You can’t miss George Taylor — he’ll be the mustached man wearing a black cowboy hat, a shiny belt buckle and snakeskin boots searching through the bushes for homeless veterans to help along forested trails in Florida. When Taylor finds them, he brings them supplies or talks to them about how they can apply for benefits or find housing.
Taylor, who founded National Veterans Homeless Support (NVHS) in 2008, is passionate about this cause because, after serving in Vietnam and returning home with PTSD, he was once a homeless veteran himself. The 65-year-old Taylor eventually learned that he could apply for benefits because of his disability, and now his mission is to inform other vets about the help available to them.
For the past two decades, he’s been dedicated to the cause of helping homeless vets, which has served as an effective therapy for him. “I was a better person with PTSD by helping that other person,” Taylor tells R. Norman Moody of Florida Today. “I learned a long time ago that with PTSD you can eliminate some of the symptoms by staying busy.”
Since 1991, Taylor and his family have been helping vets. His kids even donated their allowances to the cause, and one of them, George Taylor Jr., grew up to become an Air Force Master sergeant and the vice president of NVHS.
For a long time, Taylor relied on donations and whatever funding he could scrape together to help veterans, but in 2012, the NVHS received a $1 million federal grant, followed by a $500,000 grant the year after. Unfortunately, the grants didn’t come through this year, but Taylor is trying to make up for the loss of funding through furious fundraising.
The infusion of funding allowed Taylor and NVHS to purchase, renovate and run five transitional housing units where 18 homeless vets can stay for up to two years while they try to become self-sufficient. Across Florida, NVHS also has held 16 stand down gatherings where struggling vets can receive medical and dental care, talk to counselors and learn about resources available to them.
Fifty-nine-year-old Adiel Brooks is one of the many veterans Taylor has helped over the years. Brooks has been staying in one of the transitional housing units for a few weeks, and now feels ready to try to reenter the upholstery business. “He is a good man,” Brooks says. “He is a good soldier. He looks out for me. He got me out of the woods.”
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Tag: Homeless Veterans
Buy a T-Shirt, Help a Veteran
Mark Doyle didn’t know a thing about screen-printing t-shirts but that didn’t stop him from starting Rags of Honor, a Chicago-based t-shirt company dedicated to hiring homeless and chronically unemployed veterans.
Doyle now works as the director of Prairie Community Bank in Marengo, Ill., as well as the football coach at St. Pat’s High School in Chicago. But back in 2010, he was hired to help the U.S. Army investigate financial corruption in Afghanistan. While there, he was struck by the dedication of the service members and also by the fact that a lot of money was being spent on foreign aid, while relatively little was dedicated to helping struggling veterans back home.
So Doyle started Rags of Honor, a company that pays its veteran employees a living wage to produce a variety of patriotic and pro-Chicago t-shirts, as well as orders of custom-printed shirts. Rags of Honor trains workers even if they have no related experience and provides them benefits and opportunities for advancement.
The company has been a lifesaver for Navy veteran Tamika Holyfield. “I did two years and a half at the Bartons Air Base in Afghanistan,” she tells Ravi Baichwal of ABC 7 Chicago. “I returned to hardship and turmoil. I didn’t have a place to live, so I was basically living out of my car.”
The same was true for Frank Beamon III, who served as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, but found that his experience there counted for little with employers when he returned home to the Windy City. Both Holyfield and Beamon ended up homeless.
“The day I told them they were hired, they started crying on the spot,” Doyle tells Baichwal. “These are grown men and women. So never underestimate what just a job can mean to somebody who has no hope.”
For those who might think that they don’t have the power to reach out and help veterans, “You don’t have to be the President,” Doyle says. “You don’t have to start Google. Make a difference in the lives immediately around you. Give somebody hope. That’s what we’re doing. That’s what we do, one t-shirt at a time. If I can leave anybody with anything, give somebody hope today.”
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This Organization Provides Shelter to Homeless Veterans Seeking Forgiveness
Like most veterans who end up homeless, the lives of Abe and Robin Horne of Sarasota, Fla. haven’t been perfect — which is why they needed some assistance when it comes to keeping a roof over their heads.
Both Hornes served in the military during the ’70s and ’80s, working a variety of jobs once they were discharged. Then in 2011, Abe was laid off from his position as a resort groundskeeper, suffering a heart attack soon after. The following year, Robin was arrested for disorderly conduct and had a seizure while she was in jail, the first of many health problems related to her epilepsy.
With their ability to work diminished and their resources tapped, the Hornes lost their housing and ended up sleeping at the Salvation Army, where they were rousted at dawn every day to head out onto the streets again.
