Services agencies across Ohio are spending an estimated $1.2 million a year trying to locate and get information to military veterans about benefits.
The Dayton Daily News reports that county agencies pay for billboards, newspaper ads and other outreach efforts as they struggle to find veterans. The president of Warren County's veterans service commission says it spends a lot of money on postage trying to reach veterans, but officials said a major outreach effort by mail in 2008 resulted in a response rate under 10 percent.
State veterans officials say they have been collecting names and addresses of veterans through a cooperative effort with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, with about 829,000 compiled so far. But they still are working out ways to effectively share the information.
