Even if you’ve had lots of bad luck come your way, there’s probably someone out there that can top it. Captain Jaspen Boothe of the Army National Guard is one of those people.
While this single mother served in Iraq in August 2005, she lost everything back home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. And the hits didn’t stop there.
The very next month, she was diagnosed with “aggressive head, neck, and throat cancer,” according to her website. As a result, she could no longer be deployed overseas and needed a job to support her young son and to pay for her medical care. She inquired about around about assistance, but was told that there aren’t any organizations dedicated to specifically helping female veterans.
While undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer, Boothe managed to keep a position in the Army Reserves. Once she felt better, she joined the Army National Guard, in which she now serves, based out of Washington, D.C.
Now that she had climbed back on her feet, Boothe wanted to do something to help other female veterans caught in difficult circumstances. So in 2010, she founded the nonprofit Final Salute, Inc., with the goal of housing homeless female veterans. “When Americans think of veterans, they’re only thinking about the men. Women veterans are the forgotten heroes of America. A lot of them have fallen on hard times,” Boothe told Denise Hendricks of HLN Morning Express.
To date, Final Salute, Inc. has helped 200 veteran women and their children, and now runs three transitional homes for them in Alexandria, Virginia; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Columbus, Ohio. Through its S.A.F.E. program (Savings Assessment and Financial Education), the organization assists women vets achieve financial stability and offers emergency assistance, and through its H.O.M.E. initiative (Housing Outreach Mentorship Encouragement), it offers housing assistance and help with food, diapers, and other essentials.
“We are not a pity party environment. We give you all the tools that you need, but your success in this program is up to you.” Boothe’s tireless efforts, she said, are “the right thing to do as an American and the right thing to do as a soldier.”
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
Tag: Homeless Veterans
What Do Kid Rock, John Mellencamp and Mitch Albom Have in Common?
Despite their divergent musical styles of classic rockers John Mellencamp and Z.Z. Top, rap-rocker Kid Rock, and country star Kix Brooks, they’ve come together in the fight to prevent homelessness among veterans.
These well-known Americans are giving their time and money to Toledo, Ohio-based Veterans Matter, a nonprofit working to unite the efforts of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Department of Housing and Development to identify veterans at risk for falling into homelessness and those already on the streets — connecting them with the resources they need to find an affordable place to live.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom is involved with the nonprofit too, serving as the honorary chairman of Veterans Matter’s Michigan chapter, fundraising and speaking to groups to raise awareness of the problem. “Our veterans — those men and women who have sacrificed so much to ensure our freedom—deserve better than a home on the streets,” Albom told Veterans Matter.
Ken Leslie, founder of Veterans Matter who once was homeless himself, explained to Lissa Guyton of ABC13 how the program works: “The VA finds the vets and gets them ready for the housing. HUD finds the section 8 housing long term and we provide the deposit money which is often the last barrier preventing them from getting over the threshold.”
Veterans Matter recently celebrated housing its 200th veteran in six states: Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Indiana, Washington, Tennessee, and Massachusetts.
Leslie told Guyton, “Helping people is probably the most powerful thing there is. There are more than 57,000 vets on the streets of our nation, and many of them are abandoned and forgotten. Some of them are beaten, robbed and even killed on the streets. If that happened behind enemy lines, Americans would be outraged. Veterans Matter is our outrage.”
With more vets helped every year, Veterans Matter will continue to demonstrate the power of transforming that outrage into compassion.
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Meet the Do-Gooders on Two Wheels That Are Helping Vets
Members of the Gary Owen Motorcycle Club in Waldo County, Maine are your typical bikers: Wearing leather jackets emblazoned with club patches and sporting tattoos that tout their affiliation, they regularly gather to tune up their bikes.
But this isn’t just a gang of motorcycle ruffians. Military veterans formed the club in 2012 with the intention of coming together around their common interest (motorcycles) to help other veterans. “We’re not a 1 percent club or an outlaw club,” the group’s treasurer, Curby Biagiotti, told Christopher Cousins of the Bangor Daily News. “Our primary goal is to help veterans, and that’s it.”
How do they assist former service members? The club started raising funds for veterans by raffling off a handmade quilt and cords of firewood. And the past few cold winters, they’ve supplied propane to the family of a veteran dying of cancer and restocked a military widow’s woodshed. But this year, the club is stepping up its fundraising efforts for its most ambitious project yet: They plan to tear down an old building on seven acres of farmland in Montville, Maine, and build a 24-bed shelter for homeless vets. They hope to get the farm up and running, too, and employ the vets in farm work. Local organic farmers have offered to teach the future residents what they know, and help them sell some of the produce they grow.
