Homeless vets reclaim their lives

Homeless vets reclaim their lives

TUCSON, Ariz. – There are 1,265 homeless veterans currently in Tucson.  With the Iraq war, that number is expected to increase but Tucson has an answer for any vet willing to help themselves. 

Under the sun hat and behind the bushy white beard is Navy vet Peter Hoard, who sounds just like the Rhode Islander he was and wears a Harley T-shirt and a real bear claw around his neck.

Hoard, 64, is a recovering alcoholic and former cocaine addict who got by selling newspapers on the street for six years while he lived in the desert, drunk and high.

Now he’s an unofficial ambassador to the federal government’s programs for homeless veterans in Tucson.

With the Iraq war sending Americans into combat, the number of homeless combat vets with a high incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder here is expected to grow, said Steven Cohen, a clinical social worker and director of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s homeless rehabilitation program in Tucson.

Tucson is braced for the increase.

“Tucson has been pretty much on top of any funding available for homeless vets,” Cohen said.

The number of homeless vets in Tucson is about the same as it was when Veterans Affairs began its rehab program in 1987 to help homeless vets get treatment for PTSD and substance abuse, Cohen said.

Cohen said the VA nationally is looking to Housing and Urban Development to find permanent housing for these vets. Currently, vets can get housing support for two years. 

On the local level, community groups soon will begin working with the VA to get grant money and HUD funds to set up permanent housing for once-homeless vets, Cohen said.

Two days a week Hoard volunteers behind the welcome desk in Building 66, the VA’s outpost on Tucson’s South Side for the rumpled and unwashed men who have no place to call home.

In the last three years, the number of contacts with homeless vets has increased almost threefold.

Hoard’s tale is a Building 66 success story.

He was one of several thousand veterans offered help each year – veterans who are willing to try to escape a life of alcohol or drugs or poor health.

Any vet can walk into Building 66’s lobby Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and ask for help.

There are 81 beds available to house people who have committed to a treatment program. They can stay for a couple of years as long as they do what’s required to get sober and stay there.

The social workers help vets enter addiction treatment programs, apply for disability payments and even get their warrants for alcohol-related offenses tossed out.

City Court sets aside one morning a month for a social worker who escorts a group of homeless vets to court to try to get some mercy from the system, Cohen said.

If they’ve completed a detox program and have their certificate to provide it, the judge can dismiss their case, he said.

“What’s important here is there are people hiding under bridges because they have warrants for open containers.”

The ultimate goal is for the vets to reclaim their lives, Cohen said.

VA programs for homeless vets include outreach for severely mentally ill veterans. If they agree to get help, the program links them to services at the VA hospital and in the community, including psychiatric evaluations and medication, therapy and even housing.

The VA has its own medical outpatient clinics and inpatient detox services, which are also used by active duty military personnel. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are held in Building 66.

The homeless program also contracts with residential care facilities and halfway houses to find shelter for homeless vets.

Each vet has his own life story and his own problems.

Hoard served in the Navy before Vietnam. He saw no combat at his posting in Newport, 17 miles from his home in Rhode Island. He was home for supper every night.

After his military service, he was a bar owner. He drank nearly every day, then discovered the pleasures of cocaine.

He retired early and estimates he spent about $100,000 of his retirement on drugs.

Hoard moved to Tucson to be closer to his brothers and sisters.

He was homeless and drunk, selling daily newspapers on the streets and making just enough to get by.

Living in the desert was rough. He developed pneumonia and later, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Hoard went to the VA Medical Center for treatment of pneumonia and alcoholism. He got into a halfway house and then left.

About six months later he returned to the VA program for help.

Most of the vets who receive help from the VA are not on Social Security disability or receiving veterans’ benefits. About two-thirds have monthly incomes of less than $500 a month and most haven’t worked at all in the 30 days prior to the VA’s contact with them.

In the morning, a social worker from the VA goes out with other partners in the community – Travelers Aid, for instance – and visits the parks, the washes, the sewers, the tunnels and the homeless camps.

“These are people who obviously aren’t coming in and one way to engage them is to go out to them,” Cohen said.

The VA nationwide has taken a look at the way it provided housing and in the last year or so, the thrust is to provide more “grant per diem” beds through community partners who bid competitively for these grants, Cohen said.

A couple months ago, Phoenix had no beds. And two years ago, six states had no beds through the grant per diem program.

It’s been 2 1/2 years since Hoard joined the program.

He’s applying for disability payments and living in a group home with other vets.

Now Hoard talks to the walk-ins at Building 66 and tries to push them gently toward treatment.

“It makes me feel good,” he said. “I’m helping my brother and sisters. I’m giving something back that I got.”

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