Tallahassee Mayor John Marks is in Washington D.C. to take part in a national discussion about ending veteran homelessness. He says White House officials could even use Florida’s Capital city as a model.
Wednesday’s meeting at the White House is part of an ongoing initiative called the Mayors Challenge to challenge mayors across the U.S. to end veteran homelessness in their cities by the end of 2015. Marks says there are multiple reasons why he’s attending.
“1) I am a Mayor, 2) I’m a veteran, and I’m pretty sure they know that, and 3) we’re doing a lot of things in Tallahassee to assist our veterans. And, I believe they want to know what we’re doing, how it’s working, and if there’s something that we can do better or something else we can help them with,” said Marks.
Some of the city’s latest initiatives include the annual North Florida Homeless Veterans Stand Down, which provides veterans with free access to different services, like food, medical services, and job counseling. Marks says he’s also planning to talk to city commissioners soon about another proposal aimed at providing free bus services to veterans.
“Those disabled and homeless veterans, I want them to have the ability to go back and forth between jobs, health care facilities, homes, etc. And, sometimes, transportation can be an issue. So, I want to cut that issue out and hopefully, we can get something like that passed very soon,” added Marks.
Marks says he believes Tallahassee has a strong chance of ending Veteran homelessness in 2015.
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