“We’re tired of seeing homeless vets. There’s no reason for our veterans to be homeless and we’ve got a lot of them,” club president Alex Allmayer-Beck told Wayne Harvey of WABI TV5. He said he believes veterans “need to be in a place where they have some semblance of stability, where people can treat them like human beings and they can get back into the work force, slowly.”
Currently, the club is raising money to get the project underway, which they anticipate will cost $750,000. They are accepting donations through the Bangor Savings Bank.
When the facility opens its doors, you can bet that motorcycles and tattoos will be welcome.
MORE: All It Took To Get This Homeless Vet an Apartment Was A Poster
Meet a Couple Whose Service to Veterans Will Make You Smile
Who knows if volunteering is the secret to a long-lasting partnership, but for one Connecticut couple, serving veterans has certainly served their 45-year-long marriage well.
Joanne and Jerry Blum met in 1967, after Jerry returned from serving in Vietnam. He was working at the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, as a psychiatric aid, and Joanne was in nursing school, assigned to the same ward as Jerry during her three-month rotation. When she moved back to Massachusetts, Jerry’s friend convinced him to call her. And as they say, the rest is history.
They got married in 1968 and ever since, they have been working with veterans. Their whole family became involved with the West Hartford Veterans of Foreign Wars. “Joanne marched with the drill team,” Jerry told M.A.C. Lynch of the Hartford Courant. “I was in the color guard. Our daughters were in the fife and drum corps.” Professionally, Joanne worked as a nurse for thirty years at the veterans’ hospital in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.
In more recent years, the Blums started volunteering with the Jewish War Veterans. “The Jewish War Veterans is the oldest active veterans service organization in America,” said Jerry. “Their mission is to dispel the idea that Jews don’t serve in the military, and to take care of veterans.” Through Jewish War Veterans, the Blums help homeless veterans and those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. They also assist veterans in hospitals through their organization’s Grant-A-Wish program — providing the vets with such comforts as new shoes and restaurant meals.
“Any time we do anything for the veterans, it’s the best mitzvah, something that you do that’s more than a good deed. You do it with no possible return,” Jerry said, but “for the feeling inside that this is what we exist for.”
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All It Took to Get This Homeless Vet an Apartment Was a Poster
Just because you have a roof over your head doesn’t mean you have a home.
When Army veteran Frank Maryn had trouble finding construction work and then lost his housing, the American Legion in Williams, Arizona took him in. He was allowed to sleep at the Legion in exchange for work that included hanging posters for programs and events. Maryn was thankful for the shelter — but it wasn’t the most comfortable home. Each night after the Legion’s bar closed, Maryn rolled out his sleeping bag on the hard floor. Eventually he got a cushion to sleep on, but the Legion post lacked a key amenity: a shower. One day Maryn hung up a poster that offered him a solution, advertising the Catholic Charities Community Services’ Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program.
Maryn told Marissa Freireich of Williams-Grand Canyon News that he didn’t call the SSVF program immediately after seeing the poster. “I was just going, well, I’ll land a full time job here or something and then I’ll just take care of this myself. But then I fell off a roof in November, so that was two months of not doing anything.” Maryn contacted SSVF, who set him up with a caseworker that located him an apartment. He moved in this month.
Catholic Charities received a million-dollar federal grant last October, which funds the SSVF program. Its goal is to end homelessness among veterans by providing them with up to five months rent and getting them on their feet by providing assistance with benefit paperwork and finding employment. They launched the SSVF program in December, and Maryn is the first veteran in Williams that the organization helped find a home.
Maryn told Freireich that he’s happy to be in his own apartment. “I’ve had a bed for two days, and except for when I was visiting somebody or something I’ve been on a floor, so that’s different. It’s nice. And the shower of course is great. I’m content.”
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Can a New Approach to Treating Vets Keep Them Off the Streets for Good?
This week the Department of Veterans Affairs opened a new residential treatment center in San Diego, designed to help veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan who are in danger of slipping into homelessness. The Aspire Center has rooms for 34 men and 6 women, and is unique in its focus on only veterans from these two wars. Directors of the Aspire Center hope that grouping together veterans of similar ages who’ve had similar experiences will produce better results.
The Aspire Center’s 28 staff members will offer vets therapy for PTSD, treatment for substance abuse, and occupational counseling. These types of services proved to be life-saving for Kris Warren, an Iraq Marine veteran who sought help from the VA in Los Angeles and after counseling was able to reunite with his family. Warren will be on staff as a social services assistant at The Aspire Center. “I know what it’s like to walk up those stairs, prideful, and ask for help,” he told Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times.
