Parades today. Staff cuts, food-stamp work rules and a $1.5 trillion war budget the other 364.
OPINION | By Joseph J. Jackson | ST. PETERSBURG (Nov. 11, 2026)
The short version
HUD counted 32,495 homeless veterans on one night in January 2025. Veterans were the slowest-improving group in the count.
The VA lost nearly 28,000 employees in 2025. Democrats on the Senate VA Committee put the loss above 40,000.
The 2025 tax-and-spending law ended veterans’ exemption from SNAP work rules.
17.7 veterans a day died by suicide in 2024, per the VA.
The White House wants $1.5 trillion for the military next year.
The Major Richard Star Act, the Feed Our Veterans Act and the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act are all stalled in Congress.
Americans gave $3.7 billion to military and veteran charities in 2023, on top of their taxes.
Today the flags come out. Restaurants comp a meal. Politicians post a photo with a vet. The car lot runs its “Salute to Service” sale. Tomorrow it all goes back in the closet.
I’m not knocking the free pancakes. I’m reading the record. And the record says this country is very good at sending people to war, and very bad at what comes after.
They counted 32,495 of them
On one night in January 2025, HUD counted 32,495 veterans with no home. More than 13,500 of them were outside: in cars, in the woods, under overpasses.
That number is down by more than half since 2009, and that’s real. VA teams housed nearly 52,000 veterans in fiscal 2025, the most in seven years. That includes 953 through Bay Pines and more than 750 through Haley, right here in Tampa Bay. The caseworkers who did that deserve today’s thanks more than the speechwriters do.
But here’s what the ceremonies leave out. Veterans were the slowest-falling group in the entire count, down just 1%. And the things that drove 15 years of progress, steady funding and steady staff, are the things being pulled right now.
Cut the staff, keep the speeches
The VA lost nearly 28,000 employees in 2025, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Democrats on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee say the real loss tops 40,000, most of them health care workers. VA Secretary Doug Collins says care won’t suffer. The nurses who picketed outside VA hospitals say it already has.
You can’t fire your way to shorter waitlists.
Prove you’re hungry
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, ended the exemption that kept veterans out of SNAP’s strictest work rules. Now a veteran without a documented disability has to log 80 hours a month of work, training or volunteering, or lose food help after three months.
About 1.2 million veterans live in households that get SNAP. Plenty of them want work and can’t find it. Some have injuries that never made it into a file. Signing that law on Independence Day was a choice.
17.7 a day
The VA’s latest report counts 6,488 veteran suicides in 2024. That’s 17.7 a day, and the rate among homeless veterans in VA care is going up. Meanwhile the department that runs the crisis line is the one losing staff.
$1.5 trillion for the next war
The White House asked Congress for $1.5 trillion for the military in fiscal 2027. That’s about $445 billion more than this year, the biggest one-year jump since World War II. In the same budget, it asked for a 10% cut to non-defense spending.
We always find the money for the weapons. The bill for the people who carry them is always “under review.”
Sold on claims that didn’t hold up
Iraq was sold on weapons of mass destruction that were never found. Nearly 4,500 Americans died there.
The war with Iran began Feb. 28. The president said Iran was an imminent threat. In March, under oath before the Senate, his own intelligence chief, Tulsi Gabbard, would not back that claim. The Pentagon’s official count is now 23 Americans dead and hundreds wounded, and that count has only grown after reporters caught deaths missing from it.
One of the first killed was Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven. A drone hit the port in Kuwait where his Army Reserve unit was working.
Thanks for your service. Your bill is still in committee.
Here’s what Congress has left sitting on the shelf, as of today:
The Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102 / S. 1032). Right now, about 54,000 combat-injured veterans who were forced to medically retire before 20 years lose retirement pay dollar for dollar against their VA disability check. Veterans groups call it the “wounded veteran tax.” The fix has 316 House and 77 Senate cosponsors, including Tampa Bay’s own Gus Bilirakis. It has gone three Congresses without a floor vote. A discharge petition to force one was three signatures short in July.
The Feed Our Veterans Act (H.R. 7383). It would restore the SNAP exemption veterans had for decades. It was sent to the House Agriculture Committee on Feb. 4. No hearing. No vote.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237). House leaders bundled the Star Act with 60-plus other bills. Then they paid for it partly by cutting how future tinnitus and sleep apnea claims are rated, the two conditions veterans file for most. Disabled American Veterans told its members the bad outweighed the good. Leadership pulled it from the floor on July 16, right after surviving a 211-210 vote, and it may come back this month.
Credit where it’s due: Congress did pass a fix in July that lets disabled homeless veterans use housing vouchers. The president held it up over an unrelated voting bill, and it became law without his signature.
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So it can be done. They just keep choosing not to.
The charity tax
Here’s what happens when Washington won’t pay: you do.
