Comments Off on Soldier On Receives $300,000 To Provide Services For Formerly Incarcerated Veterans
The federal Department of Labor has awarded a $300,000 grant to Soldier On to provide employment and housing services to formerly incarcerated veterans in Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts.
DOL announced the award as part of $1.8 million in grants it funded nationally under its Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program, which targets those veterans considered at risk of becoming homeless.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, especially the men and women who have sacrificed for our country,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez. “The Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program opens doors for veterans who may have struggled but who want to return to America’s workforce.”
Soldier On currently serves 18 counties in Eastern New York and four counties in Western Massachusetts, largely through its Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant program from the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also provides 40 hours of weekly programming at the Albany (NY) County Correctional Facility aimed at reducing recidivism and preparing veterans to assimilate back into society. The DOL grant will enhance services to these veterans and others who are released from imprisonment and who are located in Eastern New York and Western Massachusetts.
Soldier On initiated its incarcerated veterans program at the Albany jail in October 2014 in collaboration with Sheriff Craig D. Apple. Programming includes instruction in appropriate disciplines, such as anger management, physical and mental health, substance abuse, self-discipline, and social skills.
“This DOL grant will allow Soldier On, the Albany County Sheriff’s Department, and our outreach team in Western Massachusetts and Eastern New York to provide job training, education and job readiness for veterans who are leaving incarceration and returning to life in the community,” said John F. Downing, CEO of Soldier On. “We are grateful to the DOL to allow us to partner with them to serve this special group of veterans with these services.”
“Honoring the sacrifice and service of our nation’s veterans starts with helping them succeed when they return home,” Congressman Jim McGovern (MA-02) said. “With this program, struggling veterans will get the second chance they need as they work to get back on their feet. Giving our veterans the support they need to find a good job and put a roof over their head is the least we can do. This program will make a tremendous difference for veterans in our communities and across the country. I am proud to join Secretary Perez as a partner in this important work and look forward to seeing all the good these grants will do for our veterans.”
Comments Off on Opinion: Rethinking The Delivery Of Veterans’ Benefits – By John F. Downing
With the Department of Veterans Affairs slowly imploding financially, and burdened with a bloated bureaucracy capable of serving only about one third of our veterans, it is time for new ideas and new systems to ensure all our veterans get the care and benefits they have earned. To accomplish this, access to benefits and health care needs to be improved.
In its struggle to achieve financial stability with a looming $3 billion shortfall, the VA has been shifting funds and cutting back on expenses while warning Congress that the demand for services will continue to climb as it has during the past year. Much of the increased demand is being driven by the cost of outside doctors, which veterans can now choose to see through the new “”Veterans Choice Program” if they cannot get a VA appointment within 30 days.
Accordingly, the VA says its waiting lists of one month or more have increased by 50 percent over the last year when the problems plaguing the agency first came to light. The VA has hired more doctors and nurses and expanded access to care, but the number of veterans seeking care has multiplied beyond expectations.
We are seeing that throwing taxpayer funds at an agency with a bloated bureaucracy won’t work. I believe we have to simplify the process and work together with the VA and other agencies in easing access to benefits and health care so that we can reach 100 percent of our veterans. One solution is a computerized benefit card that allows every veteran to have all benefits and health needs listed in one account.
At Soldier On, when a case manager goes out into the community to meet with a homeless veteran, one of the first things they do to begin the road to permanent housing is to ensure that the veteran has applied for and is receiving all due benefits. If not, it can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process going agency to agency with the veteran to register. But it needs to be done because it is a necessary step to ensure that our veterans are able to get the services they need so they can get back on their feet for good.
With an automated benefit card, every veteran who files with the Internal Revenue Service would receive one identification card listing all the veteran’s benefits and medical needs, whether it be pharmaceutical, psych/social, or financial. It would eliminate the need to register for everything, to be at the VA constantly, and to drive to various medical centers and social service agencies. It would also bring consistency and a bit more dignity to the whole system of medical and financial benefits for veterans.
The beauty of this system is that it allows every veteran to access his or her benefits all day, every day, eliminates embedded barriers, and facilitates the timely deliverance of benefits. Veterans in need of services would receive their needed support promptly, without many of the delays and encumbrances that come with the current system.
