Category: Advancing National Service

The Effort to End Veteran Homelessness Gets the First Lady Boost

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“When a veteran comes home kissing the ground, it is unacceptable that he has to sleep on it.”
That was the emotional decree from First Lady Michelle Obama at a White House ceremony Wednesday as she ramps up efforts to eliminate veteran homelessness by the end of 2015 — a deadline that was set by President Barack Obama’s administration four years ago, NBC News reports.
The Mayors’ Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness already has gained commitment from 77 mayors, four governors, and four county officials. Obama, who partnered with Dr. Jill Biden for the initiative, is hoping to use a little friendly competition to urge officials to get more involved in finding homes for their local vets.

“I want to know if more mayors can challenge each other on this issue,” Obama added. “Can you challenge a neighboring mayor or governor to see who can get all their vets into housing first?”

“These leaders are best equipped to tackle this challenge because they know their communities inside and out. They are in touch with service providers who know these veterans by name,” the First Lady said. “They aren’t just going to address veteran homelessness in their cities and states, they are going to end it.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Sloan Gibson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan were also in attendance during the announcement of the new initiative.

Though veteran homelessness has dropped annually since 2010, the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that since 2013, there are almost 58,000 vets without a roof over their heads on any given night. That is still too high of a number to welcome home the men and women who fight for us, Obama notes, calling it a “moral outrage.”

“Tens of thousands of veterans who risked their lives for our country are sleeping in their cars, or in a shelter, or next to a subway vent.” Obama continued. “We should be horrified because that is not who we are as Americans.”

For veterans like Chris Fuentes, the extra attention on transition programs will give veterans one less thing to worry about upon returning home. Fuentes, who introduced the First Lady, had to send her daughter to live with her mother after coming home from service in Iraq, CNN reports. The soldier had lost her job and was living in a car before a fellow veteran informed her of VA services that assisted her in finding a new house to bring home her daughter.

With the help of state and local leaders, the First Lady is hoping all vets can return to a home of their own, too.

MORE: Big Bets: How Can We Serve Our Veterans? Ask Them to Serve Us

Minnesota Looks to a Historic Structure to Help End Veteran Homelessness

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First, the building served as a fort. Its second life? A Civil War induction station. Next, it was the Military Intelligence Service Language School during World War II, where soldiers learned Japanese. For its fourth incarnation, the fort was decommissioned and turned over to the Minnesota Historical Society and became a military museum. Now, the historic structure is being called to service once again — this time as housing for homeless veterans.
Fort Snelling, which sits at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, was built in the 1820s. To ready the structure for its new purpose, construction workers broke ground on May 29 to begin converting five of its historic buildings into 58 affordable housing units for homeless military veterans and their families — the CommonBond Veteran’s Housing.
Studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom units are available. The complex will include medical and psychological health offices, job training services, and academic support. Residents will work with counselors to help get their lives back on track.
Collaboration between public and private groups, including United Health Group, the Home Depot Foundation, Neighborhood Works America, and many others raised the $17.2 million required for the project, which should be completed by spring 2015.
“I’m very proud of the progress that we have made. After years of hard work, Minnesota now has the lowest homeless rate for veterans in the country,” Senator Al Franken told Reg Chapman of CBS Minnesota. Minnesota has 320 homeless veterans, and state leaders have set a goal to end homelessness among veterans in the state by 2015.
Formerly homeless Marine Corps Vietnam veteran Jerry Readmond, who now serves as an advocate for homeless veterans, told Chapman, “We’re all trained in the military how to survive but when we come home we have to start surviving all over again.”
This new use of the old fort should make that quest for survival easier.
MORE: The City of Miami Steps Up for Its Homeless Service Members
 
 

Big Bets: How Can We Serve Our Veterans? Ask Them to Serve Us

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Spencer Kympton, president of the Mission Continues, a nonprofit group dedicated to empowering veterans, wants to change the way we perceive men and women coming home after military service. “The general population believes that this generation of veterans need our thanks, they need our gratitude, they need things from us,” Kympton says. “What they deserve is a new endeavor and a way to serve us.”
The Mission Continues was created with the belief that veterans want to continue to serve their country when they return home, and that helping others will help them in their transition back to civilian life. To accomplish this, the nonprofit places vets in six-month service fellowships across the country in organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Big Brothers Big Sisters. Since it was founded in 2007 — by
Eric Greitens, a Rhodes Scholar and former Navy SEAL — the Mission Continues has had about 1,000 fellows. “We’re seeing it has professional impact, it has improved their relationships and it’s improving their health and well-being,” Kympton says.
Editors’ note: Since the original publication of this story, Spencer Kympton, President of the Mission Continues, has become a NationSwell Council member.
MORE: Meet The Soldiers Turned Roadies Coming to a Stadium Near You
 

