Tag: Housing Veterans

3 Vet-Focused Companies Helping Soldiers Adjust to Civilian Life

Posted on by robbie

Most people have switched jobs at least once, but transitioning out of the military is an experience most civilians can’t fully understand.  To soften the transition, many veteran-run organizations step in to make the process easier. Here are three organizations that epitomize comradeship.

VETERANS TO FARMERS, DENVER

The nonprofit Veterans to Farmers grows more than plants. The Denver-based organization uses agriculture to help vets reintegrate into civilian life, one lettuce patch at a time. They offer eight-to-10-week training programs in hydroponics, aquaponics and in-soil farming at no cost to veterans who apply — some may even qualify for a stipend.
“We have every background of veteran,” says Rich Murphy, co-founder and executive director. “Some want to grow food for family, some want to learn about agriculture, and some show up for no reason.”
In 2013, Murphy, a third-generation U.S. Air Force veteran who had served in Security Forces for five years, was building a career as a social worker in Denver. There, he met Buck Adams, a former Marine, who had the idea to hire vets to work at his greenhouse. With interest in urban farming and homesteading, Murphy didn’t hesitate to shift gears, and he and Adams co-founded Veterans to Farmers. “We knew that combining veterans and farming could have huge positive impacts for both communities,” he says.
The positive effects of getting one’s hands dirty are real. Take Eli, who served in both the Army and the Marines before being dishonorably discharged after a mental breakdown. Because of his mental and physical disabilities, he was struggling to adjust to civilian life. He heard about the program online and drove from Kentucky to Colorado.
“He was dealing with PTSD and there was an individual war inside him,” says Murphy. After completing two courses, Eli enrolled in college and was able to have his dishonorable discharge adjusted into an honorable one. He still gardens and now owns five acres.  
“It takes energy to go after what you need,” adds Murphy. “We have to get these people engaged, to hang out in the field, planting, reintegrating.”
Five years and more than 100 veteran-graduates later, the organization isn’t slowing down. It is currently building another 3,000-square-foot greenhouse in Fort Collins, Colorado, and launching a homesteading course that will include beekeeping as well as chicken and hog care.

HOMEFRONT ROOM REVIVAL, GOLDSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA

Hardships in the military are not just for the enlisted. While life in the armed forces is marked by a nomadic nature, spouses and families can have a hard time settling into their communities. To combat that sense of isolation, Homefront Room Revival aims to boost morale through purposeful custom home projects across North Carolina.
“People think that you’re always going to move out,” says founder and executive director Katelyn Tinsley. “So you never really move in.” Homefront Room Revival wants to change that by helping military families find a comfort in the “chaos of military life.”
Tinsley knows what it’s like to feel lonely and unenthused about her home. After almost five years as a mental health tech for the Air Force, she found out that she was pregnant with a second child shortly after her husband was deployed.
“Chasing my 1-year-old and coming home to an empty house gave me anxiety,” she says. She started decorating to make herself feel better — transforming her space into a home filled with thrift-store pieces and flea market finds — which helped her get her bearings during a tough time.
This gave her an idea: bring joy to others, one redecorated room at a time. Tinsley started picking up home décor projects for friends, and eventually launched Homefront Room Revival in 2016. The program relies on volunteers — currently that includes more than 200 service members and spouses — as well partnerships with Habitat for Humanity and the local arts council.
Not only does the organization help families settle into their homes, but it provides a creative outlet for its volunteers and upcycles furniture that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Last December, Homefront Room Revival launched Dec’ the Deployment, focusing on holiday decorations. The team spruced up eight homes, including one with a newborn whose mom “just didn’t have the energy” to put up a tree because her husband was deployed.
Tinsley sees the project as an important way to support military families. “It’s a unique way to get people involved and have that personal connection of [having] outreached to those who wouldn’t be touched otherwise.”

