The Mission of the Delaware Center for Homeless Veterans, Inc. (DCHV) is to provide safe and affordable permanent housing coupled with supportive services to homeless veterans, men, women and their families to assist in improving their lives, develop greater economic self-sufficiency, better the quality of services provided by other agencies and help strengthen the community.

Our veterans-specific program services target both men and women from all three counties.  Using the Housing First Model, coupled with the VA Emergency Shelter Program, our programs provide each layer of housing - from emergency shelter - to permanent housing, plus supportive service;  each layer also provides intensive case management.  One of the goals of the program is to simultaneously create self-sufficient veterans who are active members of the community in which they reside.  The creation of social capital for our veterans is in direct relation to the human capital they provide to the community.  The program has the following impacts: safe, affordable permanent housing for our veterans; veterans’ reintegration with the workforce and living wage jobs to assist in greater economic self-sufficiency; ongoing engagement with the local VA Medical Center and supportive services to create stability as it relates to substance abuse, health, and employment/education.

The principle focus of the DCHV is to provide Housing First and supportive services for homeless veterans.  These foci support the veterans’ goals to obtain recovery, economic self-sufficiency, independence, and community reintegration.  We feel our priority areas of Housing First plus supportive services is ideal for implementing a strategy aimed at converting homeless veterans, who are unemployed or underemployed, to persons who contribute to the well-being of their community. DCHV was formed to meet these objectives.