When a veteran puts on a uniform, he or she is saying that they were willing to sacrifice their lives for us if necessary. They deserve the best care and attention we can provide.
Comments Off on How Soldier On Hired 92 Formerly Homeless Veterans – A Series by The Ithaca Voice
ITHACA, N.Y. — Martin Warren pulls what looks like an identity card from his wallet. He is a clean-cut, slender man dressed in a brown tweed jacket. He wears thin-framed spectacles.
He places the card on the table between us. There is a photograph of someone: Barely recognizable underneath a long, unkempt beard and wild, matted hair.
“State of Connecticut, Department of Correction, Inmate Identification Card”, it reads.
“About seven years ago, I was homeless,” Warren says. “I was living on the streets. After two years wandering aimlessly from dumpster to dumpster, I was arrested for vagrancy.”
The man pictured on the card is Warren, although it is impossible to tell.
Warren is part of a team from the largest non-profit for veterans, after the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which came to meet with the Ithaca Voice in June to talk about its work in Tompkins County.
Five members of Soldier On, including Jack Downing, the CEO, travelled four hours from Massachusetts to Ithaca. We talked about Hope on the Homefront and how we could link the series with the work they do for veterans in our area.
Of the 20 outreach workers that work in Central and Eastern New York, 15 of them are formerly homeless veterans, including Warren.
Partway through our meeting Downing had interjected: “Martin, why don’t you tell us where you were eight years ago?”
Warren had been a Navy specialist officer from 1973-1977, and was one of the soldiers to deploy on the first Nuclear Task Force in Naval history, but he had ended up destitute. In 2006 he had met a man called Willie Ledbetter, who was working for Soldier On, in a homeless shelter. That man was to prove to be his savior some months later.
“After years of poor choices I found myself without any resources living in a cardboard dumpster,” Warren told me. I lost hope, I didn’t have family and had burned all my bridges.”
Warren’s eyes briefly glassed over with tears. Blinking hard, he returned the ID card to his wallet.
What is ‘Soldier On?’
Soldier On, founded in 1994, deals specifically with homelessness and veterans in crisis, although it runs several other services. At the simplest level, it gets homeless veterans off the streets and into shelters, hospitals, clinics and addiction treatment centers. In New York State there are 21,147 homeless veterans, including 846 homeless women veterans, according to data from the VA.
Downing says that Soldier On now serves 18 counties in Central New York – including ours – and 18 counties in Eastern New York. At the meeting was Martin , Dominick Sondrini (formerly a Marine) and Tyrone Byrd (a Vietnam era veteran) all of them local outreach workers for Soldier On.
We discussed the issues that face rural veterans: homelessness is not just an urban problem. Warren serves the Ithaca area and travels 1,200 miles in his RAV-4 car, which is equipped to operate as a mobile office.
The business model for Soldier On is designed to reach the veteran anywhere they are – something that has made the agency hugely successful: so much so they were awarded $12,757,000 in VA Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) grants in 2013 to expand their services further across the East Coast and beyond (36 counties in eastern upstate and central New York, 36 counties in central New Jersey, 23 counties in western Pennsylvania, 5 counties in western Massachusetts and over 70 counties in Mississippi).
Warren’s task
Warren is tasked with helping those in dire need: he goes to homeless shelters, jails, under bridges and is on the road at 6am every morning. He could be up in St Lawrence County and then down by the Pennsylvania border – a distance of 250 miles – all in one day. There are 10 outreach workers like Warren who serve our area. And 10 in Eastern New York.
Locally, Warren works with over 50 different agencies, partnering with organizations like the Tompkins County Department of Social Services, Loaves and Fishes, and OAR (Opportunities, Alternatives and Resources). “We build support systems and networks around veterans that just do not have the resources that they need.” Simply put: if you are a veteran in crisis, or you know a veteran in crisis, you call Warren.
Willie Ledbetter – something of a celebrity among the veteran community up and down the East Coast – found Warren in a shelter in 2006. Ledbetter was once a homeless veteran too. Over the years he has helped thousands of veterans across New York and beyond. He is well-known among the veteran activists in Ithaca.
