Veterans, dignity, and a state that keeps its promises

Drew in 2007 taking the oath of enlistment for his third term of service, this time changing uniforms and transfering into the Utah Army National Guard. Note: Drew Howells is a medically retired veteran of the United States Air Force, the Utah Air National Guard, and the Utah Army National Guard. Use of his military rank, titles, images, and photographs from his service does not imply endorsement by the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, the Utah National Guard, or the Department of Defense.)

Utah has never been short on gratitude for veterans. What it has too often lacked is a state system with enough authority, capacity, and leverage to turn that gratitude into results when other systems fail.

Utah has committed people doing important work through the Department of Veterans and Military Affairs. Its accredited Veteran Service Officers help veterans file claims, navigate appeals, and understand benefits they have earned. The department oversees veterans homes, coordinates services, and connects people with resources across the state.

That work matters. It also needs to be expanded for the reality veterans now face.

During fiscal year 2025, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs reduced its workforce by approximately 30,000 employees. Federal officials have said those reductions will not harm care, benefits, or services, and the VA has reported progress in several areas, including claims processing and appointment access.

I hope those assurances hold.

But hope is not a state policy, and I do not have to speculate about what the loss of federal providers looks like. I am living it.

In the past year alone, I have personally lost three of my own VA healthcare providers. Some left through earlier-than-expected retirement. Others left because the working conditions had become unmanageable. Through my veterans advocacy work, I have heard the same story from veterans across Utah: trusted doctors, therapists, caseworkers, and other providers are leaving, and the veterans who depended on them are being reassigned into a system that was already under strain.

That is not a statistic to me. It is the disruption of care I rely on, and I have watched it happen to people I know.

Depending on the provider’s role and clinic, a single mental-health clinician may be responsible for a panel of 300 to 500 veterans. When that provider leaves, it is not one vacant position. It is hundreds of disrupted relationships. It is hundreds of people being reassigned, waiting for appointments, explaining their history again, and trying to rebuild trust with someone new.

When several providers leave across the same healthcare system, the consequences ripple out to thousands of veterans. Their cases do not disappear. They are transferred to clinicians who are already carrying full workloads. Appointments become harder to schedule. Continuity breaks down. The remaining providers are stretched even further, making it more likely that they will burn out and leave too.

Then the damage spreads beyond the VA. It reaches spouses, caregivers, workplaces, community clinics, emergency rooms, crisis lines, shelters, and every other system expected to absorb the consequences when veterans cannot get consistent care.

Utah should not design its veterans system around the assumption that a federal bureaucracy this large, changing this quickly, will always identify every problem, reach every rural community, resolve every wrongful denial, or catch every veteran before a bureaucratic delay becomes a personal crisis. Even when the federal VA is functioning well overall, individual veterans still get lost between offices, eligibility rules, medical systems, appeals processes, and agencies that do not communicate with one another.

“It is a federal issue” cannot be the sentence that ends Utah’s responsibility.

My position is simple and unapologetic: if our state benefits politically, economically, and culturally from military service, then our state has a responsibility to make sure veterans are not left navigating broken or overwhelmed systems alone once the uniform comes off.

The federal VA should be the floor, not the ceiling. Utah should work alongside it when it functions, press it when it fails, and build state-level support wherever veterans are still falling through the gaps.

We cannot change federal staffing policy from the Utah Legislature. But we are not powerless, and pretending otherwise is a choice.

I support creating a state-funded veterans care continuity program through the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs. When federal staffing losses interrupt care, the state should be able to provide temporary bridge services until consistent federal care is restored. That could include short-term counseling, community mental-health referrals, medication-management coordination, peer support, crisis navigation, telehealth access, and assistance finding qualified providers who understand military trauma.

The state should also be able to contract with community clinicians and organizations to add capacity when local VA systems are overwhelmed. Those partnerships must be funded at rates that allow qualified professionals to participate without taking a financial loss. A referral is meaningless if no provider can afford to accept it.

