Smith and VA to hold Telephone Claims Clinic

Congressman Chris Smith and the Veterans Administration are hosting Telephone Claims Clinics for military veterans, active duty personnel and their families on August 18 and 19.

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Soldier On: From homelessness to home ownership for military veterans

Between 50 and 100 Monmouth County homeless military veterans will have homes, security and futures to look forward to thanks to the tenacity of Freeholder Lillian Burry, Congressman Chris Smith and Soldier On, a non-profit organization committed to ending veteran homelessness.

Since 1994, Soldier On has been providing homeless veterans with transitional housing and supportive services. In 2010, Soldier On opened the first Gordon H. Mansfield Veterans Community, a permanent housing cooperative that provides formerly homeless veterans with safe, sustainable, affordable housing – transitioning them from homelessness to home ownership. This housing model will be replicated nationally as Soldier On continues to change the end of the story for homeless veterans throughout the country.

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Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act Will Improve Mental Healthcare for Veterans

By Congressman Chris Smith

As the former chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the author of more than a dozen laws to modernize, expand and improve the services provided by the Veterans Administration (VA), I see the need to review and evaluate existing programs to ensure that they align with the promise a grateful nation makes to those who wear and have worn the uniforms of the United States military. As President Lincoln so eloquently said at the end of the Civil War: “Let us strive…to care for him who shall have borne the battle…” a phrase later adopted as the motto of the VA.

That is why I co-sponsored and twice voted for the “Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act.”  This bipartisan legislation is named in honor of the late Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran whose story is not unfamiliar to many who have attempted to navigate the VA’s bureaucracy to receive the care they have earned. Clay Hunt was one of the many veterans who experience some form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a result of their service, yet he did not receive adequate mental health care in the VA system and took his own life at the age of 28.

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