A bill to address the tragic suicide rate of the nation’s veterans was approved by the House tonight 403-0 and should be taken up by the Senate as soon as possible, said Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), former chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee and an original cosponsor or the bill.

    “The men and women of our military make tremendous, selfless sacrifices on behalf of a grateful nation,” said Smith, who chaired the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee from 2001-2005 and authored more than a dozen veterans’ laws. “Congress has the sacred duty to ensure that we do everything in our power to get ours vets the physical and psychological support they need to transition back to—and integrate into—civilian life. More must be done to address the systematic failures that leave too many veterans behind and this bill is an important step in the right direction.”

      A 2012 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimated that 22 veterans are lost each day to suicide, or over 8,000 per year, more than have been killed in action since 9/11.

    The bipartisan legislation, called the ‘‘Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act” is named in honor of the late Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran and suicide prevention advocate, Clay Hunt. It passed the House in the 113th Congress but stalled in the Senate. Rep. Tim Walz (MN-01) is the sponsor.

     H.R. 203 seeks to quell this growing epidemic by increasing access to mental health care, requiring the VA to create a one-stop, interactive website to serve as a centralized source of information regarding all VA mental health services for veterans. The bill also requires evaluations of all mental health care and suicide prevention practices and programs at the VA to find out what’s working and what’s not working and make recommendations to improve care, and creates a peer support and community outreach pilot program to assist transitioning servicemembers with accessing VA mental health care services.

    "The House passed this bipartisan bill in the last Congress in a unanimous vote in recognition of the need,” Smith said. “I urge the Senate to act swiftly and decisively on this bill—every day it waits, we lose another 22 heroes—and help strengthen the system to identify and assist those in need."

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