VA Outreach Push Brings Tens of Thousands of Unenrolled Veterans Into Care

A national VA outreach campaign launched in January has led more than 33,000 previously unenrolled veterans to sign up for VA health care, and the agency reports it completed more than 5.3 million suicide risk screenings in 2025, roughly 200,000 more than the year before.

The push matters because of a number that haunts everyone who works in veteran suicide prevention: about 61 percent of veterans who die by suicide were not in recent VA health care. The veterans most at risk are, too often, the ones no system can see.

That is also why enrollment campaigns alone cannot finish the job. A veteran in Preston County who has spent twenty years avoiding the VA does not enroll because of a national ad campaign. He enrolls because somebody he trusts, often another veteran, sits across from him at the Legion post or the fire hall and walks him through it.

That is the gap between national outreach and local connection, and it is exactly where community organizations do their best work. The Eight Fifty Committee’s programs are built on that principle: meet veterans where they already are, earn the trust first, and the enrollment, the benefits, and the care follow.

If you are a veteran in North Central West Virginia and have never connected with the VA, or gave up on it years ago, reach out to us. We will walk the road with you.