Eventually, they turned to the Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Sarasota-Manatee (JFCS) for help. For five years, the JFCS has run Operation Military Assistance Program, which just scored a large grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs, giving it $1.2 million to help homeless veterans in the area.
JFCS case manager Liberty Veedon tells Billy Cox of the Herald-Tribune that it was challenging to find programs that the Hornes would qualify for and housing that would accept them. “Their history became a major impediment to placing them,” she says. “Their health is not good, they have one or two evictions and credit issues. Usually we can place a client within 10 to 15 days and within six or seven months they’re back on their feet. This took a lot longer.”
The JFCS has an 80 percent success record with keeping veterans in their homes, an impressive number given that many of the veterans they work with suffer from PTSD, substance abuse or other health issues.
The JFCS didn’t give up, however, and now the Hornes are living in their own unit in a triplex, and they don’t have to worry about losing it. “If it wasn’t for these guys helping us,” Abe Horne says, “I don’t know where we’d be. We were lost.”
The people at the JFCS are putting out the word that they have resources to help veterans in need of assistance — even if those former soldiers haven’t had a squeaky-clean post-service record.
Abe regrets his past decisions that led to the predicament of homelessness. “It doesn’t take much to get homeless and I’ll admit I’ve done a poor job managing my finances,” he tells Cox. “Some people, they don’t care and they accept the fact that they’re homeless. But I’ve slept with one eye open and I’ve lost my dignity and that’s no way to live. I credit (JFCS) for helping me get my disability and for keeping us alive.”
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For Veterans Transitioning Off the Streets, This Organization Helps Them Feel Right at Home
Thanks to federal funds, nonprofits and government organizations across the country are making it their mission to get homeless veterans off the streets.
But while Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing provides rent payment assistance to formerly homeless vets, there aren’t as many programs giving them the resources to turn an empty apartment into a home. So that’s where Homeward Vets of Ludlow, Mass. steps in.
Ludlow’s Director of Veteran Affairs, Eric Segundo, tells Kaitlin Goslee of WWLP, “What they lack is what we do once we’ve got them the housing, not having the furniture, not having the items.”
The nonprofit collects donations of furniture, small appliances, and other useful home furnishing items from colleges, businesses, hotels and individuals. It stores them in its warehouse and then delivers them to veterans’ new homes.
Since March 2012, Homeward Vets has furnished the apartments of 274 former service members.
Navy Veteran David Felty, who founded Homeward Vets, believes a cozy, furnished apartment can make all the difference in enabling soldiers who are chronically homeless to turn their lives around and keep their apartments. “You can see it in their eyes, you can see it months down the road, they’ll call me they’ll check in. We have people that want to pay it forward and give back,” Felty says.
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How A Bike and Some Books Are Helping the Homeless
Back in 2011, Portland, Oregon’s Laura Moulton won a grant to fund a book bicycle that would serve as a mobile lending library to the city’s homeless population. From it, Street Books, a tricycle carting a chest full of books to lend, was born.
Unfortunately, the grant money only lasted for three months, but Moulton knew she couldn’t quit.
“At the end of that first summer I arrived late for one of the last shifts and Keith, a regular patron, was waiting for me with his book,” she tells Rebecca Koffman of The Oregonian. “I realized this wasn’t a service that could be suspended because an art project had come to an end.”
So Moulton founded a nonprofit to keep Street Books pedaling — purchasing books and funding three librarians who cover three-hour shifts, three days a week at locations accessible to many homeless people.
Street Books doesn’t fuss if a book isn’t returned (though most are). “We decided to operate the library on the assumption that people living outside have more pressing concerns than returning a library book, and that every time a return came in, it would be cause for celebration,” Moulton writes on the nonprofit’s website.
Moulton says that the book bike attracts all kinds of people, and that it’s often the catalyst for someone to start a conversation with a homeless person instead of avoiding eye contact. When people approach to find out about what Street Books is, “one of our patrons will be there,” she says, “ready to set down his or her backpack and talk about books. It’s an opportunity for people to step out of their prescribed roles.”
Diana Rempe, one of the librarians, tells Koffman, “There are so many really obvious assumed differences, assumptions that because you don’t have a roof over your head and some basic needs are not met, doesn’t mean that you aren’t interested in ideas, the life of the mind, the joy of reading. That’s right up there with nourishment of other sorts.”
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One of Street Books’ regular customers is Ben Hodgson, a formerly homeless veteran who now lives in Section 8 housing. While he was on the streets, the literature Street Books provided brought him comfort, and now he works on Fridays as the inventory specialist, helping the librarians sort books. “Street Books didn’t get me the heck off the streets; no-one can do that for you,” Hodgson says. “But it was, what do they call them? Street Books was one of those tender mercies.”
