The Data Liberation Project — SSVF Satisfaction Surveys

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program awards grants “to selected private non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives that will assist very low-income Veteran families residing in or transitioning to permanent housing.”

In order “[t]o ensure that Veteran families receiving supportive services under the SSVF Program are receiving quality services, the grantee must give a VA-designated satisfaction survey to each participant within 30 days of the participant’s pending exit from the grantee’s program.”

Those satisfaction surveys are considered part of an official “information collection,” approved by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under OMB Control Number 2900-0757. According to the VA, a contractor collects the survey data “will provide an analysis of data by grantee, along with a collated national report.” The contractor’s website also notes that its responsibilities include “[p]rovid[ing] data in an exportable format that allows the VA to share data with grantees and other stakeholders.”

Our FOIA request 📄 to the VA seeks all SSVF survey data records the contractor has provided to the agency, plus all relevant database documentation.

🔔 Click here to receive updates about this request

Updates

Records Made Publicly Available • On August 17, 2023, the DLP made the records obtained through this FOIA request available to the public, along with DLP-written documentation.
Records Provided • On July 13–17, 2023, the VA provided records to the Data Liberation Project 📄, consisting of three Excel documents containing survey response data, an Excel document containing a data dictionary, and various PDF reports. The Data Liberation Project began preparing the records for release.
Fee Waiver Appeal Granted • On December 27, 2022, the VA’s Office of General Counsel emailed a letter 📄 granting the Data Liberation Project’s fee waiver appeal, on the basis that “This office did not process your appeal of the fees within the statutory time requirements.”
Fee Waiver Appeal Acknowledged • On November 9, 2022, the VA’s Office of General Counsel emailed a letter 📄 acknowledging the Data Liberation Project’s appeal of the VA’s initial denial of a fee waiver for this request. The appeal has been assigned case number 162878.
Request Acknowledged, Placed on “Complex Track,” Fee Waiver Denied; Appealing • On November 8, 2022, the VA emailed an acknowledgment letter 📄. It noted that the request has been assigned to the Veterans Health Administration’s Central Office and placed on the “complex” processing track. It also denied the Data Liberation Project’s request for a fee waiver, on the grounds that “it does not contain sufficient detail to meet the public interest requirement, as you do not specify how the requested information is likely to contribute significantly to the public’s understanding of VHA’s operations or activities given the amount of information publicly available as referenced by you as well as other publicly available Supportive Services for Veterans Families (SSVF) documents such as their annual reports which does include a section on the satisfaction of Veterans with their SSVF provider.” The Data Liberation Project submitted an appeal of this decision later the same day via email.