In a brief (and rare) moment of camaraderie, VA Secretary Eric “Chia Pet” Shinseki and  HUD Secretary Shaun ” Shu-Shu” Donovan decided to go slumming on the streets of DC last Thursday night. Their mission? Find homeless Vets and other “home-challenged” persons with formerly underwater HUD mortgages.

Using a hunter’s variation of the decoy method supplemented with a  duck call, Donovan’s security detail occasionally engaged their siren in addition to using the flashing red and blue lights on their black Yukon Denali which has been proven time and again  to attract the homeless. Donovan’s head of security, Brad Reunsch commented  “Nothing gets them up and moving like the sound of cops coming to roust them. This makes it easier for us to spot them. It sorta reminds me of poaching deer at night. They freeze up when we hit ’em with the lights.”

Secretary Shinseki shared his views on counting the Vets. He’s impressed with Donovan’s technique of “boots on the ground” search missions. “Before, we’d open a window on the ninth floor down at Vermont Ave, and yell down to people to raise their hands if they were homeless. It wasn’t giving us accurate numbers so we went over to HUD and asked them how they did it. We got valuable input by going outside the box. Sometimes that’s how you have to do it. While the point-in time numbers of actual homeless vets went up, the numbers, as a percentage actually decreased even though it looks like a shit ton more. The guys over in the Homeless section at HUD tell me it’s simply a trick of perspective and how you cook the statistics. We’re learning from them and now count them as shareholders in our endeavor.”

The Secretaries, accompanied by a horde of “volunteers”, descended on the Capitol Hill United Methodist Church after breaking bread and indulging in aged,  fifteen year old bottles of Merlot next door at an area restaurant.  The bill for this extravaganza was graciously picked up by Secretary Shinseki as they have a much larger entertainment budget than HUD. Subtle inquiries as  to the actual cost revealed it to be less than $10,000.00 before the obligatory 18% tip for large groups.The volunteers are all salaried so this author finds the term “volunteers” questionable at best. Paid research workers seems far more apropos.

Secretary Shinseki complained loudly about the freezing temperatures and the inconvenience of drinking cold B&B during the outing. “Homeless Veterans need to know that we have programs to help them but they need to seek services on the 9 to 5 program. We’re not geared up to come out at night looking for them. It’s so uncivilized. I think everyone would agree that’s unworkable.” Relying on his phalanx of GS-4 Mailroom volunteers, Shinseki  retired early to a warm SUV and exhorted his VA employees to work diligently for several hours. A good time was reportedly had by all and several homeless Vets were discovered and interviewed. They were deluged in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Starbucks™ instant coffee packets and gift cards from McDonald’s®. Following the presentation of the “gifts”, volunteers were greeted with a mixed response.

Vietnam Veteran Bob “REMF” Scharnhorst asked that the volunteers hang around for a while after he consumed the doughnuts because he has “a rather severe case of DM2” and had no insulin.  He had been promised a refill at St. Elizabeth’s several months earlier but apparently there was a mixup.    The VASEC said he’d look into it personally when he got back to the office on Monday (three days hence). As for the Starbucks Via™ coffee, most of the homeless were at a loss as to how they can take advantage of it due to a severe shortage of hot, potable water on the streets.

Homeless “portacoffee”

The high caloric content and questionable nutritional value of the food offered at McDonald’s was glossed over by VA Deputy Secretary Scott “Fools” Gould:  “Well, sometimes you have to bite the bullet for a good warm meal. Get it? Bite the bullet? But seriously, there has to be a trade off between homelessness and high cholesterol chow. VA scientific research has shown that a good, warm meal chock full of empty calories is infinitely preferable to no calories at all. These Vets know that. They made that choice when they opted to be homeless. It’s a lifestyle decision and a poor one at that and we simply try to ameliorate that with some touchy, feely stuff like Krispy Kremes. Did I mention they give a 15% discount to Vets? We saved the taxpayers quite a bit on that this evening”.

This from the article:

Donovan’s group also found three men under the awning of a medical clinic off Constitution Avenue, including Michael Williams, 54, who was wearing a green fatigue jacket and identified himself as a former Marine. He had been homeless for years, he said.

“We’ve got some Krispy Kreme doughnuts that will hit the spot, and some hot coffee,” VA Deputy Secretary Scott Gould said.

W. Scott “Fools” Gould

Nothing like a big sugar hit and some hot coffee to keep you wide awake and provoke a nice diabetic coma. Gould neglected to mention the free cellular telephones, socks and Gideon Bibles available at all VAROs for the home challenged- the ones they disremembered to bring with them.

Don’t get me wrong. I applaud anyone venturing out at 2200 hrs in downtown DC trying to spread good will among men once a year. Counting them is also admirable. Calling up Steve Vogel and his merry band of media monkeys to observe and record it for the Sunday “Informal Living” section in the Washington Post reeks of hypocracy. Perhaps a more appropriate gesture would have been some intake clerks, a portable laptop hooked into VACOLS or the PIES database or a handful of analog 21-526s to get the ball rolling. Instead, we see the normal VA Dog and Pony Show approach in which the homeless are given the Queen for a Day treatment and a brand new Maytag® washer and dryer with no outlet (or domicile) to plug it into . Par for the course. This partially explains how we got into the backlog dilemma. Who said you can’t fine-tune VA’s problems with a thousand mile long screwdriver? It may take a little longer than 2015, but they’re “on it”.

Unidentified VA employee handing out kitchen appliances to homeless woman Veteran Thursday night.

While this may appear to be tongue in cheek humor, I feel Steve Vogel is being played like a small-mouth bass on a Heddon Tiny Torpedo. He’ll never become disentangled but does he want to be? His article today in the WP accepts everything hook, line and sinker offered by VA as unvarnished truth. VAOIG’s report to Congress belies that.  Investigative reporting ought to focus exclusively on the first word rather than the last.

Fish on!