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The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities
Two midwest cities are stepping up and helping out veterans that don’t have homes.
On Sept. 16, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to end homelessness among former service members living in the Windy City by 2015. A $5 million program providing housing and other assistance to veterans will be funded through a federal grant, along with $800,000 from the city’s 2015 budget. Chicago will also donate four acres of land for new housing facilities.
In a press conference, Emanuel said, “By the end of 2015, there will not be a homeless veteran in the city of Chicago.”
Emanuel spoke at Hope Manor I, a supportive housing complex for veterans that provides free places to live for up to 50 homeless veterans and affordable housing for 30 more veterans. On the first floor of the building, veterans and their families can take job-training and employment-readiness classes, learn how to use a computer, attend peer support groups and benefit from counseling and case management services. Residents can also gather in a multi-purpose room designed to foster a sense of community among them.
During the press conference, Emanuel announced that a new center Hope Manor for Families — a facility that will accommodate entire families — will open soon.
Since Hope Manor I opened, two other similar facilities have started welcoming needy vets: Hope Manor II and Veterans New Beginnings. According to Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago took a census of its homeless veterans in January — a “point-in-time count” measuring how many people were out on the streets on one night. The researchers found 721 homeless veterans — 465 lived in shelters and 256 had no place to call home.
The same day that Emanuel announced this program, another Midwestern mayor publicly committed his administration to the cause of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015: Mayor Carl Brewer of Wichita, Kansas. KSN TV reports that Brewer announced at a City Council meeting, “Veteran homelessness is not an intractable social problem that can’t be solved”
“By focusing our resources and renewing our communities’ commitment to this issue, we can end veteran homelessness in our city and our country. I’m proud to join mayors across the country as we work toward the important goal of honoring the service of our veterans by making sure all of them have a home to call their own,” said Brewer.
According to KSN TV, since 2010 when the federal government launched Opening Doors (a comprehensive plan to end homelessness) homelessness among veterans in America has decreased by 24 percent.
If the plans of these mayors succeed, Chicago and Wichita could join Phoenix, Los Angeles and other cities who are striving to make homelessness among veterans a thing of the past.
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This American Hero Was the Victim of a Scam, But These Volunteers are Saving the Day
After sustaining arm and leg injuries from shrapnel and a traumatic brain injury from a suicide bomb attack while in Afghanistan, veteran Everett “Alex” Haworth thought that life was on the upswing: He and his wife Mallorie closed on a house in Olmsted Township, Ohio and moved in with their baby daughter.
But unfortunately, their troubles were just beginning. Their remodeled ranch home passed its inspection, but once the family settled in, they discovered rampant mold behind the new drywall — rendering the house unlivable.
The family relocated, moving in with Mallorie’s mom, but they still had to pay the mortgage on their ruined home, a difficult proposition with Alex still in rehab and Mallorie completing her master’s degree in psychology, all the while raising their daughter.
“We put money in our house and in our attorney. We ran out of money both ways,” Mallorie told Regina Brett of the Cleveland Plain Dealer back in February. “It hurts. It’s been a few months of no hope. We’re not the kind to ask for help. We want to be the ones helping.”
But this month, a group of volunteers from the Home Depot, the Carpenters Union and members of the VFW are tearing out the damaged parts of the Haworth’s home and refurbishing it, providing new bathrooms, paint and even landscaping.
Alex tells Enrique Correa of Fox 8 Cleveland, “We are gonna have more than a home; we are gonna have our lives restored…It’s amazing and very humbling to know that people you never met a day in your life before, are coming to help you out.”
These very deserving homeowners should be able to move in by the end of October.
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This Generous Country Singer Helps Put Roofs Over Needy Veterans’ Heads
Although longtime country star Tim McGraw lives in a sprawling Nashville mansion, he’s never forgotten what it was like to grow up poor and lack the money for necessities.
So for the past several years, McGraw has teamed up with Colorado Springs-based charity Operation Homefront to give mortgage-free homes to veterans, and last month, the singer introduced the recipients of the nonprofit’s 100th home onstage during his performance in Dallas.
The lucky recipients? The Frachiseurs of east Texas.
BJ Frachiseur served in the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan for eight years. When he left the military, he and his wife Brooke and their two children faced a difficult situation. Their only housing option was to squeeze into a guest room at Brooke’s mom’s house because they couldn’t afford a down payment for a home of their own and didn’t qualify for a mortgage.