GREEN EXTREME HOMES CDC, GARLAND, TEXAS

A house is something many of us often take for granted, but for veterans, homes play an important role in their integration back to civilian life. Veteran homelessness is a serious problem. The National Alliance to End Homelessness finds that there are more than 40,000 homeless veterans — almost 10 percent of all homeless adults.
Green Extreme Homes CDC in Garland, Texas, is a nonprofit providing homes that are discounted as much as 50 percent to veterans and their families, and the homes themselves are anything but ordinary. The concept is simple: take old, drafty houses and completely gut them into not merely energy-efficient homes, but into Zero Energy Ready Homes — a  Department of Energy program that applies rigorous coding standards to new homes, with the requirement that they’re at least 40–50 percent more energy efficient than a typical new home.
“We are way above current codes and next current codes,” says Steve Brown, builder and president of Green Extreme Homes CDC, adding that their construction standards are more aligned to home guidelines for the year 2030. Each house they remodel features optimized plumbing, solar power hookups, efficient insulation and Energy Star appliances, which can translate into utility bills of around $2 dollars a day.
To create these eco-centric and affordable homes, Green Extreme Homes CDC teams up with volunteers from local veteran coalitions and corporate initiatives, including Citi, which has collaborated with the nonprofit since 2011.  
The team is currently working on a seven-bedroom group home in Lewisville, Texas, for women veterans with or without children.
“Right now, there are 97 women veterans living in Dallas-area shelters,” says Jean Brown, executive director of Green Extreme Homes CDC, whose family boasts four generations of veterans. “We can take in 15 to 20 female vets and provide them a home and a nurturing environment. There is no time limit for how long they can stay [in order] to get back on their feet.”
The group home, which will have a hydroponics system to help the women grow their own food, is in early development. As the project progresses, the team, including a small army of Citi volunteers, will work together on everything from landscaping to furniture assembly in preparation for the grand finale next spring.  
“It starts with housing,” Brown says. “Once you have a roof over your head you can find employment and mentoring.”

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This article was paid by and produced in partnership with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veterans’ service organizations and leading veterans’ champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the fifth installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.
Correction: A previous version of this article featured outdated information on Homefront Room Revival’s volunteer count and partnerships. NationSwell apologizes for the error.

Sometimes, All It Takes to Help Veterans Is Common Sense

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When veterans return home after being wounded during service, they face innumerable challenges, one of which is often just getting into and navigating around their own houses.
Several charities, including Building for America’s Bravest, the Gary Sinise Foundation, and Operation Homefront, have stepped up to provide wounded veterans with customized homes equipped with ramps, wide doorways and appliances accessible to people in wheelchairs. While these specialized houses are free, they often saddle veterans with a large annual tax bill, which some struggle to afford (especially if their injuries prevent them from working).
Nick Mapson, injured by two IEDs while serving in Afghanistan, is a recipient of a customized home from New American Homes, Inc. “It’s hard to explain all the widened doorways, all the easy accessible things throughout the house, the stoves the microwave, just a whole bunch of the things a lot of people take for granted,” Mapson, who lives in the Chicago area, tells Fox 18.
Mapson described the home as “the most amazing gift.” But then he learned how much he owed in property taxes. “We came to find out that they were almost $11,000 a year. That was out of our tax bracket for us to pay.”
Thankfully, Illinois recently passed a law, Senate Bill 2905, that eases the property tax burden faced by wounded veterans. Prior to the law, up to $70,000 of a wounded veteran’s home’s value was tax exempt, but only if the Disabled American Veterans built it. Now up to $100,000 of the home’s assessed value is exempt from taxes on homes donated by any nonprofit or individual to wounded veterans.
Mapson was relieved. “Now with the bill it affects everybody,” he says. “Veterans in Illinois that have donated homes and specially adapted homes built by the V.A. This is a pretty huge moment for us.”
MORE: Meet the Georgians Putting Energy-Efficient Roofs Over Disabled Vets’ Heads
 

After Enduring Homelessness Herself, This Veteran Helps Other Soldiers Find Opportunity

