CEO Darrell Irions leads the St. Petersburg Housing Authority (SPHA), based in the greater Tampa Bay region in Florida, in providing affordable rental housing to low-income families and individuals in accordance with United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regulations. HUD provides detailed guidelines for the structure and implementation of local housing programs, and SPHA consistently earns HUD's top designation in its compliance reviews. In this forum, Mr. Irions discusses HUD-VASH, a housing program designed to assist homeless veterans.

1. What Is the
HUD-VASH
Program?
Q and A with
Darrell Irions

2. Introducing Darrell Irions
CEO Darrell Irions leads the St.
Petersburg Housing Authority
(SPHA), based in the greater Tampa Bay
region in Florida, in providing affordable
rental housing to low-income families
and individuals in accordance with
United States Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD)
regulations. HUD provides detailed
guidelines for the structure and
implementation of local housing
programs, and SPHA consistently earns
HUD's top designation in its compliance
reviews. In the following
presentation, Mr. Irions discusses HUD-
VASH, a housing program designed to
assist homeless veterans.

3. What is the HUD-VASH
program?
HUD-VASH stands for Housing and Urban
Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive
Housing. The program provides subsidized
rental housing to homeless veterans through
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) and works with the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to
furnish other services.

4. How does the program work?
HUD provides housing vouchers to public
housing agencies (PHAs) in different parts of
the country, based on the number of
known homeless veterans in an area and
the performance of the local PHA. To do
this, HUD first identifies areas with high
numbers of homeless veterans. HUD works
with the VA to find local supportive
facilities, then identifies local PHAs and
invites them to apply for HUD-VASH
vouchers.

5. How large is the program?
Since 2008, 37,975 HUD vouchers have been
awarded to PHAs across the country. HUD
works with at least one PHA in every state,
plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and
Guam. At SPHA, we are administering 195 of
these vouchers.