[Press Release] Cedars-Sinai Funds Village for Vets Meals Program at VA Safe Camp Site
Los Angeles, CA: Village for Vets, a non-profit organization filling critical gaps in services for homeless and at-risk veterans, announced new funding from Cedars-Sinai to feed homeless veterans sheltering at the Safe Camp site on the campus of VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS). Village for Vets is a non-profit organization filling critical gaps in services for homeless and at-risk veterans. Cedars-Sinai is a nonprofit health system that fulfills its vital mission by investing in programs and services to improve the health status of the community.
The Safe Camp tent area (officially the Care, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Services, or CTRS) at the VA campus was a response to the COVID-19 crisis, bringing homeless Veterans off the streets into a safe, socially distanced space.
The VA can house but not provide meals for these veterans.
Village for Vets provides three meals a day, seven days a week to Safe Camp residents, with support from local partners including the Brentwood School, Westside Food Bank, Food Forward, and Fresh Lunches/Foodlove LA.
Village for Vets runs several programs that together provide more than 1000 meals every week, 56,420 each year, to veterans in need.
Regarding the support from Cedars Sinai, Village for Vets founder Marcie Polier Swartz said, “The COVID-19 crisis has hit homeless and at-risk veterans especially hard, and the VA has legal and budget limitations in how it can help. We are honored to fill this critical gap in services to homeless vets, ensuring that these men and women who bravely served do not go hungry while sheltering from the pandemic.”
The spokesperson for the VA Greater LA Healthcare System said about the Village for Vets meals program, “We are very proud and fortunate to work with Village for Vets. From the first day of opening the CTRS Site, Village for Vets have provided three nutritious meals for our homeless Veterans participating in CTRS in support our Veteran’s health and well-being.”
VAGLAHS developed the CTRS Initiative on April 6 as an immediate response to help protect and serve Veterans experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles during the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative is designed to provide high-risk homeless Veterans with a low barrier entry program for health care, social work, and transitional housing assistance and services, while also providing a clean environment with monitored social distancing requirements in a designated area on the VA West Los Angeles campus.
Cedars-Sinai joins the United Way, Councilmember Sheila Kuehl, Tech Sgt. Jack Kushner Ret’d Foundation, Westwood Rotary and hundreds of generous individuals in providing financial support for Village for Vets programs to feed homeless and at-risk veterans on the VA campus and across greater Los Angeles.
About Village for Vets: Village for Vets fills gaps in support for homeless and at-risk veterans in greater Los Angeles, providing meals, emergency grants, support for basic needs, and links to additional services. In the four years since it was founded, Village for Vets has grown tenfold, expanding from providing a few dozen sandwiches to ease the out-of-pocket burden on a VA case manager, to a dozen programs in partnership with major homeless- and veteran-service organizations in Los Angeles. Village for Vets has provided nearly 60,000 meals to homeless and at-risk veterans, nearly $100K in emergency financial assistance, and an array of other services to veterans in need.