CAPT. DAN BERNAL, USA (RET), SERVED HIS COUNTRY FOR 17 YEARS. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Bernal served in special operations, continued in the reserve once he left active duty, and pursued a second career as a police offi cer in Las Vegas, all while working on a law degree. He was the portrait of a successful and motivated soldier.

But that all changed in 2003. He began self-medicating with alcohol to cope with stress and ended up getting an off -duty DUI. He was forced to resign from the police force and had his Army security clearance suspended. “Overnight, I went from being a police offi cer and weekend warrior to nothing,” Bernal says. His wife, a nurse, stood by him for a while as he drank and gambled, jobless and depressed. In 2008, she fi nally left. “I was homeless within 60 days,” Bernal says. His story is not unique. About

50,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. It seems unconscionable. How is it men and women who have served their country, off ering to lay down their lives for freedom and often returning home decorated service- members, are on the streets? It’s a question the VA has been

grappling with on a large scale for the past several years. In 2010, President Barack Obama and then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki vowed, with the launch of the Opening Doors program, to end veteran homelessness by 2015. In October 2014, the VA announced the availability of up to $93 million in grants for nonprofi ts and consumer cooperatives that serve very low- income veteran families occupying permanent housing through the Sup- portive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. This followed more than $500 million in SSVF grants awarded in August and September 2014 that are expected to help ap- proximately 135,000 veterans and their family members in FY 2015. And these eff orts are making a dif- ference. According to the 2014 Point-

60 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2015