NYC VETERANS ALLIANCE: COMING TOGETHER TO SERVE OUR VETERANS
L
BY KRISTEN ROUSE
ast year I met with
a group of veterans and service
providers to talk
about the state of
the NYC veterans
community as we
saw it—a seeming multitude of organizations and
people doing great work
to serve and empower veterans in NYC, yet little coordination between them
or to help more veterans
find them, and no NYCbased organization that
could more broadly articulate what the needs of our
community actually are.
We’ve also lacked a unified voice when it comes to
important local-level policies that could truly make
a difference in the lives
of NYC veterans, service
members, and their families.
That’s why we started
the NYC Veterans Alliance. I’m proud to be
leading the effort to establish the Alliance as
a member-driven organization that will better
connect, inform, advocate
Coming Together: Veteran’s Alliance Members
for, and empower NYC’s
more than 220,000 veterans and service members.
With the help of other veteran leaders, and working
with organizations like
the United War Veterans
Council, IAVA, Veteran
Advocacy Project, Easter
Seals, Military Resilience
Project, and many others—we’re already becoming a trusted source
for NYC veterans news,
information, policy recommendations, and our
Community Calendar listing of events across the
NY Metro area for veterans, service members, and
their families.
Earlier this year, we
reached out to the NYC
veterans community in an
online survey of local veterans policy initiatives,
and we included the survey results in an in-depth
report on NYC veterans
policy that went to policymakers and members of
our community. We produced the Forum on NYC
Veterans Policy at the
New York Public Library
last July. We’ve testified
in front of the NYC Council and engaged with the
Mayor’s Office of Veterans Affairs and the Public
Advocate to speak up for
better policies. And this is
just the beginning.