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Looking to take advantage of the educational benefits that the military offered, Anita Pascual joined the National Guard when she was just 19 years old.
Just as she was set to deploy to Iraq, however, she found out she was pregnant, so she left the Guard only to join the Army three years later and serve in Afghanistan.
After active duty, Pascual returned home to her three kids in Fresno, Calif. and hit a bumpy road. “One day I was me, a soldier, and the next day I’m mom again,” she tells Valley Public Radio. “Mom, and sister, and daughter and I had to do all that buckle up and it was just exhausting and overwhelming sometimes.”
Pascual couldn’t pay her bills and soon received an eviction notice. She turned to the nonprofit WestCare Foundation’s housing complex for homeless vets: HomeFront. The organization welcomed her and gave her an apartment to stay in while she got back on her feet; about four years ago, she was able to leave and move into her own home.
Now Pascual works for HomeFront, helping other female vets facing homelessness find jobs, education opportunities and support.
Elle, a veteran that Pascual is helping, appreciates the extra touches HomeFront provides to help homeless service members. “It’s not just a room and that’s it. You have all the capabilities of what can help you to move forward,” Elle says. “It doesn’t make you feel like you’re sitting under a park bench anymore.”
Elle credits Pascual with helping to put her life back in order. “I’m going to get my college benefits, she put me up with a good position with being able to get a job. Seven or eight years of back and forth it took seven weeks just for Anita to help me out.”
MORE: For Female Veterans Experiencing Employment Woes, This Organization Offers Strong Advice

How Putting a Pen to Paper Saved a Disabled Veteran’s Home

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Saying that 65-year-old disabled Vietnam veteran Buck was down on his luck is an understatement.
His septic tank failed and would cost $27,000 to repair. His daughter is ill, so he and his wife support their children, leaving them with no money to spare and the belief that they might have to abandon their home in Pontiac, Mich. Desperate, Buck’s wife started writing letters to any organization and individual she could think of, asking for help.
“My wife started applying for everything and I remember it was almost funny the envelopes of rejection coming in,” Buck tells Fox Detroit.
When his wife exhausted all the places she could think of to ask for help, Buck sat down to write a letter of his own to L. Brooks Patterson, a lawyer and politician who is the County Executive of Oakland County, Mich., where Buck lives. “You sir are my last hope,” he wrote, “we gave up for the most part last month but something tells me to contact L. Brooks Patterson.”
Buck’s instinct was right. Patterson immediately directed his staff to search for grants to help Buck. “We picked up a $10,000 grant from the Michigan Veterans Trust Fund and a $16,000 grant from the Michigan Veterans Homeowners Assistance Program,” Patterson says. “Put that together and you can fix the septic and stay in your home for Christmas.”
“It was one of the most amazing feelings I ever felt,” Buck tells Bill Mullan, an Oakland County Media and Communications Officer. “For months we had been thinking we were going to have to leave our home, about the packing we had to do, and how we were going to have to come up with the money to move. I felt safe again.”
MORE: The Coordinated Rescue Team That Saved A Disabled Veteran From Homelessness