In 2023, Americans gave $3.7 billion to charities serving military members and veterans, on top of the taxes they already paid, according to Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. There are more than 40,000 veteran nonprofits in this country. That’s a second tax, and it’s voluntary only until you look a homeless vet in the eye.
Here in Tampa Bay, the gap gets filled by groups like Vincentian CARES (formerly St. Vincent de Paul CARES), which has served more than 14,700 veterans since 2013 and opened a 60-bed veterans shelter in Tampa with Hillsborough County in August. Tampa Crossroads, Metropolitan Ministries, Boley Centers and New Beginnings of Tampa fill it too. Nationally it’s the Wounded Warrior Project, DAV, Fisher House, Tunnel to Towers and Homes For Our Troops: golf tournaments, 5Ks, bake sales and GoFundMe pages.
And even those groups run partly on VA grants: $1.2 billion this fall to 680 groups, $113 million of it in Florida. Those grants are the part that’s working, and they’re paid for by the same agency that just lost tens of thousands of workers.
These people are heroes. But we shouldn’t need heroes to cover a bill the country already signed. When a veteran’s next meal depends on whether a golf tournament sells out, that’s not gratitude. That’s a government that outsourced its promise to your wallet and your church.
So ask your member of Congress: why are we passing the hat for people our tax dollars already owe?
The oath
Every one of them swore an oath to the Constitution. Not to a president. Not to a party. “Shut up and follow orders” isn’t in it.
You don’t honor that oath by demanding obedience at home while the freedoms they swore to defend get stripped one executive order at a time. You honor it by defending those freedoms yourself.
What it would take to mean it
Give the Major Richard Star Act its floor vote, clean, without cutting other veterans to pay for it.
Restore VA staffing to the levels Congress already told the VA to keep.
Bring back veterans’ exemption from SNAP work rules.
Fund the housing programs that worked, every year, not just in a press release.
Make Congress vote before troops are sent to war.
Count the dead honestly.
Thank a vet today. Then call your member of Congress tomorrow, when nobody’s taking pictures.
If you’re a veteran who needs help right now: Veterans Crisis Line: dial 988, then press 1, or text 838255. Homeless or about to be: National Call Center for Homeless Veterans, 877-4AID-VET (877-424-3838), or VA.gov/homeless.
Looking for today’s ceremonies and free meals for veterans? Here’s our Tampa Bay Veterans Day guide.
This is an opinion piece. Facts are sourced below.
Sources
HUD 2025 point-in-time count, via Stateline (Aug. 20, 2026) and Task & Purpose
American Legion: “HUD point-in-time count shows slight decrease in homeless veterans” (June 23, 2026)
VA press releases: VA houses 51,936 homeless veterans in FY2025; Bay Pines (953) and Tampa/Haley (Nov.–Dec. 2025); WUSF (Dec. 5, 2025)
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “Veterans Have Borne Trump Administration’s Deep Cuts to Federal Personnel”
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Democratic staff report, January 2026, via Government Executive
Stateline / Texas Standard / USDA guidance on SNAP work requirements under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
American Legion: “Veteran suicides at 17.7 per day, based on latest VA report” (Oct. 5, 2026); VA 2025 report on homeless veteran suicide rate, via Connecting Vets
White House FY2027 budget request: Breaking Defense, Reuters/Anadolu (April 2026)
Stars and Stripes: “Pentagon raises official death toll from Iran war to 23” (Oct. 29, 2026); The Intercept; Washington Post reporting on the undercount
NBC News: identification of the service members killed in Kuwait (March 2026)
Fox News, Senate intelligence hearing, March 18, 2026 (Gabbard and the “imminent threat” claim)
Major Richard Star Act: MOAA (cosponsor counts, Bilirakis), Military Times (54,000 veterans), Task & Purpose / Military.com (discharge petition)
Feed Our Veterans Act, H.R. 7383: Congress.gov / GovInfo; Rep. Gabe Vasquez release (Feb. 4, 2026)
Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, H.R. 9237: House Clerk Roll Call 249 (July 16, 2026); Stars and Stripes; The Hill; Task & Purpose; The American Prospect (Nov. 11, 2026)
Housing Unhoused Disabled Veterans Act becoming law without signature: Rep. Brad Sherman releases (June 24 and July 11, 2026)
Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Military and Veteran Charitable Index ($3.7 billion, 2023), via NonProfit Times; Cause IQ (number of veteran organizations)
Vincentian CARES / St. Vincent de Paul CARES: Fox 13; Hillsborough County (Aug. 3, 2026); Bay News 9 (Oct. 7, 2026)
VA homeless grants ($1.2 billion; $113 million Florida): VA Tampa release (Sept. 14, 2026); Bay News 9 (Oct. 6, 2026)
Iraq: 2004 Iraq Survey Group (Duelfer) report; Defense Casualty Analysis System