This would not replace the federal VA or excuse Washington from its obligations. It would protect veterans from becoming collateral damage while agencies argue about jurisdiction, staffing, and budgets. Utah should continue demanding that the federal government keep its promises while making sure veterans receive care in the meantime.

I want to expand the mission, authority, and funding of the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs so it is not treated primarily as a service directory, ceremonial office, or liaison between disconnected systems. It should be an active advocate with real capacity to intervene, coordinate, document failures, and follow a veteran’s case until someone is accountable for the outcome.

That begins by strengthening the department’s existing network of accredited Veteran Service Officers. These professionals already help Utah veterans prepare claims and navigate appeals. We should give them the staffing, training, legal partnerships, technology, and regional reach needed to become a true statewide advocacy network.

A veteran facing an improper denial, a stalled claim, a healthcare referral that goes nowhere, or conflicting instructions from multiple agencies should have one person who can take ownership of the problem and help move it forward. Veterans should not need a law degree, a congressional connection, or a personal crisis before the system becomes responsive.

I support creating a formal veterans ombudsman and case-advocacy structure within the department, with the authority to coordinate across state agencies, work directly with federal VA officials, identify repeated failures, and escalate unresolved cases through Utah’s congressional delegation when necessary.

The state cannot overturn every federal decision. It can make sure veterans are represented, their cases are documented, agencies are forced to communicate, and patterns of failure are brought into the light rather than disappearing inside individual files.

This expanded mission should be driven by data and public accountability. Utah should track where veterans repeatedly encounter barriers— mental healthcare, rural access, disability claims, women veterans’ services, caregiver support, housing, legal assistance, aging, and the transition from military to civilian life.

That information should be reported publicly and used for two purposes: pressing the federal government to correct recurring failures and building state-level support where the consequences cannot wait for Washington.

Veterans are not a monolith. They come home with different experiences, different wounds, different strengths, different families, and different needs. Some served on active duty. Some served in the Guard or Reserve. Some left the military decades ago. Others are still learning how to live outside an institution that structured nearly every part of their day.

A serious system has to be designed for that human complexity.

The need is especially clear as Utah’s veteran population ages. Roughly 44% of Utah veterans are now 65 or older. Demand for skilled nursing, memory care, home-based services, caregiver support, transportation, and help navigating benefits will continue to grow.

Utah operates four veterans homes in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Payson, and Ivins. Those facilities are important, but institutional care cannot be the only answer. Many veterans want to remain in their own homes, close to their families, neighbors, routines, and communities.

For veterans in rural Utah, distance can turn every appointment, assessment, and service into a logistical burden. Limited transportation, provider shortages, and the exhaustion placed on family caregivers can make aging in place far more difficult than it should be.

A veteran should not have to leave their community simply because the support needed to remain there does not exist.

I support expanding home- and community-based services for aging and disabled veterans, including caregiver respite, transportation assistance, home modifications, mobile outreach, telehealth support, and coordination between state programs, local providers, and the federal VA. We should be helping veterans remain independent for as long as safely possible, not waiting until a preventable crisis forces them into a higher level of care.

The state should also fill gaps the federal system does not cover well, cannot reach quickly, or was never designed to address by itself. That includes mental health and peer support, legal assistance involving housing and civilian life, employment and retraining programs that account for disability, family and caregiver services, and transition support that begins before separation and continues long after discharge.

Transition is not a single appointment where someone receives a folder of phone numbers and is wished good luck. It is a process.

A person can leave military service with an honorable discharge, professional skills, and a carefully written transition plan, then discover six months later that their health is deteriorating, their family is struggling, their civilian employer does not understand their limitations, or the benefits process is taking far longer than expected.

Support should remain available when the problem actually appears, not only when the military calendar says the transition is complete.

Housing stability must be central to this vision. Veteran homelessness is not a moral failure by individuals. It is a systems failure. It is what happens when trauma, disability, addiction, medical needs, housing costs, family disruption, bureaucratic delay, and inadequate support collide.