When a Veteran’s Wheels Stopped Turning, These Police Officers Got Him Moving Again

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Pushing a non-functioning 300-pound motorized scooter an entire mile doesn’t sound like the easiest task. In fact, it sounds downright quite difficult.
Yet that’s just what some San Diego police officers did Memorial Day weekend.
Officers Eric Cooper and Milo Shields were out on patrol Sunday afternoon when they spotted a man on a scooter that had stopped working.
The stranded scooter driver, 67-year-old Gilbert Larocque, is a veteran disabled from injuries he sustained in combat as a door gunner in the Army during Vietnam. As a result, he relies on the vehicle to get wherever he needs to go.
Once the officers determined the scooter’s battery was dead, they considered driving Larocque to his home in the Hickman Field Trailer Park a mile away — but then he’d be stuck without his wheels.
So the officers decided to push Larocque home on his scooter, as you see in this video. “We thought it was going to be like pushing a shopping cart, but we were fighting against the transmission the whole time,” Cooper told Lyndsay Winkley of U-T San Diego.
“Being a veteran myself, I was gracious for his service to our country. The least I could do was push him,” Shields told Monica Garske of NBC San Diego.
“We think about veterans one day a year. We should think about them more,” Shields said.
Still, the officers are confident that it doesn’t take a cop to help out a citizen. “I have no doubt that other citizens of San Diego would have stepped in and done it if we had not,” Cooper said.

MORE: This Nonprofit is Making Sure Kids of Fallen Heroes Can Go To College
 
 

NationSwell Asks: What Inspires You To Serve?

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National leaders are currently gathering on one of the most sacred pieces of land in the United States in an effort to awaken a new citizenship in the country.
Retired General Stanley McChrystal kicked off The Gettysburg Summit in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania by framing his vision for the days ahead. Standing in front of the headquarters of General George Meade, who commanded the Union Army in the Civil War, McChrystal called Gettysburg National Military Park hallowed ground not because a battle was fought there, but “because people came here on both sides committed to something that was not for their personal profit, not for their personal glory, but for something that they felt warranted real sacrifice.”
“Our vision is bold and simple: A nation where a year of full-time national service is a cultural expectation, common opportunity, and a civic rite of passage for every young American,” he said, explaining that the Franklin Project at the Aspen Institute is working to meet our national challenges by harnessing the energy and enthusiasm of the country’s citizens.
“This is the unfinished work of our time,” he continued, referencing the conference theme “our unfinished work” and the commitment of those gathered beneath the tent where he stood to fulfill “the promise of what it means to be an American” by creating one million service year positions annually within the next 10 years.
This “call to service” was a powerful start to a summit focused on what plan of action is needed to bring about this new citizenship — from building infrastructure and supporting new service opportunities, to turning national service into a cultural expectation and maintaining this commitment over the long term.
NationSwell spoke with General McChrystal and others working to make this vision a reality about what inspires them to serve. See what they had to say, then take action by learning how you can help to leave a legacy of active citizenship through national service.
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Meet A Disabled Veteran Jump Starting Soldiers’ Cars — and Their Lives

