In a year when policing controversies, mass shootings and debates over immigration have dominated the headlines and discourse, there’s a group of inspirational pioneers at work. Not all of these individuals, policy makers and entrepreneurs are household names, but they all are improving this country by developing new ways to solve America’s biggest challenges. Here, NationSwell’s favorite solutions of the year.
THE GUTSY DAD THAT STARTED A BUSINESS TO HELP HIS SON FIND PURPOSE
Eighty percent of the workers at Rising Tide Car Wash, located in Parkland, Fla., are on the autism spectrum. Started by the father-and-son team of John and Tom D’Eri, Rising Tide gives their son and brother, Andrew, who was identified as an autistic individual at the age of three, and its other employees the chance to lead a fulfilling life. John and Tom determined that the car wash industry is a good match for those with autism since they’re more likely to be engaged by detailed, repetitive processes than those not on the spectrum. [ph]
THE ALLSTARS THAT ARE TACKLING SOME OF AMERICA’S GREATEST CHALLENGES
The six NationSwell AllStars — Karen Washington, Eli Williamson, Rinku Sen, Seth Flaxman, DeVone Boggan and Amy Kaherl — are encouraging advancements in education and environmental sustainability, making government work better for its citizens, engaging people in national service, advancing the American dream and supporting our veterans. Click here to read and see how their individual projects are moving America forward. [ph]
THE INDIANA COUNTY THAT HAS DONE THE MOST TO REDUCE INCOME INEQUALITY IN AMERICA
The Midwest exurb of Boone County, Ind., has reduced the ratio of the top 20th percentile’s earnings compared to the bottom 80th percentile by 23 percent — the largest decline for any American county with more than 50,000 residents and an achievement stumped county officials. NationSwell pieced together the story of how a land battle and a statewide tax revolt altered the course of Boone County. Find out exactly how it happened here. [ph]
THE TESLA CO-FOUNDER THAT’S ELECTRIFYING GARBAGE TRUCKS
Ian Wright’s new venture, Wrightspeed, is far less glamorous than his previous venture creating luxury electric sedans. But Wrightspeed, which is installing range-extended electric powertrains (the generators that electric vehicles run on) in medium- and heavy-duty trucks for companies like the Ratto Group, Sonoma and Marin counties’ waste hauler, and shipping giant FedEx, could have a greater impact on the environment than electrifying personal vehicles. Click here to learn how. [ph]
THE ORGANIZATION THAT IS TURNING A NOTORIOUS PROJECT INTO AN URBAN VILLAGE
Los Angeles’s large, 700-unit public housing development Jordan Downs consists of 103 identical buildings. Entryways to the two-story beige structures are darkened with black soot and grime, and the doors and windows are crossed with bars. Soon, the dilapidated complex will be revitalized by Joseph Paul, Jr., and his outreach team from SHIELDS for Families, which provides counseling, education and vocational training services. Read more about the plan, which calls for recreational parks and retail on site and would double the amount of available housing with 700 more units tiered at affordable and market rates. [ph]
THE HARDWORKING GROUP THAT’S RESTORING THE SHORELINE OF AMERICA’S LAST FRONTIER
Chris Pallister and his small, devoted crew are leading the largest ongoing marine cleanup effort on the planet. Since 2002, Pallister’s organization, Gulf of Alaska Keeper, has been actively cleaning beaches in Prince William Sound and the Northern Gulf Coast. The nonprofit’s five boats, seasonal crew of 12 and dozens of regular volunteers has removed an estimated 2.5 million pounds of marine debris (mostly plastic items washed ashore from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch) from more than 1,500 miles of coastline. [ph]
THE STATE THAT’S ENDING HOMELESSNESS WITH ONE SIMPLE IDEA
Utah set the ambitious goal to end homelessness in 2015. As the state’s decade-long “Housing First” program, an initiative to place the homeless into supportive housing without any prerequisites, wraps up this year, it’s already reduced chronic homelessness (those with deeper disabling conditions, like substance abuse or schizophrenia, who had been on the streets for a year or longer or four times within three years) by 72 percent and is on track to end it altogether by early next year. Read more about the initiative here. [ph]
