Tonight, when you go to bed, you’ll be doing something that over hundreds of thousands of Americans can’t — sleep in your own home. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s latest point-in-time statistics estimate more than 770,000 people in America “experienced homelessness in an emergency shelter, safe haven, transitional housing program, or in unsheltered locations across the country” in 2024.
Among them are a disproportionately high number of veterans. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, 13% of adults experiencing homelessness are veterans, despite only 7% of the population claiming veteran status.
Veteran homelessness has markedly decreased over the last 15 years, a testament to the policymakers, public servants, and private organizations working on the frontlines. But more work remains.
Last Veterans Day, Acting Governor Tahesha Way announced the launch of the Bringing Veterans Home (BVH) initiative in New Jersey. BVH is led by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMAVA), with support from the Office of Homelessness Prevention, VSOs, and other partner organizations.
This initiative represents the first time New Jersey has formally partnered with veteran service organizations (VSOs) to help every veteran — former servicemembers and National Guard members — experiencing homelessness find stable housing by July 2026, allocating more than $30 million in state and federal funds to achieve its mission. No other state has been so bold as to set the target for veteran homelessness at zero, but that’s exactly New Jersey’s plan. At Civic Roundtable, we’re energized by complex, interagency efforts that set the high bar for success.
To ensure government agencies, VSOs, and other organizations work together effectively, New Jersey is deploying Civic Roundtable, requiring all organizations seeking grant funding to use our government operations platform every day. The reason is simple: Coordination within and across government agencies and partner organizations has historically been an onerous, time-consuming endeavor due to technology and tools that have failed public servants.
“I’ve said it before — success requires collaboration. It is non-negotiable to address problems like homelessness,” said Michael Callahan, Director of the Office of Homelessness Prevention at the Department of Community Affairs. “Expertise can be found anywhere. Resources, best practices, and answers to mission-critical questions are spread across organizations. Roundtable brings everyone working on this challenge together, making us all more effective, efficient, and ultimately better at achieving our mission of eliminating veteran homelessness by July 1, 2026.”
We built Roundtable to bring public servants together into a centralized, easy-to-use platform to power complex, interagency efforts. Our technology bridges silos within and across organizations and eliminates duplicative and unnecessary work. Everyone working to end veteran homelessness in New Jersey will have unparalleled visibility into progress and outcomes, get fast answers to their most important questions, and obtain easy access to the resources they need.
We believe better government and empowered public servants make our communities better places to live, work, and thrive. In New Jersey, we’re committed to being part of the solution to help every veteran experiencing homelessness. We’re also working with public servants in the field and agency leaders working to solve homelessness in Connecticut, Oregon, South Carolina, and Alaska.
