The Minnesota Department of Veterans Affairs is launching a final push to find homes for homeless veterans by year's end.

Minnesota has made progress toward the federal government's goal of ending veteran homelessness. From 2010 to last year, the state cut the number of homeless veterans nearly in half to about 320, said Eric Grumdahl, a special adviser to the state agency.

The agency maintains a homeless veteran registry that officials use to connect veterans with housing assistance and other resources. The registry has more than 170 names on it, but officials want to identify all veterans in need, Grumdahl said.

Toward that end, citizens are asked to contact the department at (888) LINK-VET if they know of a veteran who needs housing assistance.

"The centerpiece of our approach is that we want to know every single veteran by name, where they are and what they need," Grumdahl said. "We need everybody's help in doing that. And we've created a very easy way that anybody can refer someone experiencing homelessness to this kind of unified approach."