THE RESIDENT THAT’S REBUILDING NEW ORLEANS’S MOST DEVASTATED WARD
New Orleans native Burnell Cotlon wants to feed his 3,000 neighbors. So he’s turned a two-story building that was destroyed by catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (along with most of the Lower 9th Ward community) into a shopping plaza. Already, he’s opened a barbershop, a convenience store, and a full-service grocery store in a neighborhood that has been identified as a food desert. [ph]
THE MAN THAT’S GIVING CAREERS TO UNEMPLOYED MILITARY VETERANS
“They had our backs, let’s keep the shirts on theirs” is more than just a motto for Mark Doyle. It’s the business model on which he built Rags of Honor, his silk-screen printing company based in Chicago that provides employment and other services to veterans. In the three years since its inception, Rags of Honor has grown from four employees to 22, all but one of whom are veterans at high risk of homelessness. [ph]
THE PRESIDENT THAT’S PRESERVING OUR ENVIRONMENT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
After promising to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal our planet during his 2008 campaign, President Barack Obama has faltered on environmental legislation during his first term, preferring to expend his political capital on the Affordable Care Act. But the 44th president’s use of regulatory authority and his agreement with China likely ensure his place in the pantheon of modern environmental champions. Here’s why. [ph]
Tag: Helping Veterans
The 10 Most Inspiring Books of 2015
In the waning years of the first African-American president’s time in office, a young black male can be gunned down by police with impunity and a young Hispanic girl can grow up in a neighborhood with limited educational horizons. As the wars in the Middle East draw to a close for American troops, veterans struggle to find work and housing and gun violence follows them back to their communities. In 2015, it often felt like progress was tempered by setbacks, so it’s important to look to journalists to provide the nuanced understanding of events, to historians to give them historical weight and to novelists and poets to distill their meaning. Our essential reading from this year:
[ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph]
MORE: The 10 Most Inspiring Books of 2014
Everyone Should Stay Warm During the Winter — Especially America’s Heroes
Excluding Veterans Day and Memorial Day, it can be easy to forget the sacrifices that America’s former military personnel made on our country’s behalf. This winter, a national fuel retailer is stepping up to do something more for veterans, providing savings on an essential utility to help them stay warm.
Suburban Propane, a public company with headquarters in New Jersey and 700 locations in 41 states, is offering a special on the next delivery of 100 gallons or more of gas to households where a veteran or active-duty service member lives. For new customers with military ties, Suburban Propane will take $10 off the bill of their first delivery of 100 gallons or more and comp all charges for the change-out, safety check and the tank’s first year of rent. Existing customers have the opportunity to take advantage of the savings as well; they can receive $10 off the next delivery of 100 gallons or more, and by referring another veteran, they can earn an additional 35 gallons of fuel added to their next order.
Across the country, at least 49,900 veterans sleep on the streets on any given night. The shock of combat can make holding down a job, keeping up with bills and being responsible for other aspects of day-to-day civilian life difficult. Suburban Propane decided to lessen the financial burden on veterans after senior management realized how many of their colleagues had military ties, says Mark Wienberg, the company’s chief development officer.
Of Suburban Propane’s 3,600 employees, “many have family members who are veterans or are veterans themselves. Many have sons or daughters, nieces or nephews who are currently deployed. The head of human resources here is a veteran of the Marines. One guy that managed a local service center and is now overseeing our fleet and tank assets, he’s a military vet,” Wienberg says. The savings offer is “our way of giving back to those who have given for us,” he says.
