VA's $571 million suicide prevention plan isn't working, vets say

Veteran advocates are calling on recently confirmed Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins to investigate why the millions of dollars that the agency spends each year to prevent suicides has yet to significantly curtail the number of veterans who take their own lives.

The VA received an estimated $571 million for suicide prevention efforts in Fiscal Year 2024, which ran from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, and it requested even more money for this fiscal year, according to the VA’s latest budget request.

In a press release, Grunt Style Foundation, a veteran advocacy group, pressed Collins to look at how the VA’s suicide prevention funds are being used.
“We’re looking at 156,000 of our brothers and sisters that have taken their lives over the last 20 years,” Tim Jensen, president of Grunt Style Foundation, told Task & Purpose “That is just frankly unacceptable.”

The foundation has partnered with Veterans of Foreign Wars on looking at different ways to prevent veteran suicide, such as promoting alternative treatments for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health issues that veterans face, said VFW spokesman Robert Couture. Both organizations also seek to reduce the stigma that veterans face when they seek mental help.