ORGANIZATION: SOLDIER ON
Solution:
Insights From: Kristen Gore Arominski
Summary:
Soldier On, a veterans’ housing nonprofit serving five states, uses ClientTrack by CaseWorthy as its case management application for SSVF compliance, VA data reporting, and centralized documentation. The application has helped Soldier On scale across a multi-state workforce while keeping VA data error rates under 1%, supporting audit-ready reporting and program growth.
A Centralized System of Record Helps a Growing Veterans' Housing Nonprofit Scale Across Five States While Keeping VA Data Error Rates Under 1%
Soldier On is a nonprofit dedicated to ending veteran homelessness through permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and prevention services.
Operating as a Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) grantee under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Soldier On serves veterans across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Delaware, with case managers working directly in the field and a corporate team coordinating operations out of Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Soldier On uses ClientTrack by CaseWorthy as its exclusive case management system for referrals, peer support, case noting, invoicing, document storage, and reporting into the VA’s data repository. Below, Soldier On’s data specialist shares how CaseWorthy has shaped the organization’s growth, its data quality, and its ability to serve veterans across a growing service area.
Organization Background
Soldier On started out providing case management to veterans. As its SSVF program expanded under the VA, it grew into a multi-program organization offering peer support, healthcare navigation, credit counseling, and permanent supportive housing to veterans and their families across the East Coast.
Programs Offered
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Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF)
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Permanent Supportive Housing
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Rapid Re-Housing & Homelessness Prevention
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Peer Support Services
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Healthcare Navigation
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Credit Counseling
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Soldier On Success (Shallow Subsidy Rental Assistance)
The Challenge
Before CaseWorthy, Soldier On lacked a single, centralized hub for the documentation its remote, field-based case managers were collecting every day. Case managers are spread across a wide, multi-state grant area, working directly with veterans rather than sitting in a central office. Soldier On needed a way for that field-collected documentation (leases, assessments, healthcare records) to be available in real time to the corporate team, while remaining fully audit-ready for the VA’s annual review.
Compliance also meant control. Soldier On needed built-in checks and balances so that case managers couldn’t independently add family members, alter records, or submit a service request without a supervisor’s sign-off. Finance only issues payment once that approval chain is complete.
On the data side, the VA’s SSVF program required veteran demographic and service data to be collected and formatted in precise, specific ways. As the program expanded, a mismatch between how Soldier On was structuring some of that data and how the VA needed it uploaded led to an urgent, all-hands correction effort. It made clear how much was riding on getting the data structure right the first time.
How CaseWorthy Helped
A Centralized Hub for a Remote, Multi-State Workforce
With CaseWorthy, field-based case managers scan and upload documentation the moment they collect it, giving the corporate team real-time access to leases, assessments, and healthcare navigation records without anyone needing to drive to a central office. That centralization became critical to Soldier On's VA audits, giving auditors and staff alike one reliable place to find the full record for any veteran the organization serves.
Guardrails and Approval Workflows Built for Compliance
CaseWorthy's role-based permissions keep case managers working within defined parameters: unable to submit a service request without supervisor approval, and unable to alter core case data outside their role. Finance draws directly from CaseWorthy to issue payment only once that approval chain is complete, giving Soldier On a documented, auditable approval process from case note to payment.
Data Quality Built for VA Reporting
When the VA's SSVF program required a shift in how veteran assessment data needed to be structured for upload, CaseWorthy's team worked directly with Soldier On to redirect the data model, and staff could then spot-check the results rather than rebuild from scratch. That same discipline extends to everyday practice: Soldier On has trained its case managers on exactly which fields drive VA and HMIS reporting, so missing data gets flagged and resolved before it becomes a compliance issue.
Reports in Hours, Not Days
Point-in-time counts, household composition, and program-specific rosters that once relied on independent, supervisor-managed spreadsheets are now pulled directly from CaseWorthy. When the Buffalo team needed a point-in-time count, Soldier On's data specialist pulled, cross-checked, and delivered it within about an hour. Without the ability to filter live data by program, household, and housing status, that same work would have taken considerably longer.
Streamlined Intake and Follow-Up
At CaseWorthy's annual user conference, Soldier On worked with the CaseWorthy team to build its mandatory VA veteran assessments directly into the intake workflow, so case managers see and complete them as a required step rather than a task that's easy to miss. Soldier On is now extending that same approach to build automated reminders for the 90-day recertifications and annual assessments its SSVF program requires, so those follow-ups surface automatically on a case manager's caseload.
A Foundation for Growth
CaseWorthy's flexibility has allowed Soldier On to support an increasingly complex service model, including dual enrollment (a veteran can be enrolled in rapid re-housing while living in a Soldier On permanent supportive housing unit, with two case managers working from the same file at once). That same track record in data quality, timeliness, and compliance has supported Soldier On's expansion: it was a factor when the state of Delaware transitioned its entire SSVF grant to Soldier On, and when Soldier On was selected for New Jersey's statewide "Bringing Veterans Home" initiative.
Key Impacts
<1%
Data error rate in Soldier On's New Jersey program, against a 10% VA/HMIS threshold
5 states
New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Delaware served
47
New veteran intakes processed in New Jersey in a single week
10+
Veterans moved into homeownership through Soldier On's rental-assistance program
Soldier On’s data specialist also points to a more personal kind of outcome: veterans who came to Soldier On living on the street have moved through the organization’s shallow subsidy rental assistance program, Soldier On Success, and, paired with credit counseling, gone on to purchase homes of their own. Having one centralized system to manage a veteran’s history from intake through permanent housing has been part of making that possible.
Supporting Compliance, Accountability, and Growth
Soldier On’s SSVF program is subject to a yearly VA audit, and its New Jersey program reports into the state’s HMIS. Soldier On has not triggered an audit beyond its standard annual review in at least three years, a track record its data specialist attributes to training case managers on the specific fields that drive VA and HMIS accuracy, and to CaseWorthy surfacing missing data (such as a missing Social Security number) so it can be resolved before it becomes a compliance risk.
Soldier On also shares its CaseWorthy reporting and data exports with outside partners, including the Robert Kraft Foundation and Jon Bon Jovi’s JBJ Soul Foundation, to help make the case for continued and expanded funding. Soldier On has also been referenced by other human services organizations, including Boston Children’s Hospital, as an example of how a diverse, multigenerational workforce can adopt the system with minimal friction.
Looking Ahead
Soldier On’s next goal is to fully automate the reminders for its 90-day recertifications and annual assessments, so they surface directly on a case manager’s caseload, reducing the manual burden of tracking veteran follow-ups as the organization’s caseload continues to grow.
Asked to sum up CaseWorthy’s overall impact on Soldier On in a single sentence, Kristen said, simply: “A simplified platform to store and manage your data for compliance and regulatory needs.”
Featuring Insights From
Kristen Gore Arominski has served as Data Specialist at Soldier On since April 2021, where she manages the data quality and reporting that keep the nonprofit’s veteran services compliant across a multi-state footprint. Her background spans accounting and operations roles, including stints at Spectra by Comcast Spectacor, ARAMARK, and the Antea Group. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism/Public Relations from Rider University and is based in Ocoee, Florida.
