Employee Spotlight
May 13, 2022
Jodie Picciano-Swanson, LCSW, ACSW
Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 16 Network Homeless Coordinator)
VISN 16: South Central VA Health Care Network
Q: How long have you worked for VA?
A: This is my 10th year. I started working for VA in 2012.
Q: Tell us about your role as the Network Homeless Coordinator for VISN 16.
A: The Veterans Health Administration is divided into 18 VISNs, which are regional systems of care working together to better meet local health care needs. VISN 16 covers a small portion of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, most of Mississippi, and the panhandle of Florida.
As the Network Homeless Coordinator for VISN 16, I get to work with 8 VA medical center homeless programs to help ensure that they provide the best care for our Veterans experiencing homelessness. Our homeless programs accomplish many goals beyond housing. We connect Veterans to medical and mental health care at VA as well as employment in the community.
The homeless program managers at the 8 medical centers contact me regularly to handle various issues and brainstorm solutions. Not to be boring, but we look at data a lot!
I like to focus on employment data. If a Veteran has stable income, they can more easily sustain their housing.
Additionally, I am a member of a few different workgroups, including the Social Work Service Emergency Disaster Planning Workgroup. Here in the Gulf of Mexico, we get a lot of hurricanes, so it’s important to ensure that we’re following the latest and greatest practices in disaster planning and response.
Q: How does extreme weather or disaster increase an individual’s risk of homelessness?
A: Within minutes, someone can lose their home. For example, Hurricane Michael that hit Panama City, FL in 2018 was a devastating event. When we reached out to the hurricane shelters after the storm passed, we encountered so many Veterans who were newly homeless. Their homes were just gone.
Notably, hurricanes can be such an emotionally traumatic experience that many people choose not to stay to rebuild. They just leave. We saw that with the response to both Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Ida in 2021.
What made Ida even more challenging to work through was that we had a lot of staff who lost their homes, too. I’m so proud of the VA homeless program staff whose own homes were lost or significantly damaged, yet they still kept their resolve to help rehouse Veterans in the aftermath of the storm.
Q:How does extreme weather or disaster increase the number of Veterans who are already homeless?
A: Before a storm hits, we work fast to find them safe shelter to weather the storm. Maybe it’s at a Grant and Per Diem program, or maybe a Health Care for Homeless Veterans Contract Residential Services program. But it has to be somewhere that can withstand the winds and rain.
It’s common to feel a sense of defeat or be demoralized after a storm because so much of the city is often damaged, making it even harder to help people find housing. Not only that, but we also have to scramble to find housing for those who are now newly homeless. Oftentimes, our housing solutions rely on helping Veterans repair relationships and reconnect with family who live outside the disaster area and explore if the Veteran can stay with them.
Q: What role do you play as Network Homeless Coordinator as part of a disaster response incident command team?
A: First and foremost, I make sure that the staff in the impacted areas are okay. We can’t help Veterans if we’re in bad shape ourselves.
Hurricane Ida was my first hurricane as Network Homeless Coordinator. We did something unique in VISN 16 where 43 staff from the 7 other sites helped with disaster response and provided case management to our Veterans. This allowed the local staff, whose homes were damaged or destroyed, to stabilize. VA’s Disaster Emergency Medical Personnel System (DEMPS) program helps us bring in staff needed to help with recovery.
Once we assess the needs on the ground, we get to work accounting for every Veteran and connecting them with emergency resources. VA’s national rideshare program was a godsend by helping to get Veterans access to shelter, medications, and food distribution sites.
Q: What drives you to do this work?
A: My dad worked for the New York City Housing Authority. When I was younger, I remember a Take Your Child to Work Day when my dad brought me to Spanish Harlem. That experience inspired me to work with the housing authority for many years after I got my Master of Social Work degree.
Providing safe and affordable housing is in my blood. If someone wants a roof over their head, we’re going to do everything we can for them. We believe that housing is a human right.
My fondest memory was that of a Veteran who was previously homeless in an encampment, but who came into my office with a set of keys to his new apartment. He cried as he said, “I’m going to cook my own meal and sleep in my own bed with clean sheets.”
He fought for my freedom, and he deserves to rest his head on clean sheets.
