10-10EZ - Unhoused/No Address option

[hdjustice]

❗ Feature on hold until Summer 2025 due to the VES team working on a new API that will incorporate the option to receive the data from VA.gov 10-10EZ form.

Benefit to the Veteran

As a Veteran, I want to be able to apply for VA health benefits online even if I don't have a fixed address, so that I don't have to go to a physical location to apply or feel restricted by the form's address requirement.

Hypothesis or Bet

If we add an option on the 10-10EZ form for unhoused Veterans to indicate they do not have a home or mailing address, then we expect to see an increase in the number of 10-10EZ form submissions from unhoused Veterans

OKR

Which Objective / Key Result does this epic push forward?

Background

• The online 10-10EZ form requires a mailing and home address, which unhoused Veterans may not have. This restricts them from applying for VA health benefits online.
• We are adding an option on the 10-10EZ form for unhoused Veterans to indicate they do not have an address. When selected, the form will default to the selected facility address and send a "bad address" indicator to the Enrollment System.
• Dependency
  • The Enrollment System team needs to be ready to receive and process the "bad address" indicator.
  • Coordination with HEC stakeholders regarding the communication strategy for reaching unhoused Veterans.

Resources

• Initiative brief
• Design links
• Screenshots
• Reference docs/tickets where we have this kind of work documented
• Etc.

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Acceptance Criteria/Definition of Done

• An option is added to the 10-10EZ form allowing Veterans to indicate they do not have an address.
• When the "no address" option is selected, the form defaults to the selected facility address.
• A "bad address" indicator is sent to the Enrollment System upon form submission.
• EZ Form Submissions from unhoused Veterans are tracked and measured.
• User testing confirms that unhoused Veterans are able to easily use the new option and complete the form.

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[jessicastump]

Placing the link to the VADS documentation for the Housing status pattern here in case it is helpful during discovery

[hdjustice]

Things I found that might be useful

• VHA directive for the HCHV program PDF
• Figma file from IVC - 10-10d form
• Slack convo in #benefits-decision-reviews channel on Robin testing the Unhoused component
• Comment from Mitch on populations

Mitch Saltykov
Feb 5th at 5:40 PM
Re: unhoused veterans,
quick googling got me a US unhoused population count of ~650,000 in Jan 2023 (endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness) with ~36,000 of those being unhoused Veterans (va.gov/HOMELESS/pit_count.asp)
(This apparently dropped by 7.5% in January 2024 due to a big effort by the VA!)

[hdjustice]

@hdjustice Need to talk with Josh F on how VES works, based on convo with Simone that the staff will enter selected/preferred facility address and [indicate somehow] that they are homeless (or a bad address indicator of some sort)

[hdjustice]

Also, not a fan of the VADS pattern as it is today. Looking for a minimal change to the UI that allow the Veteran to indicate they do not have a mailing address they want to provide, and have this sent to VES in a meaningful way

[hdjustice]

Convo with Josh Faulkner:

Heather Justice
May 13th at 1:53 PM
Joshua Faulkner

• is there any way to pull data on how many Veterans have that 'bad address' indicator (based on not providing a home or mailing address)?

Joshua Faulkner
May 13th at 1:57 PM
not the second part with it based on not being provided, it has to be provided unless they are homeless

Heather Justice
May 13th at 1:58 PM
Gotcha. Would you be able to pull any volume on the "homeless" attribute?

Joshua Faulkner
May 13th at 2:02 PM
yes, homeless is one of the bad address reason. it is not an 'indicator' as commonly referenced, the field is bad address reason, not bad address indicator. Few mins.

--OTHER 5597
--ADDRESS NOT FOUND 747
--HOMELESS 2740

that is among enrolled vets only

[hdjustice]

Additional info from Josh F:

2. When we talked with Simone about how staff handles a Veteran who does not have a permanent address (unhoused, does not want to provide, etc), she mentioned that they would use the preferred facility address and somehow have a "bad address" flag on it

• I can't remember what the screen looks like, is there a checkbox or some way to indicate that the Veteran does not have a permanent address?
  • [Josh F] Not exactly, it’s a dropdown with a reason list, they will select the reason of Homeless in this use case where they use the facility address, other reason for bad address is Undeliverable.
• Do you know if there Is any special handling for these Veterans, other than using the facility address as their mailing address?
  • [Josh F] There is no special handling in terms of their eligibility or enrollment determinations. A residential address is required in order to do community care referrals though.
• Does this create a manual workflow/review process, even if the Veteran does not have any Toxic exposure or special eligibilities?
  • [Josh F] No, their mailing address is not relevant to their eligibility decision, but it is still important for them to receive their correspondence around those decisions.
• We are looking at ways we might be able to do this on VA.gov, allowing some sort of indicator that they don't have an address to provide. Open to any thoughts you might have from your perspective
  • [Josh F] It can be as simple as providing a bad address reason/flag, which from self service should only be for reason of homeless, that I can think of. In that case we can auto set it to their preferred facility address and set the bad address reason.