[ph]
And it’s a way to reach veterans as the company ramps up recruiting efforts, offering military personnel employment opportunities. “Many, in their duty to the nation, have performed services that are similar to what we do here, driving major trucks and vehicles,” Wienberg explains. “Someone who comes back from duty could be a service technician, or an officer might run a service center.” The company is currently working with lawmakers on legislation at the state level that would streamline the licensing process for veterans who drove vehicles of a similar class overseas. “We’ll do whatever we can to assist them,” Wienberg stresses.
James Marentette, who was stationed on a Navy aircraft carrier in the 1950s, and his wife Cindy, recently signed up for the deal. The couple, who have a grandson serving in the Air Force, met in church after losing their spouses to cancer and now live together in Crossville, Tenn. Frustrated by their previous gas provider’s poor customer service, they switched to Suburban Propane two years ago at their daughter’s suggestion. The special savings for veterans has helped their pocketbooks, as they rely on fixed income from Social Security and a small pension.
“There is nothing more rewarding than serving your country. Not everyone has that privilege — and I considered it a privilege to do that. To be recognized by a company like Suburban, even in a small way, just means so much to me and so much to all of our friends too,” says Jim. “You get a lot of discounts in restaurants and things like that, but I never heard of a company that supplies utilities to homes helping vets.”
“We think it’s wonderful,” Cindy chimes in, “and we’re so thankful. It makes us feel like people really care.”
The offer is good for one delivery taken by March 31, 2016.
This Competition Tests Veterans, Celebrates Their Resiliency
Redmond “Red” Ramos, a burly and bearded Navy corpsman, stepped on an IED while serving with the Marines in Afghanistan. The explosion ripped through his flesh, causing him to lose his left leg. But the Southern California resident says he felt lucky. He humorously tattooed his right calf “I’m with Stumpy” and compared his injury to a “paper cut.” In Ramos’s mind, his disability is minor. It hasn’t prevented him from being physically active. In fact, he says that it’s made him better. Within seven months of his injury, Ramos won five medals at the Warrior Games, a competition for wounded soldiers, using sports “to destroy the negative stigma associated with injury,” he says.
Last week, Ramos competed with 11 other veterans in the inaugural Triumph Games, a weeklong series of competitions in New York City, participating in a triathalon and obstacle course at LeFrak Center Lakeside in Brooklyn, a videogame event livestreamed at the Times Square Arts Center and a motorsports race upstate. The winner will be revealed on Oct. 17 by former Congressman Patrick Murphy and Al Roker, the Today Show’s weatherman, on NBC Sports Network.
The “Terrific 12” were welcomed to the Big Apple at an opening ceremony just blocks away from One World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial. Notables — including Loree Sutton, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Veterans’ Affairs, and Damien Sandow, a WWE professional wrestler who goes by the stage name Macho Mandow — praised the warriors for their inspiring stories. The veteran-athletes proved that the well-worn narrative of former service members who are traumatized, crippled, homeless and helpless isn’t necessarily true, reiterating that veterans aren’t victims.
“This is a unique opportunity to showcase what’s great about our American veterans: their resiliency, their competitiveness, their drive and work ethic, and frankly their camaraderie,” Murphy, the first Iraq War veteran elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, tells NationSwell in an interview. It’s difficult for the average American to comprehend “the incredible sacrifice that our military and their family members go through,” adds Murphy, now a lawyer in Pennsylvania. “The Triumph Games bridges that gap in understanding.”
For all the celebration that the games embody, there’s a poignancy in the way these veterans talk about overcoming adversity. Some of them add a reminder to their story: They made it home safely, but not all of their comrades did.
Raised by a military family in Arizona, Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil signed up for the Army in 2008, right after her 17th birthday. On duty as a combat medic in Iraq, she suffered a hip injury that made her lose use of her lower left leg. She got in the pool to rehab and found joy in competitive swimming two years later. Soon, she won a gold medal in the men’s division at the World Military Swimming & Para-Swimming Open. “When my body hurts and I feel as though I can’t push any harder, I remember all of those who no longer have the choice,” Wasil says. For them, she pushes on.
