{"id":72375,"date":"2023-10-30T08:54:07","date_gmt":"2023-10-30T14:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=72375"},"modified":"2023-11-09T15:58:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T22:58:25","slug":"helping-veterans-experiencing-homelessness-find-permanent-housing-jobs-in-colorado-springs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/helping-veterans-experiencing-homelessness-find-permanent-housing-jobs-in-colorado-springs\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping veterans experiencing homelessness find permanent housing and jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

He served in the Army and the U.S. Coast Guard then ended up living for years in an 8-by-12-foot shack he constructed of wood from an old picket fence and insulated with discarded hot tub covers.<\/p>\n

Every few days, the 56-year-old lugged a 5-gallon jug of water he bought from a grocer to the rugged shelter. He heated the water on a propane stove and took sponge baths to care for himself.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cI
\u201cI voted for you,\u201d Ed Florez (center) said as he greeted Mayor Yemi Mobolade. Florez volunteered at the Disabled American Veterans table. The mayor stopped by the Vietnam and Vietnam Era Veterans table, where he met Thomas Dowell (left) and Jim Beckham (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many nights, he lay awake, \u201cjust wondering if the wolf\u2019s going to be at the door,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

Hiding out in the scrub oak in the foothills on Colorado Springs\u2019 west side took its toll and a few weeks back, he was selected to participate in a Transitional Housing Initiative. He is now living in a hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cA place to shower, a bed,\u2019\u2019 he said, his voice cracking with emotion. \u201cIt\u2019s nice \u00ad\u00ad\u2013 just to sleep in a bed and have that peace of mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m looking for work or doing anything, I\u2019m able to show up presentable. I\u2019ve got clean clothes on, and I am showered,\u2019\u2019 said the vet, who will remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

The veteran\u2019s new start began Oct. 17, when he attended the 25th<\/sup> Annual Stand Down, a community-wide event in Colorado Springs to help veterans experiencing homelessness. Community volunteers provide winter gear \u2013 socks, coats, hats, gloves, boots \u2013 as well as financial, spiritual and logistical support. When funding for the transitional housing program, operated by Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center<\/a>, was in jeopardy this year, UCHealth and the Memorial Hospital Foundation stepped up to fill the financial need.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
At the Stand Down held Oct. 17 to help veterans experiencing homelessness, Dr. Jeff Havel, optometrist, congratulates an Army veteran for his good vision exam. Free eye exams are offered at Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center in Colorado Springs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That afternoon at the close of the Stand Down, the veteran hopped aboard a van that took him and eight other veterans experiencing homelessness to a local hotel, where they are spending 30 days in an immersive program aimed at helping them find work and attain permanent housing. At the end of the 30 days, the goal is for each man to have a job and a permanent place to live.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be wonderful,\u2019\u2019 the veteran said of finding permanent housing. \u201cI always had my own place, and I had a job. I never asked for any kind of assistance like this. It\u2019s just the housing out there \u2026There isn\u2019t anything under $1,000 a month out there.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Mt. Carmel, a nonprofit organization that helps men and women veterans in countless ways, will work with the men for up to a year after they find work and housing. UCHealth partners with Mt. Carmel in the Next Chapter program, along with the state of Colorado, and is dedicated to reducing veteran suicides and improving access to behavioral health for veterans. In 2022, the percentage of people who took their lives who were military veterans decreased by 5%, according to the El Paso County Coroner\u2019s annual report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our partners at Mt. Carmel, we are wrapping services around these individuals to help them find permanent housing and employment and to help them reconstruct and rebuild the government documents they may have lost while experiencing homelessness. We are making sure all of their health and wellness needs are assessed,\u2019\u2019 said Damian McCabe<\/a>, director of behavioral health and military and veteran\u2019s affairs for UCHealth.<\/p>\n

Two rooms in a Colorado Springs hotel serve as meeting spaces for the veterans enrolled in the program. There, the veterans each work side-by-side with Glen Cooper, a client care coordinator from Mt. Carmel, and other professionals to learn about the vast resources available in the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty days doesn\u2019t seem like a lot of time, but that\u2019s 30 days where every day that you wake up, you\u2019re working with a case manager,\u2019\u2019 McCabe said. \u201cTheir only focus in those first 30 days is to find permanent housing and placement. We begin to catalog and assess the needs that the veteran has in life so that we can pull together agencies and support services to break you out of the cycle of homelessness.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"During
During Colorado Springs’ 25th Annual Stand Down, a community-wide event to help veterans experiencing homelessness, an Air Force veteran who lives on the streets shares his life story with Miguel Lopez, (left) behavior health counselor for UCHealth, and Jasmine Barry, intake specialist for Next Chapter. Photos by Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Housing is a social determinant of health, McCabe said, and vital to a person\u2019s health and well-being.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s critical that people have a safe place to shelter and a place where they can get their next meal. Without those two things in place, you\u2019re not able to meet your basic needs as a human. UCHealth is happy to get behind this so that veterans can feel confident and start to take care of other parts of their needs on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re providing support through Next Chapter, but if you can\u2019t get your basic needs met, then it is hard to start thinking about counseling, therapy and those other higher-level needs,\u2019\u2019 McCabe said.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the transitional housing program was a catalyst for change \u2013 the right help at the right time for veterans. A family of four that had been living in their car has been in an apartment for more than a year. A veteran experiencing homelessness and her teenage son, who lived for months in a shelter, now live in an apartment. The mom works full-time, and Mt. Carmel has arranged transportation for the son so he can get to school.<\/p>\n