Utah can do better than waiting until someone reaches full collapse and then acting surprised by the outcome.

The first priority must be prevention. Emergency rental support, landlord mediation, legal assistance, rapid benefits intervention, utility help, and discharge planning can keep a temporary crisis from becoming homelessness. The cheapest and most humane homelessness program is preventing someone from losing their home in the first place.

When homelessness has already occurred, veterans need immediate access to safe shelter and a direct route back to permanent housing.

I support developing a state-of-the-art, veteran-centered shelter and transitional housing hub as part of a broader housing network grounded in dignity, evidence, and welcome— not punishment, exclusion, or containment.

It should not become a warehouse for people society wants out of sight. It should not become a segregated campus where veterans remain indefinitely because the surrounding housing system has nowhere for them to go. It should be a genuine on-ramp to stability, connected to permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, affordable apartments, healthcare, and community-based services.

That means low-barrier access. Veterans should not be turned away simply because they are struggling with addiction, mental illness, trauma, or symptoms connected to the very experiences for which they need help.

Sobriety should not be the price of admission to physical safety. Stability often creates the conditions in which recovery becomes possible— not the other way around.

A veteran-centered model should include onsite mental healthcare, voluntary substance-use treatment, harm-reduction services, medical coordination, benefits advocacy, legal assistance, employment support, and direct pathways into permanent housing.

It must also recognize the reality of veterans’ relationships with animals. Service animals must be fully accommodated as the law requires. Facilities should also create practical, pet-friendly options wherever possible for veterans whose companion animals are central to their emotional stability and may be the only consistent relationship they have left.

A policy that forces someone to choose between shelter and an animal they rely on will guarantee that some veterans remain outside. Welcome matters. Dignity matters. The details determine whether a service is truly accessible.

This housing hub should function as a point of connection, not a dead end. Case management should be individualized, trauma-informed, and focused on outcomes— securing benefits, stabilizing health, rebuilding community ties, and moving people into permanent housing as quickly and safely as possible.

Success should not be measured by how many beds remain filled. It should be measured by how many veterans no longer need them.

Funding this work is not charity. It is responsibility. Leaving veterans in chronic homelessness shifts enormous costs into emergency rooms, law enforcement, courts, jails, crisis response, and the treatment of medical conditions made worse by life outside.

Stable housing and coordinated care are more humane, but they are also more fiscally responsible. The cheapest homelessness program is prevention. The next best option is ending homelessness quickly instead of paying indefinitely for the consequences of allowing it to continue.

This expanded state role will require stronger coordination among the Department of Veterans and Military Affairs, housing authorities, healthcare systems, workforce programs, local governments, legal providers, tribal communities, nonprofits, and veterans organizations.

Veterans should not be bounced from office to office while every agency insists the problem belongs to someone else. The state should function as the quarterback— aligning systems, establishing responsibility, and making sure a human being does not have to absorb all the friction between institutions.

As a veteran, I have no patience for symbolic gratitude paired with practical abandonment.

“Thank you for your service” without functioning systems is not respect. It is performance.

Respect looks like access. It looks like competent casework. It looks like a returned phone call, a claim followed through to the end, a safe place to sleep, an appointment close enough to reach, and a government that does not force veterans to beg, wait, or break before help arrives.

This is also about trust. When veterans see their state respond clearly, competently, and without stigma, it reinforces something larger than a single program. It shows that service still matters, public institutions can still be worthy of trust, and promises are meant to be kept even when keeping them becomes difficult.

My vision for Utah’s veterans policy is grounded in the same principle that runs through my entire platform: stewardship.

We do not use people up and discard them. We do not celebrate sacrifice and then look away from its consequences. We build systems that honor service with substance, recognize human complexity, and plan for the long term.

A just state meets veterans where they are, not where it is most convenient.

Expanding the Utah Department of Veterans and Military Affairs into a stronger, well-funded, and empowered advocate is how we begin closing the distance between promises and reality— and make sure no Utah veteran is left alone inside that gap.