Access, Privacy, Fundraising, Referrals, and the Feeling of "For Sale"
Introduction
Veterans experiencing homelessness often enter transitional housing at a moment when housing, income, transportation, benefits, healthcare, and personal stability are uncertain. That dependence can create a marketplace around the Veteran. Government agencies, nonprofit organizations, claims-assistance businesses, charities, donors, attorneys, healthcare providers, outreach groups, and community organizations may all seek to provide services or gain access. Most assistance is legitimate and valuable. The risk arises when access to the Veteran becomes more valuable to an organization than the service is to the Veteran.
Veterans interviewed and represented in the source material describe a recurring feeling that they are constantly “for sale”—as potential disability claims, clients, referrals, fundraising stories, photographs, videos, testimonials, or evidence of an organization’s charitable impact. This Part uses that phrase to describe the Veteran’s experience of commodification, not to suggest that every organization seeking to help Veterans is exploitative.
The appropriate safeguard is not isolation. GPD is supposed to connect Veterans to resources that support transition. Protection against exploitation therefore requires the opposite of a closed institution: broad access to legitimate services, combined with transparent rules, informed consent, privacy, accreditation where required, and meaningful Veteran choice.
The Marketplace Around Homeless Veterans
A substantial service economy surrounds Veterans’ benefits and homelessness. Assistance may include disability claims, discharge upgrades, legal services, employment, housing, healthcare, financial products, peer support, donations, transportation, and community outreach. Each can advance a Veteran’s transition when it responds to an identified need.
Organizational incentives nevertheless matter. A referral can produce a fee, a new client, a grant metric, a donor story, publicity, website content, or future fundraising. None of those benefits proves misconduct. They do create a reason for residential providers and VA oversight personnel to insist upon transparency.
- Requests for photographs, videos, testimonials, or personal stories.
- Fundraising based on a Veteran’s homelessness, disability, medical history, or recovery.
- Paid or unaccredited disability-claims assistance.
- Referrals involving undisclosed financial or business relationships.
- Solicitation inside a residential program where the Veteran may perceive participation as expected.
- Selective access that favors one outside organization while excluding other legitimate Veteran-serving groups.
“Veterans Feel They Are Constantly for Sale”
The phrase captures a power imbalance. A resident may depend on the same system for a bed, meals, transportation, case management, paperwork, and referrals. When an outside organization is introduced through that system, the Veteran may reasonably assume the organization has been screened, approved, or endorsed. The Veteran may also feel pressure to cooperate, especially when the interaction involves a benefit claim, donated goods, publicity, or promises of assistance.
A Veteran-centered system should reverse that dynamic. The Veteran should be the customer of the service system only in the broadest sense: the person whose interests control the transaction. The Veteran’s story, image, diagnosis, disability rating, benefits claim, and homelessness should not become organizational inventory.
Selective Access at Borden Avenue
The Borden Avenue record raises a specific access question. The April 2025 article supplied for this report alleges that community engagement and donation activity were frequently pushed outside the facility, while US Patriot Fund and its affiliated benefits-assistance operation were permitted repeated direct contact with residents. The current US Patriot Fund website independently documents repeated Borden Avenue activity and continues to publish Borden-specific posts and Veteran stories.
Pena reports that other Veteran-serving organizations—including harm-reduction providers, outreach organizations, and community-service groups—have faced barriers to entering the residence or providing services directly to residents. The supplied records do not establish a complete access log showing every organization admitted or denied, so this report does not characterize every exclusion as proven. The disparity warrants a basic oversight question: what written standard determines who is permitted access to Veterans inside Borden Avenue, and is that standard applied consistently?
The concern is especially significant because the US Patriot Fund website states that its mission includes educating indigent Veterans about disability benefits and maintaining donation revenue to support Veterans pursuing disability ratings. Its FAQ states that shelters and community programs contact the organization to evaluate Veterans’ eligibility to apply for or increase a VA disability rating. That model may provide assistance valued by some Veterans, but it also demonstrates why access, accreditation, consent, referrals, and financial relationships should be transparent.
NDAs, Public Officials, and an Unequal Privacy Standard
The access issue becomes more difficult to reconcile with reports concerning confidentiality agreements. The February 2025 source article states that then-Council Member Robert Holden signed an NDA or disclaimer before entering Borden Avenue during a donation event, while Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 32 declined to sign and was denied entry. Separately, official April 29, 2026 NYC Veterans Advisory Board minutes record that Phil Wong was attempting to gain access to Borden Avenue and was reportedly told that an NDA would be required.
Those accounts create an apparent contradiction: elected or advisory officials seeking to observe conditions or deliver assistance can encounter confidentiality restrictions, while a private organization has repeatedly obtained access to residents and published Borden Avenue content online. The issue is not that every visitor should receive unrestricted access. Residential privacy may justify strict controls. The oversight question is whether privacy rules are coherent, written, and applied equally—and whether they protect Veterans rather than merely restrict scrutiny.
Videos, Sensitive Information, and Fundraising
The April 2025 article alleges that representatives associated with US Patriot Fund and SOS Veteran Assistance recorded interactions with Borden Avenue Veterans involving disability-benefit assistance and sensitive personal information, then posted videos online. The US Patriot Fund website still contains multiple Borden Avenue posts, including entries titled “Borden Avenue Veteran – 10.19.2024,” “Another Borden Avenue Veteran Resident Applies For His Benefits – 5.2024,” and other Veteran-specific posts. The site also prominently solicits charitable support.