“Rarely has there been a person of such integrity, commitment and genuine loving kindness as Willie Ledbetter,” says Warren. “I have met many people during my 60 years, and with all conviction I would say that Willie changes lives: I am living proof that a brief encounter with this man, changed me forever”
There have been hugely publicized national efforts to end veteran homelessness. The Obama Administration, along with mayors of cities across America, made a pledge to end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015. Locally, Binghamton announced in November last year that it was the first city in the country. “Tonight, not a single veteran we know of in Binghamton will be without a warm bed and roof above their head,” said Mayor Richard C.David at the time. “We’ve secured housing for every identified homeless veteran in our community, part of our moral and patriotic duty to provide basic services for those who protected our country,”
There were, before the initiative, 21 homeless vets in Binghamton. The VA estimates there to be nine in Ithaca.
Veterans: 2-3 times more likely to become homeless
Why do veterans end up homeless?
“Veterans appear to be two to three times more likely to become homeless in the United States than any other population,” says Downing. “The military is a highly-structured society where service men and women are provided with meals, clothing, and daily direction. It is then expected that they will return to civilian life without having been affected by the stressors of combat, the stressors of long-term separation from their families and loved ones, and the internal turmoil that they experienced while enlisted.”
According to data from Soldier On, in Tompkins County, the median income is about $51,000 a year, but for veterans the median income is approximately $25,000.
“Veterans in Tompkins County earn half, or less than half, of the area’s median income,” says Warren. “So the financial stressors that people are living with become quite acute and quite significant.”
It’s a pretty simple process to get help, says Warren. Call the helpline, and leave contact information.
“Then I travel wherever the veteran is at, whether they’re underneath a bridge, whether they’re in a shelter, out in the woods, wherever they may be.”
The local efforts of Soldier On (so far)
So far, the number of veterans helped by Soldier On in Central New York is 564 – with 721 in Eastern New York. The total number of individuals (including veterans and their family members) served in the 36 New York counties by Soldier On is 2,156.
Of the 180 total employees at Soldier On 92 of them are formerly homeless veterans.
“What we’ve been able to do is take a lot of these men and women who’ve come into us that are homeless, train them, educate them, build their skill. We get them to understand that their brokenness is the gift they’re going to use to understand people every day. The concept of the wounded healer really works.”
Part of the weakness of veteran-specific services, experts say, is that they are highly centralized. “It’s a county office somewhere, it’s a VA hospital or outreach center,” says Downing.
“The majority of veterans in any given area live more than 25 miles from one of those facilities. Transportation and the ability to reach those services becomes problematic. The more we involve community-based agencies and enable veterans to get to where the services are, the more successful we become.”
‘I am no longer a homeless veteran’
Downing and his team decided that the best business model was to make the staff highly mobile. They put everyone in all-wheel-drive cars, with a GPS, and computers and cellphones.
Warren was at Soldier On for around six months in 2008. He went through its shelter and treatment program. He then was appointed as a “resident-staff” member, and then a committee member. Then he was hired as an outreach worker. He just completed his studies to become a “Credentialed Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counselor” (CASAC): he wants to broaden the services he can offer each veteran.
“I am no longer a homeless veteran, I am helping others,” Warren says. “I think that’s how it works. The compassion and the kindness of some wonderful people I attribute everything now to.”
Life has, he says, come full circle for him.
“To any veteran that is experiencing hopelessness, or feels like they’re at the end of the road: Don’t give up – because if I can be brought up to a place where I can now help other people, anyone can.”
Comments Off on Soldier On’s Nathan Hanford Named To Berkshire Magazine’s Top “25 Of 2015”
Nathan Hanford, artist in residence for Soldier On, was recently chosen to be among Berkshire Magazine’s “The Berkshire 25” for 2015.
Hanford was honored with other award winners at a reception held at The Mount in Lenox, MA on August 28.
This is Berkshire Magazine’s second year of honoring a “select” group of individuals for their work in improving and enhancing the Berkshires, which the magazine characterizes as the most dedicated, most creative and most influential persons in their fields. The Berkshire 25 “touch upon the various elements of the Berkshires that make us unique, and they work to improve and enhance our home and its diverse features,” the magazine stated in announcing the winners.