Editors’ note: Patrick Murphy is a NationSwell Council member.
This Veteran Refuses To Leave His Unemployed and Debt-Ridden Comrades Behind
When Eli Williamson returned from two deployments to the Middle East, his hometown of Chicago felt at times like a foreign battleground, the memory of desert roads more familiar than Windy City central thoroughfares. As he relearned the city, Williamson noticed a strange similarity between veterans like himself and the young people growing up in tough parts of Chicago. Too many had witnessed violence, and they had little support to cope with the trauma.
Applying the timeworn principle of leaving no soldier, sailor, airman or marine behind, Williamson co-founded Leave No Veteran Behind (LNVB), a national nonprofit focused on securing education and employment for our warriors. Williamson formed the organization based on “just real stupid” and “crazy” idealism: “You know what?” he says. “I can make a difference.” Since work began in 2008, with a measly operating budget of $4,674 to help pay off student loans, LNVB has eliminated around $150,000 of school debt and provided 750 transitional jobs, Williamson says.
“Coming out of the military, every individual is going to have his or her challenges,” says Williamson, who served as a psychological operations specialist and an Arabic linguist in Iraq in 2004 and in Afghanistan in 2007. “We’ve seen veterans with substance abuse issues, homelessness issues.” Additionally, at least one in five veterans suffer from PTSD, and almost 50,000 are homeless and 573,000 are unemployed.
Williamson started the group with his childhood friend Roy Sartin. They first met in high school, when they joined choir and band together. “I think we’ve been arguing like old women every since,” Williamson says. Both joined the U.S. Army Reserves while at Iowa’s Luther College and were mobilized to active duty during their senior year after the Twin Towers fell. Williamson finished his education at the Special Warfare Training Center at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, while Sartin put his learning on hold.
Upon return, both struggled with crippling interest rates on their student loans. Sartin received a call from the loan company saying that he needed to make a $20,000 payment. “Although I had the funds, it was just enough to get myself back together. So, for me, the transition wasn’t as tough, but I was one of the lucky ones.” Williamson got a bill for $2,200 only 22 days before the balance was due. Desperate, he took to the streets playing music to cover the costs.
After talking with other vets, the two realized that many didn’t qualify for the military’s debt repayment programs. That’s when they started going out to financial sources for “retroactive scholarships” for our country’s defenders. And they sought employment opportunities for former military members to help cover the rest.
Jobs and debt relief for our nation’s warriors are the main focus of LNVB, but the group oversees several initiatives, including S.T.E.A.M. Corps, which pairs vets with science, technology, engineering, arts, and math experience with at-risk youth. More than 200 students have graduated from S.T.E.A.M., but Williamson, director of veteran affairs at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, points to a more intangible benefit of his non-profit’s work: the ability for veterans “to articulate a larger vision of themselves … is our advocacy mission,” he says.
“Veterans can paint a vision for where our country needs to be, and the only reason we can do that is because you realize that you are part of something larger than yourself,” Williamson adds. “That’s a fundamental value that veterans can share, as they leave military, with the communities that they come back to.” For those who’ve just returned home from Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, in other words, service is just beginning.
This T-Shirt Could Be the Difference Between a Veteran Having a Home and Living on the Streets
“They had our backs, let’s keep the shirts on theirs” is more than just a motto for Mark Doyle. It’s the business model on which he built Rags of Honor, his veteran-operated business.
Originally a consultant, Doyle was deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 as a forensic accountant for the Army. After returning to the U.S., he saw the same men and women who had given their lives for their country struggling to survive. In fact, only one quarter of returning soldiers between the ages of 19 and 25 were employed. Even worse, many were homeless or at risk of losing their homes.
“I could never square when I got back the commitment that they made every day, with the reality of their life when they came home,” Doyle says.
Founded in 2012, Rags of Honor is a silk-screen printing company based in Chicago that provides employment and other services to veterans. In the three years since its inception, Rags of Honor has grown from four employees to 22, all but one of whom are veterans at high risk of homelessness.
