Wednesday, October 27, 2010

First Line of Help for Veterans--Finding County Veteran Agencies (Emergency Financial Aid)

I said in a previous post that the first line of contact for veterans in need of help was their county veterans administration officer.  These are county-level contacts from the state VA offices.  But until now I didn't know that they had a national organization, and could be identified from that web site.  The National Association of Veteran Service Officers, formed in the late 1980s, indeed has such a website, and it lists the county veterans contacts for each state.  The listing of state VA offices is disappointing, because there are so many dead links, but the page with county links seems solid.  Here's an especially good link on emergency veteran help from the Coalition for Homeless Veterans.  In Michigan, here's the scoop on emergency money to veterans.

Every state varies in its veterans programs, but check out your county VA office if you are in need of emergency help.  However, don't neglect your state social service agencies (the old "welfare offices," as they were once called), on the county level.

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