Candidates were nominated by readers via Berkshire Magazine’s website and winners were chosen by a panel of advisers. Hanford was honored for helping veterans recover from physical and emotional trauma at Soldier On and using his abilities to “go above and beyond.”
“It is his full-time work as artist in residence and case manager of Soldier On that is really admired by locals,” Berkshire Magazine stated.
Nathan has been a member of the Soldier On staff since October 2013. A multi-skilled artist, Nathan has been able to inspire participation in his group through a flexible arts curriculum in which he brings materials used by the veterans to explore various disciplines of their choice, from painting and drawing to woodcraft and embroidery. Through exercising their creativity, Nathan believes veterans and others can become better equipped to combat the daily struggles of life.
Jim Croasmun is a very familiar face at Soldier On, and frequently can be seen in the med room window in Building 6 handing out pills to residents.
It is a job he has held as a resident staff for the past nine years, indicating he is quite reliable at handing out the right meds in the proper dosage to the right person. It was a job handed to him just a few months after he arrived at Soldier On in January 2006, when the agency was called the United Veterans of America.
Jim attributes his longevity at Soldier On to having a job he likes and the sense of contentment he has attained while residing here.
A native of Erie, PA, where he lived the first 23 years of his life (he is now 60) before moving to Florida, working in construction and maintenance jobs. It was on September 25, 2004 that his life changed.
On that day, Hurricane Jeanne, the deadliest hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, blew into Palm Bay, FL, where Jim had his house. Housesitting for a friend at the time, Jim says that when he came home, “there was just a pile of rubble, the whole neighborhood was gone.”
Jim moved to Melbourne to stay with a friend, who eventually decided to sell his house, giving Jim a two-week notice. His next move was to Chesterfield, MA, where his friend had become acquainted with some friends on the internet. That didn’t last long, and those friends referred Jim to a shelter on Center Street in Northampton.
“I remember waiting four hours in the cold for the shelter to open at 6 a.m.,” Jim says.
The shelter required everyone to leave at 6 a.m. and return at 6 p.m. He found a job shoveling snow for $14 an hour, but it was a mild winter and it snowed infrequently. When the shelter experienced an overflow, Jim ended up at another shelter in Easthampton. Jim was not there long because he ran into Willie Ledbetter, the outreach coordinator for the UVA, who determined Jim was eligible to reside there.
At the time, case managers handed out meds. But Jim was a good candidate for the job because, as a rule, he doesn’t use drugs or imbibe alcohol.
“I don’t take pills, I don’t like drinking, but I do smoke cigarettes and coffee is my choice of drug,” Jim says.
Jim was approved for the job by the Life Team, started training as a resident staff on April 17, 2006 and officially started on April 23.
He’s been here ever since, and looks forward to his duties as a resident staff at Soldier On.
Soldier On is partnering with the BRTA to provide transportation to veterans and their family members in Berkshire County. For more information visit www.veteranfamilyrides.com or call 413-418-4300 or 855-483-8743.
PITTSFIELD: During a visit to western Massachusetts over the weekend, Governor Charlie Baker and members of his administration met with veterans and staff at Solider On’s housing and care facility in Pittsfield.
After touring campus apartments, Governor Charlie Baker sat down with area veterans at Soldier On’s transitional housing and homeless shelter. With a mission of ending veteran homelessness, CEO Jack Downing recalled the saying that changed his vision was that every American service member who put on the uniform made a pledge to die for the country.
“I was running a program at the time in 2002 that housed veterans in a shelter and thought used clothing and standing in lines for food was acceptable,” Downing said. “When I finally heard ‘I will die for you’ I realized they deserve to have everything I want for my family.”
The 39 units at Soldier On’s Gordon Mansfield Veterans Community operate under a model allowing a veteran to own his or her apartment. Downing says the non-profit has found that veterans who have experienced homelessness or addiction feel safe and secure in communities with fellow veterans.
