In 2024, 6,488 veterans died by suicide. That is 17.7 a day, 90 more than the previous year.
VA released those numbers yesterday, September 30, 2026, in its annual suicide prevention report. The report also says 62% of those veterans were not in VA health care in the year they died or the year before, up from 61%.
One day earlier, however, VA put out a different announcement: $112 million in suicide prevention grants to community groups. That release used the old 61% figure and called 2023 “the most recent year for which data is available,” which it technically was (for approximately 29 hours).
The split is getting wider. From 2023 to 2024, the suicide rate fell 4.8% for veterans enrolled in VA health care. It rose 3.7% for veterans outside it. VA’s answer for the veterans it doesn’t reach is to pay community organizations to reach them. I looked at who received those grants.
The program doubled in one year
The Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program funds nonprofits, tribes, and state and local governments to serve veterans in their communities. For fiscal year 2027, VA awarded $111.9 million to 191 grantees. The money becomes available today, October 1.
VA’s March 2026 list of current grantees had 86 names. The new list more than doubles that.
107 of the 191 awards are new, worth $65.7 million.
New grantees average $614,000 each. Renewals average $550,000.
77 awards sit at the program’s $750,000 cap.
Only one current grantee was not carried forward.
A separate grantee is still funded under a new name.
VA’s release lists what grantees did in 2025: about 17,000 people1 served, 344 veterans connected to emergency mental health care, and 2,647 veterans newly linked to VA. Those are referrals and contacts. The release gives no measure of whether anyone who got help through a Fox grantee is alive because of it. VA told Congress in 2025 that measuring whether the grants reduce suicide was "not feasible" and would be "methodologically flawed."
Nobody proofread the list
VA’s final award list is a spreadsheet dated September 2026. It is labeled “Final,” but it has errors that a single careful read would catch.
One grant number is used twice. Brain Resilience Foundation in California and WestCare Minnesota both carry number 4012.
A renewal is labeled new. Americas Warrior Partnership is marked “New.” Its grant ID dates to 2022, and it is on VA’s current-grantee list from March.
The ID system breaks its own rule. Most multi-state grants start with “ZZ.” Four multi-state grants use a single state’s code instead. One grant that serves only Virginia carries a ZZ number.
Names and service areas are misspelled. “Resilence.” “Assoication.” “Hosptial.” Butler County, Ohio is spelled “Bulter,” in the listing for the Butler County Community Health Consortium. Cibola County, New Mexico is “Clibola.” Uintah County, Utah is “Utinah.” Bonner County, Idaho is “Bronne.”
Typos don’t move money. But the service area is the place a grantee agrees to serve, and this list is the public record of $112 million. If VA didn’t properly check its own list, how hard did it scrutinize applicants?
One grantee that doesn’t add up
VA awarded $732,750 to the Reverend Charlie E and Cinderella S Taylor Sr Foundation. The grant is to serve veterans in five rural Texas counties: Somervell, Bosque, Hood, Johnson and Erath.
A tax-exempt charity with that exact name is on file with the IRS. Its filings, posted on ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, show a Tennessee scholarship foundation with $64,429 in revenue and $26,841 in expenses in FY2025, and no paid staff.2
I have not yet confirmed that the grantee and this foundation are the same organization3. A Texas group could share the name. The federal grant record will show the grantee's registered address and federal ID number. That is my next check. If that record points to the Tennessee foundation, VA has a lot to explain. Either way, I will report what the record shows.
What I’m asking
I am a disabled Army veteran and a former VA employee. I know how VA treats a deadline4, and I know what a list looks like when nobody owns it. Here is what I have asked VA:
How did VA confirm each new grantee’s tax ID, location and history of serving veterans before awarding money?
Why does grant number 4012 appear twice, and which award is correct?
What results, beyond referrals and contacts, does VA require grantees to report?
Why did the grant announcement go out one day before the 2024 data, citing a figure the next day’s report replaced?
I also plan to ask grantees, when possible: What will you do with the money, who will you serve, and how can a veteran in your counties reach you? I am starting with the new grantees and with any whose records don’t match their award.
More veterans died in 2024 than in 2023. More of them died outside VA. The money meant to reach them is now $112 million a year. Veterans and taxpayers deserve to know where it goes and that funds are being used properly.
Update, October 1: VA's press release directed reporters to VA Public Affairs. Public Affairs referred my questions to the Fox grant program office. I have sent the program office these questions, along with four more: how many of the 17,000 people served were veterans, the federal ID numbers for the Taylor Foundation grant, whether VA has sent Congress any newer report on the program, and what review VA does on the award list before publishing it. I will update this story with VA's answers.
Sources
VA releases annual Veteran suicide prevention report, updated with 2024 data, VA press release, September 30, 2026
VA awards $112M in suicide prevention grants, VA press release, September 29, 2026
2025 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, Part 1 (2023 data)
SSG Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program: FY2027 award list (final, September 2026) and FY2026 grantee list (March 17, 2026)
If you are a veteran in crisis, or worried about one, call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net. You do not have to be enrolled in VA care.
VA's count includes more than veterans. The grants also serve current service members and veterans' families, and VA defines family broadly: "a parent, spouse, child, sibling, step-family member, extended family member, and any other individual who lives with the eligible individual" (38 CFR § 78.5). VA's press release doesn't say how many of the roughly 17,000 were veterans. In its August 2025 final report to Congress, covering September 2022 to March 2025, VA counted 10,581 participants: 9,503 veterans, 458 service members and 620 family members. I have asked VA for the same breakdown for 2025.
There may well be a reasonable explanation for these discrepancies; I am waiting on data to be released (see Footnote 3).
FY2027 awards have not yet been uploaded to USAspending.gov. Agencies generally have 30 days after an award to report it. I am checking daily.
For example, last year’s suicide report was around one year late.