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A little help can go a long way for those in need — especially if they’re veterans struggling to find jobs and readjust to civilian life.
Which is exactly why North Dakota Air Force veteran Larry Mendivil is offering free car repairs to any soldier who needs them. Mendivil knows his way around a socket wrench — he served as a senior airman with the 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, and now he’s applying the fix-it skills he developed there to four-wheeled vehicles.
Last year, he started the Miracles for Vets out of his home’s garage. The nonprofit raises money to fund car repairs and collects donated parts and tools, while several professional car mechanics offer their time and skills to make repairs.
What inspired Mendivil to help other vets? He suffered a disability related to a refueling accident, so after he returned from Iraq in 2007 unable to reenlist, he set out to help other service members — following the Air Force motto of “Service Before Self.” “Even as a disabled veteran everyone has a chance to make a difference,” Mendivil told Xavier Navarro of 319th Air Base Wing Public Affairs.
Over the next two weeks, Mendivil and his crew of volunteer gearheads are rotating to different garages in Harrisburg, North Dakota that have agreed to let him use their space and tools.
Mike Lewis, the owner of Ducks Auto Repair — where the Miracles crew was based last week — was glad to help the cause. “The veterans deserve to have some kind of positive reinforcement when they get back. They’re struggling to readjust from being overseas, they need somebody to help them out,” he told Eames Yates of Fox 43.
Mendivil told Austin Ashlock of the Grand Forks Herald that after he left the service, “I struggled a long time until Veterans Affairs was able to help me out. I was actually homeless for a little while.”
Making it even more special that the first thing that Mendivil did after getting back on his feet was help others.
MORE: Savvy Mechanics Help Disabled Veterans Hit the Open Road

Sustainable Furniture Company Puts Veterans to Work

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What’s more all-American than serving your country in the Armed Forces? Well, for one, furniture that’s made in America by U.S. veterans.
As more young servicemen return home in search of work, the Arkansas-based company EcoVet is tapping into the veteran workforce to create all-American, sustainable furniture.
The company, which launched in 2011, trains former service members to design and create high-end furniture out of reclaimed materials from old semi-trailers — typically from Walmart — that are destined for landfills. Rather than adding to trash heaps, EcoVet strips materials from trailers like oak or maple floors to create custom-made items like an Adirondack chair, which retails for $850. The company also donates other parts such as plywood to the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity and tires to automobile shops.
EcoVet has trained and hired 28 veterans since its inception and aims to employ 500 over the next three years. Focusing on college-aged U.S. veterans — which have a staggering unemployment rate of 24 percent — EcoVet pays its workers about $15 an hour along along with stock options and flexible hours to help those that are going back to school.

“They’ve been taught how to get things done,” co-founder Drake Vanhooser told Fast Company. “They all have the skill of being adaptable.”

Thirty-year-old EcoVet shift manager Jeremy Higgs is pursuing an associate’s degree in agriculture, food and life sciences at a local community college. The veteran-friendly environment means employees are understanding of outside responsibilities as well as emotional issues including PTSD.

“Everyone is going through some issues,” Higgs said. “We give each other advice.”

EcoVet is slated to open three more decommission centers in Chicago, the Carolinas and Nevada to add to its Springdale, Arkansas factory. The first is expected to open in the next 18 months. With 15,000 to 20,000 scrap heap trailers going to waste each year, EcoVet is hoping to remove 10,000 trailers from the stream of garbage annually.

MORE: Here’s a New Website Bringing Unemployed Veterans and Understaffed Tech Companies Together

Expansion shouldn’t be too difficult for a sustainable product that’s American-made by U.S. vets, according to Adrian Dominguez, the vice president for business development for EcoVet’s parent company, EcoArk. “It’s a profit center for us,” he said. “We manufacture furniture and wood accessories, and we are able to label it as 100 percent recycled, repurposed wood, made by American veterans, right here in the United States.”

Aside from furnishing Walmart vendors, EcoVet has managed to partner with wholesale retailer Sam’s Club, which features two lines on its website. EcoVet is also developing a high-end line for upscale retailers for the likes of stores like Macy’s.

The hope is to not only eventually pluck all scrap heap trailers out of U.S. waste, but to create a welcoming environment where vets can be proud of their work, too.