Shannon Olin, director of military veteran family services for Mt. Carmel, said veterans have to pass a background check before they\u2019re enrolled in the program. They are also asked a series of questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are looking for people who are wanting to go to work. Maybe they need help getting job placement, maybe they need interview skills,\u2019\u2019 Olin said. \u201cWith the transitional housing program, we want to make sure they understand what the program is about and make sure that it is something that they want because we can\u2019t want it for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure there is an understanding that this is a really intensive program, but in 30 days, we want to make sure that they are job ready, if not already in a job,\u2019\u2019 Olin said.<\/p>\n

After 30 days in the hotel, support continues for the men in the transitional housing program. Mt. Carmel provides help year-round for active-duty veterans and retirees, helping them with a multitude of needs.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Damian McCabe and Ken Curtner, lead clinician for Next Chapter and a licensed clinical social worker, talk to Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobalade during a Stand Down event in Colorado Springs on Oct. 17. Photo: Sonya Doctorian, UCHealth.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe are going to support the veteran from start to finish, and we want to see stability over the long term,\u2019\u2019 Olin said. \u201cWe can help with a food pantry \u2013 we have a food pantry on site. We also do financial coaching to help with budgeting. We\u2019re there to step in and say, \u2018How do we make sure that you stay stable?\u2019 It\u2019s so much easier for us to help clients stay housed rather than having them become homeless and then getting them back into housing.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Olin said not everyone in the transitional housing program succeeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis industry is really tough. It can be really draining, and I think what is most rewarding is when you\u2019ve had that impact. You see such great things happen for people who really deserve something good to happen in their life,\u2019\u2019 said Olin.<\/p>\n

For the veteran who lived in the shack on the city\u2019s west side, he is already feeling a little better about himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving Glen and Shannon and everybody, and they\u2019re just giving you that sense of \u2018hang in there.\u2019 Things will get better, that sort of thing,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

He said he used to consider himself an optimist, a person who had hope, but after five years in a shack, \u201cI\u2019ve lost both of those.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

He had been injured while in the Coast Guard. A pipe hit him in the face, knocked out a dozen teeth and split open his upper and lower lip, requiring 100 stitches. Still, when he left the military in 1991, he went to Lake Tahoe to work on diesel engines in boats, and over the years, he worked as a parts manager in an automotive retail store and as a finish carpenter, a skill that served him well when building his shack.<\/p>\n

He came to Colorado with the intent to go to Breckenridge to ski, but a \u201ccrazy woman\u2019\u2019 burned his truck, which held his tools, mountain bikes and skis. He held odd jobs here and there, but for reasons he cannot explain, he never got back on his feet.<\/p>\n

Kate Faricy Maiurro, executive director of the Memorial Hospital Foundation<\/a>, said the foundation\u2019s board and staff are honored to help the veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for the community as it promotes health and well-being, prevents medical and psychological crises, fosters cooperative community relations, supports veteran patients, and encourages collaborative efforts to address complex issues affecting veterans in our community.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put, it\u2019s the right thing to do,\u2019\u2019 Maiurro said.<\/p>\n

With one of the largest veteran communities in the nation, Colorado Springs is keenly sensitive to the needs of the military, those who are serving and those who have served.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s difficult for veterans to seek help, said Brian Murphy, a VA-licensed clinical social worker at Fort Carson, where he helps active duty service members transition out of the Army.<\/p>\n

\"Hair
Hair stylist Rose Eve, owner of \u201cAll Tangled Up,\u201d trims an Army veteran\u2019s beard. It\u2019s her fifth year volunteering her barber services to help veterans.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt takes the courage of a warrior to ask for help,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cThere are services available; they just need to reach out and ask for help, and that is the hardest thing to do sometimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor some, it gets to the point where they are pretty well rock bottom before they will do that because the military instills in you this self-reliance, that I can do anything. \u2018I am capable of doing anything,\u2019 which is great, but then when you are down and you do need help, the idea that \u2018I can take care of it on my own,\u2019 comes into play,\u2019\u2019 Murphy said.<\/p>\n

At the Stand Down, though, the show of support from the community sends a clear message.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s awesome to have people come together who want to help less fortunate people. They come here (the Stand Down) to give things that will help them survive but more importantly to give them an opportunity to come out of homelessness and get some self-sufficiency,\u2019\u2019 said Bob McLaughlin, executive director of Mt. Carmel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an example of helping somebody in need. Even if they\u2019re coming here for a pair of boots, it is going to help them get through the winter, that\u2019s great. If they\u2019re coming here to talk to the VA about benefits, that\u2019s great, too. The most important thing is this is a safe place where there is no judgment,\u2019\u2019 McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n

For the veteran who has been sleeping in a hotel and working toward a permanent home, the leg up has helped him worry less about the wolf at the door and concentrate more about getting back on his feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried about anyone coming to knock on my door and saying, \u2018you\u2019re out.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He served in the Army and the U.S. Coast Guard then ended up living for years in an 8-by-12-foot shack he constructed of wood from an old picket fence and insulated with discarded hot tub covers. 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