“What we call the ‘virus’ in our community…people say ‘How do people get better here?’ and we say ‘You got to give them the flu,’” Downing said. “How do you get the flu? You’re around people who are sick you get sick. That’s what we do here. We say you’re around people who are sober and living good lives, you’re going to get the virus and you’re going to get better.”
Downing says they plan to open similar units in Northampton, Agawam, Chicopee, Albany, Jackson, Mississippi and at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Francisco Urena is Massachusetts new secretary of veterans’ services. The 34-year-old spent eight years in the Marine Corps and has a Purple Heart for injuries suffered when deployed to Iraq.
“I don’t belong behind a desk,” Urena said. “I belong in the community engaging with our leaders to insure that we are accountable to services, to families and more importantly to our veterans to bring them what they need to succeed. We shouldn’t be holding them back.”
Governor Baker says he will be constantly asking Urena and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash how Massachusetts can expand programs like Soldier On.
“The problem with the way a lot of stuff in government works is you got services over here and you got housing over here,” Baker said. “This distance in between might as well be a country mile or 100 miles. So what ends up happening of course is the people who need the services over here would decompose because they couldn’t get to them because the shelter they were in was over here. They’d end up in the hospital and ER here there and everywhere.”
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 370,000 veterans live in the Bay State. Urena says the main issue for his agency is not a lack of resources, but making people aware of and helping them access available aid.
“Ending homelessness is not just providing the home to folks it’s providing the community, the jobs and the services to be able to assist them,” Urena said. “Not creating new services or adding more it’s connecting the existing services that we have and being able to deliver them in an accountable manner.”
Governor Baker’s visit to the area days after being sworn in was meaningful for Dave Hastings, the superintendent of Southern Berkshire Regional School District and an Army veteran.
“His being here in the Berkshires sets a great tone, but even more importantly his being here to support veterans and trying to eliminate homelessness within the veteran community,” Hastings said. “If that sets a tone for his term I think that’ll be absolutely great.”
Jim Levulis, WAMC Northeast Public Radio
January 12, 2015
To view article visit http://wamc.org/post/baker-administration-tours-soldier-discussing-veterans-needs.
Like many homeless veterans, James Williams had hit what he called a “bottomless pit.” He had seen it all. Aside from homelessness, his many medical maladies were catching up with him as he got older, including diabetes, early stages of emphysema, and a heart condition. James, 60, says he got involved with drugs from a young age, but eventually got married and had five children. The marriage dissolved with the same kind of behaviors and attitudes that come with drug addiction, and he found himself in a downward spiral.
While participating in an outreach program at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany, he met a representative from Soldier On, where he now resides. Being at Soldier On, he says, allowed him to focus on his addiction and, importantly, his health. “If I had continued the way I was, I would have ended up dying in prison,” James says. “I didn’t want to do that to my grandchildren because I wanted to be in their lives.” To that end, James was one of three veterans in Soldier On’s Pittsfield facility to enroll in the Berkshire Health Systems Canyon Ranch Institute’s Life Enhancement Program. Life Enhancement is an intense weekly program for committed individuals who want to address their chronic diseases by changing their life by focusing on four dimensions of health: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. By taking an active part in his recovery, James said he has found a better way to deal with his illnesses through the program by diet, exercise, nutrition, and gaining a deeper understanding of his conditions.
James said his health has improved considerably since enrolling in the program. “I had been told that I was a stroke waiting to happen,” James says. “When the opportunity came along to do this program, I said why not get involved in something that will better me in the long run and put me on a track to better health and attitude.”
James was joined in the Life Enhancement Program by fellow veterans Kevin Counter and Chip Mantz. Kevin, 48, who served in the Army from 1990-98, was being kept back from serving overseas because of his Crohn’s Disease, which was diagnosed in 1991. When his disease worsened, he was eventually given a medical retirement.
Sick with Crohn’s and waiting for his VA claim to come through, Kevin found himself fighting alcohol and drug addiction because of his tendency at the time to self-medicate. He also lost his job because he was often sick and he eventually became homeless. The VA Medical Center in Leeds, where Kevin was receiving his primary care, steered him to Soldier On.