ALSO: A New Program Transitions Soldiers into Successful Tradesmen

While Her Owner Serves Overseas, This Dog Serves Her Country at Home

Posted on by robbie

To say that the Cook family has a deep responsibility for national service is an understatement.
Alan Cook is an Air Force veteran. His daughter Danielle Cook is currently a Staff Sergeant in the Air Force. Danielle’s mother and grandfather served too. And the line of service in this family doesn’t stop there — now that Danielle is deployed overseas in Afghanistan, her dog Harper helps veterans suffering PTSD through a program called Circle of Change.
Harper lives with Danielle’s dad and visits the Dog Den, a doggy daycare center in Madison while Sergeant Cook is gone. Workers at the Dog Den thought Harper would be a good candidate for the Circle of Change program. “She is very shy and fearful, but at the same time she is gentle. She’s the perfect dog for our veterans program,” Dog Den employee Deborah Crawley told Gordon Severson of WAOW.
In Circle of Change classes, veterans suffering from PTSD teach dogs who have behavioral problems how to relax and follow commands. This training helps the dogs overcome their fears. Another beneficial outcome? The veterans find their PTSD symptoms are often eased by working with the animals, too.
Desert Storm veteran Mike Weber, a participant in the first six-week Circle of Change course, said working with the dogs helped him feel better. “My way of handling my problem was just to avoid everything. This has really helped me come back out and kind of get me back on track,” Weber told Severson. “It’s such a great program and it really has helped me bond with not only the animals, but other vets and volunteers.”
“We’re a military family all the way down to the dog now,” Alan Cook told Severson. “My daughter is just so proud of Harper and thinks it’s a great thing. It gives her something to do while my daughter is away overseas.”
MORE: This Organization Knows How To Simultaneously Save Veterans and Dogs 
 
 
 

The City of Miami Steps Up For Its Homeless Service Members

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Over Memorial Day weekend, the city of Miami put the phrase “thank you for your service” into action.
The Southern Florida city gathered hundreds of volunteers together in an effort to offer homeless service members a wealth of services during Operation Stand Down. The three-day event, which had 100 organizations participating (such as the City of Miami Veterans Services Department and the Florida Veterans Foundation), helped more than 200 veterans.
In a tent city on the property of an American Legion post, volunteers distributed clothing and performed medical and dental exams. Miami-Dade Judge Steve Leifman was on hand, running a court to resolve any outstanding minor infractions on the homeless vets’ records, such as petty theft or traffic violations. Showers, hot meals, and haircuts were also provided; homeless vets stayed on cots housed in the tends during the weekend.
Veteran Arthur Woods told Natalie Zea of CBS Miami, “It’s helping me out considerably as far as me getting my act together and a lot of things I don’t have due to the fact that I’m homeless…I need dental. I need some eyeglasses. I mostly need a place to stay and I need some income.”
The nonprofit Operation Sacred Trust even provided two of the homeless veterans with their own homes. Coast Guard veteran Gregory Lewis, one of the recipients, said he was “elated.”
“To open that door is gonna be great because it’s going to open other doors. I have two kids and four grandkids and they’ll be able to visit me. I’ll have a stable environment.”
MORE: Giving Homeless Vets A Helping Hand–And A New Uniform
 

Meet a Veteran That Uses a 19th Century Art Form to Capture Today’s Soldiers

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What do you know about tintypes? Chances are, probably not much. After all, it’s a photography technique that was popular during the Civil War, involving reactive chemicals, metal plates, and a large-format camera.
Photographer and former gunner on combat search-and-rescue helicopters Ed Drew took artistic inspiration from this old format, setting up photo sessions with his fellow soldiers, which he’d have to abandon whenever he was called out on a mission. Still, he had time to capture plenty of striking and evocative portraits.
“I like tintypes because it’s not just something simple…you have to set it up and you have to be really physical with it, you can’t just click,” he told Scott Shafer of the PBS NewsHour. “You’re basically making a photo on a piece of metal. You’re exposing it, developing it and fixing it all right then and there.”
When Drew learned that he would be deployed to Afghanistan last year, he packed his camera. According to Shafer, Drew’s tintypes were the first to be created in a combat zone since the Civil War, when families typically would use them to capture a final memory of a loved one before he went off to war.
Once Drew left the military, he struggled to find his purpose, eventually deciding to use his photography to show the beauty of people. Now he attends the San Francisco Art Institute and works with The Garden Project in San Bruno, California, with a program for at-risk youth. The Air Force veteran now makes tintypes of young people learning job skills through organic farming.
“I think the imperfections of tintypes is what I really enjoy,” Drew told Shafer, “and I think it’s a great analogy for life, life is not perfect whether they have a little speck on them or a little streak of silver that just kind of went awry, you accept the image just like you accept the person.”
MORE: How One Veteran Discovered the Healing Power of Art and Made it His Mission to Share With Others