They applied to Operation Homefront’s Homes on the Homefront program, which provides bank-owned, renovated homes mortgage-free to needy military veterans. When there’s an available home, the nonprofit considers financial need, whether the veteran is wounded and whether the family has close ties to the community. After a family moves in and proves they can maintain the house and pay property taxes, insurance and homeowner’s association fees for two years, the home is theirs to keep.
Chase Bank owned the homes that McGraw has been awarding to military families at each of his tour stops for several years. Other banks, including Meritage, have provided other homes to the program as well.
McGraw’s connection to Operation Homefront helps raise awareness of the charity, which runs a myriad of programs besides the home-giveaways — from holiday toy drives to Thanksgiving meals for military veterans to rent-free housing for wounded veterans.
BJ Frachiseur tells Jake Whitman of NBC News that receiving the home “has taken a weight off my shoulders. I’ll go home, and I’ll say, oh, I’m going to my house. My house. Watching my kids play in the back yard and say, ‘Oh, this is my house.’ My house. Awesome.”
McGraw, whose sister, grandfather, and uncle are all veterans, tells Whitman that when he awards houses to vets, “They all — they don’t expect it. They don’t think they deserve it. The thing I’ll try to tell them is that, ‘You deserve everything good that comes to you in life. And take this, and build a life with it.’”
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Thanks to This Pop Star, 22 Homeless Veterans Now Have Access to Affordable Housing
Who cares what color Katy Perry’s hair currently is. She’s proven her heart is true blue by auctioning off a concert experience to help homeless veterans get off the streets.
The pop star teamed up with Veterans Matter, a nonprofit started by Ken Leslie in 2012 when he learned that HUD-VASH (a combined initiative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing) doesn’t provide a deposit to homeless vets receiving rental vouchers.
The lack of a down payment is a huge obstacle for struggling, jobless veterans looking to take advantage of the program.
Perry auctioned off a ticket package — complete with VIP perks and a chance to meet the singer — to a stop on her Prismatic tour for $4,000 to Scott Vaughn of Oakton, Va. The money will make a big impact: providing housing deposits to 17 homeless veterans in Austin, Texas, and 5 in Detroit.
Vaughn attended Perry’s recent Cleveland show, where she told him, “Thank you so much for helping Veterans Matter, it is so important that we help those who fought for our freedom,” according to Digital Journal‘s Earl Dittman.
Leslie is quite skilled at interesting celebrities in Veterans Matter, with such musicians as Kid Rock, John Mellencamp, Ice-T and Stevie Nicks contributing to the cause. “These homeless veterans have guaranteed long-term housing and the keys are jingling in their hands,” Leslie tells Dittman. “All they need is the deposit to get them over the threshold. Katy and the others are helping us provide that final piece that pushes them over that threshold.”
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Inspired by Homeless Veterans in His Own Family, This Boy Scout Helps Give Those in His Community a Fresh Start
The challenge facing 17-year-old Boy Scout Robert Decker: Finding a service project that benefitted his Egg Harbor Township, N.J. community.
To earn the Eagle Rank that he’s been working for years to attain, Decker decided that he wanted to make a difference in the lives of veterans struggling with homelessness.
He Tells Devin Loring of the Press of Atlantic City that he was inspired in this mission because his grandfather and several great uncles served in World War II, and some of his uncles experienced homelessness after they returned from war.
Decker contacted Jaime Kazmarck, a social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic in Northfield, N.J., to inquire about how he could help homeless soldiers. Kazmarck is a coordinator with HUD-VASH (Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing), a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the VA to help homeless veterans transition off the streets. The program provides vouchers for rent payments to veterans and supports them with case management and counseling.
Kazmarck told Decker that many of the vets who finally get a key to their own apartment have few possessions to make it feel like home.
So Decker organized a campaign encouraging people to donate practical items to outfit these vets’ apartments, including towels, toothpaste and cleaning supplies.
Decker and other members of his Boy Scout troop stood outside the Somers Point supermarket ShopRite, distributing fliers about the project and talking to people about it. Over two nights, they collected more than $1,500 worth of supplies and donations. According to Loring, Decker collected enough to fill 20 laundry baskets and 10 boxes and was able to purchase 25 $10 Wal-Mart gift cards with money donated for the vets.
“We’re really grateful for Mr. Decker and the troop for getting this together,” Kazmarck tells Loring. “They did a great job. It gives them [veterans] a wonderful start in a new apartment or home.”
Decker has submitted documentation of all his work to the Eagle Scout board of review, who will soon tell him whether he has qualified. We think it’s a safe bet that this generous and hard-working scout will be rewarded with a new rank.
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