The supplied article characterizes the information shown or discussed in those recordings as HIPAA-protected. This report uses more precise language: the videos may contain sensitive health, disability, or benefits information, but whether HIPAA itself was violated depends on facts not established by the supplied materials, including who created or disclosed the information, whether the actor was a HIPAA covered entity or business associate, and what authorization the Veteran provided. A privacy concern can exist even when HIPAA does not apply.
That distinction does not diminish the policy issue. A Veteran living in a publicly funded transitional residence should understand whether recording is voluntary, what will be published, how long it will remain online, whether it will be used in fundraising, and whether refusing to participate will affect services. Consent to receive help should never be treated as consent to become promotional content.
VA Benefits Assistance and Accreditation
VA disability compensation can materially improve housing stability, which makes competent benefits assistance valuable. Federal law and VA rules, however, regulate who may represent Veterans before VA and when fees may be charged. VA maintains an accreditation system for recognized Veterans Service Organization representatives, attorneys, and claims agents.
The US Patriot Fund website describes a relationship with SOS Veterans Assistance and promotes assistance aimed at obtaining or increasing disability ratings. Its own materials should therefore be evaluated against the exact services performed: education and referral are different from preparing, presenting, or prosecuting a VA claim. This report does not make an independent legal finding that US Patriot Fund or SOS violated accreditation rules. It recommends that VA and GPD oversight personnel determine what services were offered inside Borden Avenue, by whom, under what accreditation, and with what financial arrangements.
Community Access Should Be Expanded, Not Closed
Protection against exploitation should not be used to justify excluding legitimate community organizations. Harm-reduction providers, Veteran outreach groups, peer-support organizations, employment programs, legal-service providers, accredited VSOs, community donors, and other organizations can strengthen a Veteran’s transition when access is structured appropriately.
A transparent Borden Avenue access policy should therefore identify neutral criteria rather than preferred organizations. At minimum, the policy should address:
- the purpose and scope of the organization’s proposed activity;
- licensing, accreditation, or insurance when relevant;
- fees, commissions, referral relationships, or other financial interests;
- whether Veteran participation is voluntary;
- rules for photography, video, testimonials, and fundraising;
- privacy and confidential-information safeguards;
- a prohibition on conditioning services or donations on publicity; and
a documented process for approval, denial, appeal, and complaints.
Oversight Questions
- Who authorized US Patriot Fund or affiliated personnel to work with Veterans inside Borden Avenue, and what screening occurred?
- What services were actually provided: education, referral, evidence development, claims preparation, representation, or some combination?
- Were any fees, referral payments, donations, commissions, or business relationships connected to those services?
- What written consent was obtained before Veterans were photographed, recorded, identified, or discussed online?
- Are the same access standards applied to harm-reduction, outreach, community-service, VSO, legal, and charitable organizations?
- Why have officials and donors reportedly faced NDA/disclaimer requirements while private organizations have been permitted to create public-facing content involving residents?
- Who is responsible for requesting removal or correction of online content when a former resident withdraws consent or raises a privacy concern?
Conclusion
Veterans experiencing homelessness should not have to choose between receiving help and surrendering control over their story, image, personal information, or access to alternative services. The recurring feeling that Veterans are “constantly for sale” is a warning about institutional incentives: a disability claim can become a business opportunity, a donation event can become publicity, and a personal recovery story can become fundraising content.
The answer is not to close the doors. It is to open them under fair rules. Legitimate harm-reduction, outreach, community-service, legal, benefits, employment, and Veteran organizations should have a meaningful opportunity to serve residents when they meet neutral safeguards. No favored organization should receive privileged access to a captive or dependent population without transparency.
The Veteran—not the provider, contractor, charity, fundraiser, or business—must remain the primary beneficiary. Informed consent, equal access standards, accreditation, privacy, disclosure of financial interests, and independent complaint channels are the practical safeguards that make that principle enforceable.
Sources & References
[1] 38 C.F.R. Part 61 - VA Homeless Providers Grant and Per Diem Program. Source link
[2] VA Office of General Counsel - Accreditation, Discipline & Fees Program. Source link
[3] VA - Get Help Filing Your Claim or Appeal (accredited representatives). Source link
[4] VA Homeless Programs Office - Grant and Per Diem Program. Source link
[5] VA GPD - Regulations, Guides & Notices of Funding Opportunity. Source link
[6] VA Office of Inspector General - Additional Controls Are Needed to Improve the Reliability of Grant and Per Diem Program Data, Report 23-02610-226 (Sept. 18, 2024). Source link
[7] US Patriot Fund - Home page and current Borden Avenue posts. Source link
[8] US Patriot Fund - About page describing mission, fundraising, and relationship with SOS Veterans Assistance. Source link
[9] US Patriot Fund - FAQ describing work with shelters/community programs and disability-rating assistance. Source link
[10] NYC Veterans Advisory Board - Queens Meeting Minutes, April 29, 2026 (records reported NDA requirement for Phil Wong). Source link
[11] NYC Council Committee on Veterans transcript, Dec. 18, 2024 - testimony concerning denied Thanksgiving donation access at Borden Avenue. Source link
[12] Veterans Justice Project - “Veterans For Sale: Exploiting Homeless Veterans” (Feb. 5, 2025). Source link
[13] Veterans Justice Project - “Donations Diverted: City Faces Scrutiny Over Borden Avenue Veterans Residence” (Oct. 26, 2025). Source link