Hello, BG Tom Landwermeyer from Homes For Our Troops here, I'll be by on Tuesday for a Q&A, what questions do you have for me?

With the direction from our National Board, I don’t see HFOT changing our mindset of being a grassroots organization in the foreseeable future. Since 2004, we have spent almost 90 cents of every donated dollar on building our homes. Maintaining overhead costs around 10% remains a principle we are proud of and work hard at maintaining every year. We will continue to spend minimal money on advertising, however if a celebrity comes along and wants to support us, we would absolutely accept the help. We won’t be paying them to promote us, but we welcome their desire to help our Veterans and the exposure that could come with their involvement.

Thank you for answering Sir. Thank you for staying humble yet willing to accept help without 'selling the soul'. DUTY FIRST Sir!!

Wow…your questions sound like they came from a senior NCO!!! Great stuff, Sarah…thank you. My thoughts……. First…everyone is going to fail. Failure is how we learn and get better. So, leaders have to set their subordinates up for success, but understand failures will come. When they happen, leaders stand in front of subordinates and take responsibility for what went wrong. When things go well, leaders stand behind their subordinates and ensure they get the accolades. Leader failures…To begin with, leaders must openly own up to their failure. They have to take responsibility for it. They don’t have to take out a full page ad for the world to see, but they should absolutely apologize to those who need to know. They should analyze what they did wrong, learn from it and commit to fix/change whatever behavior is required. Then leaders have to move forward. You can’t just quit. Accept responsibility; own it; reflect; change; continue to attack! Everyone learns through failure…even leaders. Thank you Sarah…could discuss leadership forever.

Thank you it is refreshing to hear affirmation that apologies are not a sign of weakness but a sign of healing.

BG Tom Landwermeyer Sir, in the age of the Internet and instant communications, people are all to aware of business and programs who have been scammed.
After HFOT was taken advantage of by the likes of Justin Perez-Gorda can you give us any details of how HFOT upgraded or changed your vetting process to protect the integrity of the program, ensuring only the most qualified receive the generous and awesome assistance HFOT has been able to provide. I think readers would like to hear the process and protection you have implemented that might allow them to donate with confidence.
Respectfully

SGM Erik Marquez, Ret

Erik, thank you so much for coming out and helping. We couldn’t do what we do without volunteers yourself. I look forward to seeing you at the next one. Please make sure you come and introduce yourself.

Thanks for your second question as well. As mentioned in another question, the first qualifying criterion to come into the Homes For Our Troops program is to be badly injured enough to qualify for Specially Adapted Housing benefits from the VA. The VA makes that determination based on its medical assessment of the Veteran's injuries. As you can imagine, we do not have the medical expertise on our staff to make that call, and we do not second guess these medical assessments. When this individual made the news with his actions, we conducted a thorough review of his application process to see if we had missed anything, and confirmed that our process is sound. In the future, should the VA determine that he misrepresented his injuries, we will take appropriate action based on the facts.

Mary, thank you for the question. I wish I was an expert on HUD-VASH, but regrettably I am not. The best resource I could find that describes the program, eligibility requirements, etc. is on the VA’s site: https://www.va.gov/homeless/hud-vash.asp I definitely agree that a support structure present is absolutely a necessity for our Veteran population to be able to deal with the unique issues they face. Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.

Thank you BG Tom Landwermeyer Sir.

In addition to being injured in the theater of combat, post-9/11, a Veteran must be approved for the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) benefits by the Veterans Administration. These benefits are provided to Veterans with severe physical injuries, which may include one or more amputations, full or partial paralysis, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). You can go to this page on our website and it will give you the specific details: https://www.hfotusa.org/help/

Great cause, Thank You Sir!

Chris, that is an excellent question. Using VA estimates, we believe there are still well over 1,000 post-9/11 Veterans that need one of our homes. We have placed more emphasis on our fundraising efforts here (the resultant increase you noted), and we’re working on a FY18 budget that again has a double-digit revenue increase. This allows us to put more quality specially adapted homes on the ground faster, so these most deserving Veterans and Families can get on with rebuilding their lives. In the distant future, if there were no more severely injured Veterans that needed these homes, we would happily “fold our tent” and walk away proud of what we were able to accomplish. However, as a career Soldier, I don’t see the need going away…and the need is certainly there today…so we will continue to attack!

Thanks very much, Stanley. It’s an honor to continue to serve!

There are a lot of great questions here, but I’m going to tell you what we do at HFOT to set the Veteran home recipients up for success. HFOT requires the Veteran to participate in a financial planning program with a pro bono financial planner for three years. Additionally, HFOT provides the Veteran with information on property tax exemptions for which he/she may qualify. Although the Veteran pays no mortgage, there are still taxes, insurance, utilities and general homeowner upkeep expenditures that the Veteran is responsible for. We do everything we can to ensure they are successful homeowners.

Thanks Louis. A unique aspect of HFOT is that after we donate the home to one of our Veterans and their Family, we stay in touch with them. 1) We want to ensure we stay aware of any issues with the home so we can get them fixed. 2) We are constantly in the process of modifying our home plans and rely on feedback from those living in our homes to tell us what works, what doesn’t and what could be better. 3) While “Building Homes” is what we do, most important, and what we are proudest of, are what the Veterans are accomplishing in the “Rebuilding Lives” aspect. Maintaining contact with our Veterans provides them with a greater support network if they need it, and also provides us with plenty of substantive impact of the homes, which is what savvy donors want to know.