The Coordinated Rescue Team That Saved a Disabled Veteran from Homelessness

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You’ve heard the sad stories of veterans falling through the social service cracks and ending up homeless.
This is not that.
Instead, it’s a happy tale about a group in South Carolina that united to patch those cracks in the system and efficiently coordinate resources available to help veterans.
Disabled U.S. Army Veteran Herbert Frink of Beaufort, S.C., hit upon hard times recently. He lost his job and went through an expensive divorce, both of which put him behind on his rent, utility and car payments. Frink gained custody of his two young children, but he knew he might lose them, too, if he lost his housing, so he asked for help at the American Red Cross.
His simple request set off a united effort to keep a roof over his head, made possible by the new Military and Veterans Service Alliance of the Lowcountry (MAVSA). The service, which began this year in the southern state, maintains a database of more than 40 organizations eager to help vets. Representatives from the nonprofits meet once a month to coordinate their efforts.
In Frink’s case, the Red Cross picked up the tab for his overdue electric bills, the Savannah chapter of Wounded Warriors got him up to date on his car payments and One80 Place, a Charleston, S.C.-based nonprofit that aims to prevent homelessness, paid for his rent and even found him a new job with a trucking company. They also found a daycare that would accept Frink’s kids and accommodate his job hours.
“They have done so much for me,” Frink tells the Beaufort Gazette. “The resources started pouring in once I contacted them, and they have not stopped.”
Frink isn’t the only veteran MAVSA has helped. In its first few months of operation, members have also connected a suicidal veteran with psychiatric care and helped others get back on their feet financially. The coalition hopes to expand their scope in the future, updating their website and partnering with law enforcement to initiate special veterans courts.
“As a veteran, it makes me feel so good to know that organizations in my hometown are helping veterans,” Frink says. “I never thought I’d experience it. Now that someone’s helping me, I need to give back. I owe a million thanks to them. They saved me and my children.”
MORE: When It Comes to Helping Homeless Vets, Could Thinking Small be the Answer?

This Veteran Literally Searches Through Shrubbery for Homeless Soldiers Needing Assistance

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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.”
MORE: Inspired by Homeless Veterans in his Own Family, This Boy Scout Gives Those in His Community a Fresh Start
 

Nationwide, Veterans Struggle with Housing. It’s This Company’s Mission to Help Out

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When you hear about struggling veterans across the country receiving much-needed home renovations, it’s one company that’s often providing the assistance: The Home Depot.
For years, the home improvement store has made a commitment to helping veterans any way it can — including donating supplies and having its employees offer volunteer labor. And for the past four years, the merchant has used its Celebration of Service to rally its employees between September 11 and Veterans Day to partner with nonprofits nationwide to refurbish 1,000 homes for people who’ve served our country.
Through the program, The Home Depot employees volunteer their time for renovation projects during their days off. There’s no compensation, and despite the fact that they’re not required to participate, hundreds of workers do so each year.
Recently, five Home Depot employees joined 19 volunteers from Oregon Paralyzed Veterans of America to renovate the home of Army veteran Daniel Service in West Salem, Ore. Service left the military in 1991 after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and since 2008, has been in a wheelchair. Volunteers repaired and painted a deck, built a portable greenhouse, replaced security lights and more for the disabled veteran.
“It’s wonderful for me to see them honor my husband, and it’s such a great thing for others to see what Home Depot is doing,” Service’s wife, Beverly, tells Capi Lynn of the Statesmen Journal. “They are volunteering their time and giving their hearts.”
Meanwhile on the opposite corner of the country, Gulf War Navy veteran Carol Semplis of South Florida was struggling to navigate the old flooring in her house after a foot infection she contracted during her service resulted in the amputation of her big toes. “I don’t have any big toes and my feet have been giving me a lot of trouble. That floor was making it worse,” she tells Oralia Ortega of CBS Miami.
This week, volunteers from the Home Depot installed new wood flooring and tile, revamped the landscaping, added a garden and painted her home.
“These veterans bravely served our country and basically this is the least we can do by giving back,” Nadene Rose, manager of the Oakland Park Home Depot, says.
Thanks to an army of busy volunteers, hundreds of veterans will receive refreshed, snug homes before winter.
MORE: When This Vet’s House Started to Crumble, Home Depot Stepped in with a $20,000 Renovation
 

This Organization Provides Shelter to Homeless Veterans Seeking Forgiveness

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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.”
MORE: For Veterans Transitioning Off the Streets, This Organization Makes Them Feel Right At Home
 

For Veterans Transitioning Off the Streets, This Organization Helps Them Feel Right at Home

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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.
MORE: The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities
 

The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities

Posted on by robbie

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.
MORE: Giving Homeless Vets A Helping Hand — And A New Uniform