To read more about Rags of Honor, click here.
This Veteran Is Giving His Troubled Comrades a (Furry) Reason to Live
Phil Ruddock had trouble adjusting when he returned home to rural Louisiana, disabled by a traumatic brain injury he received during an Air Force tour of duty during Desert Storm. He had all the classic symptoms of PTSD: “I drank all the time, I couldn’t get along with anyone, I kept checking every room in the house to make sure it was clear every time I came home, I got up and checked the locks on the doors and windows too many times to count, I was always depressed and pissed at the world, and I never slept. I drove my family so crazy that they wanted to leave,” he says with a country twang. “I still do some of those things,” he adds, “but it’s getting better.”
Sit. Stay. Lie down. They’re the words that helped him through his recovery.
Ruddock’s now assisting other veterans afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan the same way he survived his night terrors and flashbacks — with service dogs. His nonprofit Brothers and Sisters in Arms is a boot camp of sorts based out of central Louisiana, where he’s teaching veterans to train their own service dogs, all adopted from shelters. The repetitive learning of commands works like physical therapy for disabled vets and gives them something to work towards. Once they’ve completed the program, they gain a loyal companion and a sense of accomplishment, “a pride that you can’t imagine,” Ruddock says.
“When a soldier is deployed or on base, they feel secure because they have all the other soldiers there watching their back. But when they are out of the military, when their spouse goes to work, their kids go to school and they’re left alone, they have nobody watching their back,” Ruddock says. “It makes them very anxious, paranoid. A dog turns out to be their battle buddy and watches their back. It never leaves them, it never judges them, it never asks questions that they don’t want to answer. It gives them unconditional love,” Ruddock explains.
A program connecting veterans and rescue dogs may sound cutesy, almost saccharine, but for Ruddock, it’s serious — vital even. He asks the veterans to list Brothers and Sisters in Arms as the primary contact associated with the animal’s microchip, rather than the owner’s home phone. “The suicide rate for veterans is 22 per day,” Ruddock says, about 8,000 every year. “If that dog would show up at a shelter and they ran the microchip, chances are that veteran is not going to answer his phone.”
Ruddock started the nonprofit in November 2012 after his personal experience with an abandoned pit bull. Following a nervous breakdown, he lost his job as lead clerk at the local VA outpatient clinic. His spent his days walled alone up on his remote property, until a friend arrived with a pit bull for him to train. “She was as beat up and as messed up as I was,” he remembers of his white-faced, brown-eared dog, Mia. “She kind of rescued me.” The dog sat in the passenger seat of his truck on rides into a nearby village and eventually gave him confidence to travel farther.
Within the past couple months, Ruddock logged more than 20,000 miles in his sojourns across the Sugar State, from Slidell, a town across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans that butts up against Mississippi, all the way out west to Fort Polk, an Army installation near the Texas border. Last year, he certified 31 service dogs, which are specially licensed after 120 hours in public, and 15 companion dogs.
At the pound, Ruddock seeks out the calmest dogs. “We look for dogs with a good disposition. We don’t want the ones that jump and bark and get with the other dogs,” he says. He generally avoids puppies — too much added stress — and certain breeds like German shepherds that can become overprotective if they’re not socialized regularly, but otherwise he’ll take every breed from a 20-pound Jack Russell terrier to a 200-pound mastiff.
Training sessions run one hour a week for roughly eight weeks, though he’s come to expect a few absences. “A veteran may have problems one day. Some demons may come up and he may not be able to show up. It may take a little longer,” he says.
Besides the essentials — what Ruddock calls good citizenship for canines (think: table manners for children) — the service dogs learn three main commands that are unique for handlers who still carry wounds from the battlefield. The dog learns to “block,” inserting itself into the space between the owner and somebody else so that a person keeps their distance. “Cover” sends the pup to its owner’s back or side, facing away as a kind of lookout that allows a vet to relax at, say, a counter or cash register. The last is “grounded.” If the soldier faints or has a nightmare, the dog lays on top of the owner and licks his face, prompting a welcome (if wet) return to reality.