Kevin was prompted to participate in the Life Enhancement Program to learn more about his disease and manage it better. What he has learned, he says, is that his symptoms are definitely associated with nutrition and exercise, which he has improved upon, while also finding ways to reduce stress, which is another contributing factor with Crohn’s. Taking active role through the Life Enhancement Program has helped him to better deal with the disease and relieve his symptoms, he says.
Chip Mantz, who served in the U.S. Navy nine years, has 23 years of sobriety to his credit. After losing his job and his apartment, Chip became homelesss in his home town of Allentown, PA.
Chip went to the VA for homeless services and they gave him a choice to go to either San Diego or to Massachusetts to Soldier On for placement.
“I had a car that wouldn’t make it as far as Mississippi,” Chip says. “So my choice was clear.”
The head of case management at Soldier On, John Crane, urged Chip to enroll in the Life Enhancement Program to deal with his weight and other issues. He has had perfect attendance since.
“I’m learning good stuff,” Chip says. “The program is helping me to zero in on what is healthy and not healthy to eat and what kind of exercise I should be involved in.”
The Berkshire Health System’s Canyon Ranch Institute offers its programming typically in low-income or medically underserved communities, and helps individuals to change their life. James Williams, Kevin Counter and Chip Mantz can attest to that.
Comments Off on Soldier On Supporter Steve Vilot of Sim’s Barber Shop Does Lollapalooza
Festival season means a lot more than visual art on the stage and screen. Street style at festivals gets nearly as much hype as the artists themselves, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t take the opportunity to scope out the coolest bits of inspiration at Lollapalooza 2014.
In the Arists Village of Lolla, bands, solo artists and DJs relax before and after their time on stage. This year, Andis and Barber Authority saw an opportunity to make artists’ downtime relaxing and productive by hosting a barbering tent.
Barber Authority is a group of more than 50 barbers led by Master Barber Steve Vilot of Sim’s Salon and Barber Shop in Great Barrington, MA. The group goes to various events around the country—music and film festivals, X games, and educational events to name a few—to bestow the gift of barbering on artists, athletes and attendees.
Andis Company sponsored the first-ever Lollapalooza Barber Authority tent with tools, towels and supplies to ensure everyone who entered the tent left looking clean-cut.
Vilot pointed out that events like this are great opportunities for his team as well as for the artists; many of them simply lack the time on tours to keep up with maintainingtheir hair.
Particularly cool and interesting was the amount of women popping in the tent for intricate undercut designs. The barbering team proved to be both meticulous and highly creative.
The cool, vintage barber chairs (a private collection from a local barber) and friendly fellows at the Barber Authority tent ensured artists looked and felt their best before going on stage. Three of the barbers were local to Chicago, and the rest were part of the traveling Barber Authority team.
For festivalgoers who wanted even more than the expansive event that is Lollapalooza, Hard Rock Hotel Chicago hosted The Sound of Your Stay Music Lounge across the street from Grant Park with live music, stations to charge devices, drinks and—what we were most interested in—a Red 7 Salon stylist room with a braid bar.
If a festival happens in the summer and there are no braids, did it even really happen? We think not!
The three stylist chairs were scarcely empty; festival patrons as well as performers took a moment to take a load off and get pretty much whatever they wanted done—plus a hand massage.
Some men got trims, and many women had their hair braided or curled with flowers tucked into their locks. Between the air conditioning, cool and vibrant environment, and pampering, this was a great place to relax and enjoy an exclusive experience.
Excuse us while we start our Lollapalooza 2015 countdown…
Comments Off on Veteran’s Day Special at Cranwell Resort to Benefit Soldier On
In honor of Veteran’s Day, stay at Cranwell on Tuesday, 11/11, for just $99* and they’ll donate half the proceeds to Soldier On. Plus for each room reservation, they’re giving a complimentary round of golf for two with cart that can be used during the 2015 season*.
Reserve on line or call 800-272-6935.
*Plus tax and resort fee. Rate is for Classic Resort King or Double, based on availability. This rate is not applicable for group blocks and cannot be combined with any other discount. Complimentary golf will be valid May 1 – October 31, 2015 excluding Saturdays and July/August.
For more information on the deal visit http://www.cranwell.com/veteran%E2%80%99s-day-special-benefit-soldier.
