process. We anticipate that the Department of Housing and Urban Development, along with the Veterans Administration, will be issuing us additional vouchers for the Meridian jurisdiction,” said MHA Executive Director, Ronald J. Turner, Sr.
MHA is partnering with the Jackson VA Medical Center to find homeless veterans who qualify for the vouchers.
“What they’re going to do is refer these veterans to the Meridian Housing Authority. Once they are referred to us, we do the appropriate paperwork to get them in our system, and then we issue vouchers allowing these veterans to go out in the community and find permanent housing, not only for them, but also their families,” said Turner.
He explained that the housing vouchers will still apply even if a veteran moves.
“If there is a veteran who has received a voucher here in the city of meridian, and for whatever reason has moved…these vouchers are portable. You can take that voucher. If there are programs that will accept you, which there will be, they can utilize those vouchers in other cities as well.”
MHA says residents should contact the Jackson VA Medical Center to see if they qualify for a housing voucher.
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