Brothers and Sisters in Arms is different from many other groups that provide service dogs. For one, Ruddock doesn’t charge for his services or the animal. His operation is funded entirely by donations; the bill from other groups can run as high as $25,000. (“These guys get out of the military, and they’re just above poverty level. They can’t afford that,” he says.) His classes are all one-on-one, making it easier for vets who can be skittish around crowds, nervous about competition and failure. And every instructor is a former soldier, because, as Ruddock says, “There’s no better therapy than a veteran talking to another veteran.”
Ruddock wants to see the program expand across Louisiana. He’s already processing five to 10 applications a week, and he’s starting to get referrals from VA psychiatrists who can’t officially recommend a service dog but still send warriors his way. “It’s not about the fame or fortune. It’s about that feeling you get when you help somebody. The warm fuzzies, the goosebumps, whatever you want to call it,” he says of his motivations. “It’s about doing what’s right.”
It’s for the men and women, his brothers and sisters, that Ruddock keeps trekking across the bayous, working with soldiers, like the young man he met last month. “You can tell he’s had it rough,” Ruddock says. “He couldn’t even stand the sound of a loud car going by. He kept moving around and shaking. He couldn’t look you in the eye. He constantly looked down, and if he did catch your eye, it was a white stare like he could see right through you.” The man expressed no emotion, until Ruddock brought out a puppy. As if he was emerging from a daze, the man started petting the dog. He smiled, and Ruddock knew another soldier was safe.
The Big Easy’s Challenge to U.S. Cities: House Our Veterans
Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama flew to New Orleans to celebrate their milestone achievement of being the first major U.S. city to end veteran homelessness. In an event with the city’s leaders, Obama said the Big Easy’s success was a call to action for the rest of the country.
“You all have proven that even in a city as big as New Orleans, veteran homelessness is not a reality we have to accept. It’s not an impossible problem that is too big to be solved,” Obama said. “We want cities across this country to follow your lead.”
As we wrote earlier this year, the city at the mouth of the Mississippi River developed several initiatives that proved essential to reducing a spike in homelessness after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. An interagency council on homelessness united approximately 60 agencies under a common banner of ending veteran, chronic and family homelessness. Together, they organized active-duty military personnel into outreach teams to homeless vets and set up a referral center within the VA hospital. Touting “Housing First” and “No Wrong Door” (an initiative that allows for single point access to care), the city witnessed a rapid success: Last year, they housed 227 homeless warriors, surpassing the 193 veterans that had been counted in the previous point-in-time survey.
“To be able to give so many homeless veterans a forever home — most of them disabled and a quarter of them elderly — in such a short period of time was extremely challenging but incredibly exhilarating for all of the many partners in this effort,” Martha Kegel, the executive director of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, said at the time. “That so many veterans who have risked their lives to serve our country are left homeless, especially in their later years, shocks the conscience. To bring them home, once and for all, has been very rewarding.”
To help other cities accomplish the same goal, the First Lady announced $65 million in HUD and VA funding that will provide rental assistance for 9,300 vets, the same vouchers that helped many New Orleans fund new construction or subsidize rent to landlords. She added that The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that owns hotel chains like Hilton, Motel 6 and La Quinta Inns and Suites, will partner with 25 cities to furnish homeless soldiers’ new apartments.
“All of us know the hard truth, that this job is never going to end,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said last week. “Tomorrow there is another veteran that will find themselves in a difficult circumstance and is going to need housing.” But now, New Orleans has procedures in place to find those vets and help them transition to housing within an average of 30 days, he added. ”We never leave a soldier on the battlefield, and we certainly never leave a soldier on the streets of America.”