The VA plans to open four more such residential facilities over the next two years in Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, and West Palm Beach, Fla. They will serve veterans of all ages, but if studies prove an advantage of grouping veterans with similar experiences together, the VA may expand the San Diego approach in the future. An estimated 286 veterans in San Diego are homeless or at risk for becoming homeless, and VA officials will be watching that number and the veterans who stay at The Aspire Center closely to determine if this approach can make a difference. So will Kris Warren. “Where they go, I’ll go,” he told Perry.
MORE: We Support Our Vets. But How About the Afghans Who Helped Them?
This Former Drill Sergeant Wants to Introduce You to Homeless Vets
True to drill sergeant form, Jerry Tovo wants to be seen and heard, loud and clear. A 68-year-old veteran and photographer, Tovo hopes to give faces to the mere facts and figures of veteran homelessness in the U.S. So far, he has photographed more than 100 veterans in Chicago, Indianapolis, Nashville, Washington D.C., and New York City. Tovo has undertaken the project as part of his nonprofit, They May Have Been Heroes: The Homeless Veterans Project.
An exhibit of the photographs, called “I Was a Soldier,” is on display at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, but Tovo hopes to gather enough support and acclaim to display it at the Newseum in Washington D.C. Tovo has invested more than $35,000 in the project and isn’t stopping there — he’s also working on a book about his travels. Any money donated to his campaign goes to his travel costs and to National Veterans Homeless Support. Tovo wants people to see what these veterans go through and doesn’t want anyone to assume the worst about them. “People tend to generalize that these guys are all just a bunch of drunks and alcoholics,” Tovo told Florida Today. “That they’re happy where they are. But every one of these people, every one of them, have their own story. There’s a reason why they are where they are.”
MORE: This Injured Veteran Healed Himself. Now He’s Bringing His Secret to Others
This Business Is Putting the Words ‘Thank You for Your Service’ Into Action
The Vetraplex, a Cottonwood, Arizona-based contracting company, has a unique motto: “Putting the words ‘thank you for your service’ in action.” The company hires and trains veterans to perform such work as painting, welding, and carpentry. The Vetraplex also offers discounts to veterans and active military personnel for its services.
“When we first started this, the six original veterans hired were unemployed, and half of us had been or were homeless,” James Bruno, an Army veteran and the company’s vice president, told Tamara Sone of The Daily Courant. “The first month that we opened as landscaping, construction and handymen, we got so busy we couldn’t keep up.”
The Vetraplex is now offering to sell franchises so that its model of training and employing veterans can be expanded throughout Arizona.
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Giving Homeless Vets a Helping Hand—and a New Uniform
Before he became the Executive Director of Arizona State Parks, Bryan Martyn served in the Air Force and Army as a special operations helicopter pilot. Saddened when he learned about the high rates of homelessness and suicide among veterans, Martyn decided to do something about it. So he initiated a new program in the Arizona State Parks to provide jobs to homeless veterans. He told Kyle Benedict of NAZ Today that his aim was to “give them a uniform, give them a job, give them a place to be and a purpose, pay them a fair wage and provide housing.”
One of the veterans helped by the program is Carlos Garcia, who served as a combat engineer in the Army for 14 years. He now works as a Park Ranger Specialist and lives on Dead Horse Ranch State Park in a FEMA trailer, which he describes as “pretty comfortable.” He works 8 to 5, earning $12 an hour, and enjoys the outdoor work so much that he hopes to move up from this temporary job into a permanent position with the parks department.
Martyn told Craig Harris of the Arizona Republic that he has funding to provide the first group of five veterans a 40-hour-a-week job for nine months, but that he hopes the vets might get on their feet even sooner. We hope so too.
MORE: This Paralyzed Vet Can Hunt and Fish Again, Thanks To the Generosity of His Community
This Veteran Is Taking the ‘No Man Left Behind’ Mantra to Civilian Life
When Adam Minton left the Army after eight years of service, he had a hard time settling back into civilian life. “I struggled when I left the military. It’s hard for us to find our niche once we get out,” he told Dan Spehler of Fox 59. “I’m one of the fortunate ones.” That’s because Minton made his own luck: He found work as a security guard and, with help from his girlfriend Erin Parks, started The Minks Kids, a non-profit that assists homeless and hungry people, especially veterans.
Screengrab via Fox 59 WXIN-TV.
While the couple raises money to open a soup kitchen, they’re visiting struggling veterans every month, providing companionship and a home-cooked meal. Right now they’re running the nonprofit out of their home, storing supplies in their garage as they seek donations to get their organization up and running. Parks told Spehler, “The military in general has that ‘no man left behind’ mantra and it just feels like when the men and women transition, they’re kind of being left behind, not necessarily by the military, just kind of by life.” We can all salute Minton and Parks’ efforts to change that.
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