With more than 30,000 veterans experiencing homelessness across the United States, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation strives to make a difference in the lives of our nation’s heroes.
In 2023, the national non-profit launched their Homeless Veteran Program to provide veterans with housing and access to supportive services. Their first Veterans Village location, Houston Veterans Village, is a fully renovated hotel that can house over 100 veterans. “Since we started the program in 2023, we've been able to offer financial assistance and access to these supportive services to over 17,500 veterans through the end of 2025, and over 8,000 of their children,” said Gavin Naples, senior vice president of the Homeless Veteran Program.
For the Houston Village, Tunnel to Towers partnered with a local organization, U.S. Vets, to provide 24/7 assistance in behavioral health, employment, entitlements, finances, among others. The complex is also equipped with multipurpose rooms, game rooms, workforce development spaces, gyms, and more. “It's high-quality, dignified, affordable housing for men and women veterans who are struggling with homelessness or coming out of homelessness,” Naples said. “But you need to provide a platform of rehabilitation and reintegration back into the community, which is our ultimate objective with this program – to sort of address those root causes.”
Naples explains that the foundation chose Houston to jumpstart the program due to the city’s high rates of homeless veterans. Recently, they completed Phase II of the Houston Village where they added 14 comfort homes for senior citizen veterans.
While Houston Veterans Village offers permanent housing, Naples said the ultimate goal is to assist veterans in achieving financial stability and independence. “It's not enough to just put a roof over their head,” Naples said. “You need to identify why people are struggling with homelessness. Whether it's a legal issue, a financial issue, a PTSD issue, or a drug, alcohol, or a rehabilitation issue, we have 24/7 services on site to address this.”
Most of the program’s Veterans Villages are located in large metro areas with high rates of homelessness. However, Tunnel To Tower’s National Case Management Network provides boots on the ground services for veterans and their families who might not have access to one of the villages.
“If any veteran or their family is struggling with homelessness, or about to backslide into homelessness, they can call our foundation and we have an internal team of case managers, behavioral health specialists, housing coordinators, and employment coordinators that work with these veterans and their families to provide financial assistance and get them housed,” he said.
Formed after 9/11, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation aims to assist the nation’s veterans and first responders. The Homeless Veteran Program currently has about 20 Veterans Village projects in active stages of development and predevelopment across the nation. Naples said the program’s goal is to build over 100 villages in the next 10 years. “The response that we’ve received from the surrounding community has just been amazing,” Naples said. “It makes a meaningful difference to make sure that our veterans know that they are a part of the community as we provide that platform of reintegration.”
Veterans can apply for the one of Veterans Villages or National Case Management Network by visiting t2t.org.
“We think it's been a tremendous success,” Naples said. “We're very excited to expand our footprints in the state of Texas and in the United States.”