NAVSO CEO returns to Los Angeles County where the concept for NAVSO was born.

ARLINGTON, VA, USA, September 4, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The National Association of Veteran-Serving Organizations (NAVSO) has been awarded an $160,000 grant from Los Angeles County to explore how the County can improve the way veterans access resources with a specific focus on veteran housing and mental health services. Over the next six months, NAVSO will conduct an analysis of the current situation and help the County develop an actionable plan to smartly invest another five million dollars into their already rich support system for the veteran community. Los Angeles County has the highest concentration of veterans in the United States with over 300,000 veterans and approximately 12,000 being discharged into the County annually. The County seeks to address homelessness and suicide prevention head on and become a leader in the country of how to best support their veteran community.

For the last four years NAVSO has served as a central point of contact for nonprofits, businesses and government entities that serve veterans and military families. Over 25,000 professionals have leveraged NAVSO’s online tools, resources, consulting services and/or participated in its summits. NAVSO strives to transform the veteran services landscape by creating efficiencies in the marketplace to improve the lives of veterans and military families.

"By bringing in NAVSO, we are injecting a perspective from an organization that has a broad view of the veterans landscape and can share with us best practices from around the country so that we can improve the way we serve our veterans and help us achieve our goals.” said Dr. Jonathan Sherin, Director of Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.

For NAVSO CEO, Chris Ford, the opportunity to return to and impact Los Angeles County brings his experience full circle. While he was working for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey in his Office of Reintegration as the West Region Director, Los Angeles was one of the first cities Chris visited.

“It’s such a great honor for me to return to Los Angeles and directly impact how the nation’s largest concentration of veterans are being served.” said Chris Ford, NAVSO’s Founder and CEO. “Many of the concepts for NAVSO were born here and I am grateful to be invited back to help this community do better for veterans and their families.”

NAVSO will be assisting the County as it pursues efforts to establish a veteran peer access network in response to two motions passed by the LA County Board of Supervisors earlier this year. While LA County has a rich set of cross sector services and supports to help veterans with housing, employment, education, health and more, veterans in the County continue to face homelessness, housing instability, poverty and barriers to care and wellbeing. This project aims to address those barriers.

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About NAVSO: NAVSO is exclusively focused on transforming the veteran services marketplace to improve the lives of veterans and military families. Since 2015, NAVSO has accomplished this mission by providing essential resources to those who serve this remarkable community, fund their support, study their needs or employ them. NAVSO offers educational programing, provides direct consultation, hosts summits, commissions research, shares democratized data resources, and facilitates the evaluation of meaningful services. Learn more at www.navso.org

Kelly Finn Stormer
National Association of Veteran-Serving Organizations
703-594-7940
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