All It Took Was One Judge and Two Veterans to Provide Another Chance to Countless Soldiers
In 1986, one in every five inmates in state prison was a former member of the military.
Today, many post-9/11 veterans are still running into trouble with the law. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects at least 167,500 veterans (that’s just the number diagnosed by VA doctors) who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan — and it could afflict as many as 620,000. The disorder has given soldiers their toughest mission yet: successfully reintegrating into civilian life. The nightmares and flashbacks, anxiety, hyper-vigilance and other unresolved mental health issues caused by PTSD often translate into drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, domestic violence and lawbreaking.
In a society that’s appears increasingly disconnected from the experience of war, there’s one civic institution that’s taking strides to accommodate veterans’ unique situation. Courtrooms across the country are now adopting veterans treatment courts — at least 180 established locations and many more are in development, according to the nonprofit Justice for Vets. It’s a model that tailors the criminal justice system’s response to the circumstances: Similar to drug and mental health treatment courts, judges are less inclined to mete out punishment to troubled vets, connecting them with help, particularly from the VA and local military members. If a former warrior successfully completes the program (which can include counseling, substance abuse treatment and job training), all the charges against him are dropped; if he fails to finish, the original jail sentence goes into effect.
“Many veterans will say, ‘I’m okay, I don’t need any help,’ but sometimes it takes another veteran to say, ‘You know, things are starting to spiral out of control,’” says Judge Robert Russell, who convened the first court in Buffalo in early 2008. “It could be traumatic brain injury. It could be PTSD. It could be any number of things that are left untreated. They’re not only debilitating, they’re what’s placing the person in the criminal court system and will continue to keep them in the criminal justice system.”
Russell says the “impetus of the court” began with a single case that came before him in 2006. A former Vietnam vet who’d appeared in his drug treatment court didn’t seem to be responding to the program. Group sessions didn’t work; neither did one-on-ones. “He wasn’t really engaged,” Russell recalls. “When he appeared in court, his posture was slumped. When I asked him what was going on with counseling, I didn’t get much of a response, just sort of like, ‘Huh?’” Russell pointed to two men in the room — Hank Pirowski, a former Marine, and Jack O’Connor, an Army vet — and asked them to talk to the downcast man out in the hallway.
Twenty minutes later, the three reentered. The defendant strutted to the front of the room and stretched to his full height, a tall 6’4”. He stood with his legs slightly apart and held his hands clasped behind his back — a military posture known as “parade rest.”
“He looked directly at me and said, ‘Judge, I’m going to try harder,’” Russell says. Afterwards, Russell met with Pirowski and O’Connor to find out what they said to the guy and how they got a response from him.
The two veterans had discussed their service, and after they’d established a common background, they told the man they cared about him and explained how important counseling would be for him to move forward. As simple as it sounds, the man needed to hear it from someone who’d struggled like he had, someone who could reassure him a future existed.
From that day forward, the trio collaborated on setting up a treatment court for veterans. Their goal? To “afford the best opportunities for the men and women who have served,” Russell says, setting aside one day each week to dedicate entirely to members of the military. The time was used to assemble a team of outside services, so referrals could begin immediately. If a vet hadn’t signed up for VA care, for example, a health official could immediately engage him that day, scheduling appointments and enrolling him for benefits right there in court.
An essential aspect of the treatment court is the volunteer veteran mentors, who function as a coach, sponsor and supporter, providing help with bus passes, rent, furniture or just talking through any crisis. “If they need something, Marines talk to Marines more than they do their own lawyer,” O’Connor says. Many are Vietnam vets who want soldiers just returning home from the Middle East to receive a different welcome than they did. “We never tell anyone about stuff we dealt with because no one liked us. People really hated our guts. Now a lot of Vietnam vets are in positions of authority. They’re in their 60s, they’re on boards of corporations, they own their own companies,” O’Connor adds.
As so many restorative justice programs have shown, rehabilitation like veteran courts reduces crime over the long haul by addressing the problems that initially led to criminal behavior. As O’Connor, who now coordinates the volunteer mentors, says, “You treat the illness, you stop the addiction.”
There’s stories like Gary Pettengill, a 23-year-old Buffalo resident arrested in a drug sweep. In 2006, while serving in the Army in Iraq, he injured his back and was forced to take a medical discharge. Nights were intolerable, alternating between sleepless pain and nightmares, so Pettengill began smoking marijuana to cope. Unemployed (in part because of his injury), he began selling weed to make ends meet and was eventually diagnosed with PTSD. Pettengill never did any jail time, and he credits the program with saving him from suicide, an option that had once looked inevitable.
Pettengill’s just one of the program’s 150 graduates in Buffalo. Another is the man whose appearance before Russell sparked the court’s conception. The man’s case manager at the local VA hospital said he had never seen the man smile before, but after the court was established, he became one of the cheeriest men at the facility.
O’Connor gives each of these men a special coin at graduation. It harkens back to “challenge coins,” small medallions that are unique to each unit of the military, only these have the scales of justice on one side and the phrase “Leave no veteran behind” on the other. He tells the grads to carry it with them, so if they ever run into trouble, they’ll remember how far they’ve come.
Data coming in from across the country backs up these stories. A three-year pilot in San Diego (home to multiple Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard facilities) found that recidivism dropped for those in the program, most of whom had been booked on DUIs or domestic violence charges. Of the 74 enrolled, only three reoffended — a rate of 4.1 percent, far below the 65 percent figure for state prisons. Even better, among the 27 who graduated the program, not a single person committed another crime. The county estimated the program’s savings at $3.985 million in jail and treatment costs.
“Once you’re seen the success rate, you can’t hide it,” O’Connor says. “Something’s working, and it’s working all over the country.”
That’s not to say there’s not criticisms of the concept. Although most are quick to thank veterans for their service, some wonder if the military is receiving special treatment that should be more widely available. After all, why do former service members receive a get-out-of-jail-free card while others are locked up? Russell says this is partly a matter of logistics. Veterans need specialized care, so scheduling their cases on the same day creates an easy one-stop shop for both client and service provider. The alternative sentencing is not a free pass, either. Former soldiers are expected to make regular court appearances and are subject to randomized drug testing.
Russell says he can’t believe how quickly the courts have taken off. “When we started it, we thought it was the right thing to do for the community in which we were serving,” he says. “But it was something that touched the heart and spirit of many around the country. They’ve embraced the concept. They’re affording veterans some of opportunities inside their justice system to help them get back on track in their own community.”
[ph]
How This Veteran Went from the Open Sea to Open Data
As a Counter-Terrorism Officer in the U.S. Navy, Ian Kalin says that he fired expensive cannons at imaginary targets in the sea.
“Not a lot of terrorists floating in the middle of the ocean back then,” he jokes, pointing out how the service he was being asked to deliver was “completely disconnected from the actual needs of our nation.”
That experience helped shape Kalin’s path to becoming director of open data at Socrata, which helps public sector organizations improve transparency and service.
Kalin asks the audience at his Got Your 6 Storytellers talk where they would prefer to spend an hour: at the Department of Motor Vehicles or the Apple Store?
“The truth is that there is a big disconnect that we feel in our consumer lives compared to the services we’re receiving from our governments,” he says, addressing the widening gap between our expectations and what our government is able to deliver. “We have higher expectations because innovative products and services are making our lives better everyday.”
He also tells a story about a salmonella outbreak in jars of peanut butter. While he never would have checked the Food and Drug Administration website for the voluntary product recall, Google Shopping Express sent the grateful young dad a note saying the product he bought was at risk and even offered to reimburse him the $5.84 he spent.
Governments cannot empower people by themselves,” Kalin says, emphasizing the importance of public private partnerships to help governments improve their customer service.
Watch the video to learn how Kalin thinks open data can help us “improve the quality of our collective democracy.”