A local nonprofit that specializes in finding housing for homeless individuals has used new county funding to house nine homeless veterans in the past six weeks.
Despite the initial success of the ‘Rapid Rehousing’ program at Bethesda Cares, the specialists who work with homeless people to find that housing say challenges remain and continued funding is needed, especially with the prospect of recent veterans from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq falling through the cracks.
“We wave the flag and we cut these ribbons on Veterans Day and we have bands and we have ceremonies. That’s great that we acknowledge our veterans, but at some point we have to move beyond the dog and pony shows and really roll up our sleeves,” said John Mendez, the director of outreach and special projects for Bethesda Cares. “We have a lot of men and women who have served overseas in the past 10 years and we’ve got to be ready for that. That surge of demand on our social services system might be coming.”
With help from Rep. Chris Van Hollen and vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County and outreach groups such as Bethesda Cares have been able to place about 80 homeless veterans in the county since 2010.
That’s taken the number of homeless veterans sleeping on Bethesda streets to a “functional zero,” Mendez said, but doesn’t account for veterans that may have very recently become homeless who have yet to be contacted.
Bethesda Cares has used some of the $500,000 in county funding in this fiscal year’s budget to pay for rent for the nine homeless veterans placed in housing in the last month-and-a-half. Many have mental disabilities, but with job training and other support, should be able to find their own jobs and become more self-sufficient in the next few years.
Mendez said at least two of the nine veterans served in Afghanistan or Iraq and he expects the number of homeless veterans from those wars to increase when those veterans get into their early 40’s.
“Maybe his relationship with his family has broken down or the issues have just piled on so much or he or she suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder,” Mendez said. “We’re going to be looking out for that and try to be on the front-end of that.”
Daniel Goodman, the rapid rehousing specialist for Bethesda Cares, has been working as the “middleman” for homeless veterans this year.
In most cases, the biggest challenge for housing a homeless veteran is finding a landlord willing to rent out their space.
“There’s a lot of negative connotations with veterans. You begin to explain that you’re looking for housing for a veteran and the first thing people think about is PTSD,” Goodman said. “A lot of the search is trying to explain what our program is. Some people buy in, some don’t.”
One of the nine veterans placed over the last six weeks is in his early 40’s, is a former Navy Corpsman and was living on the streets of Bethesda for close to a year.
Goodman said the first potential landlord that met him almost immediately declined to provide a rental unit for him.
“This is not a person who is a danger to anybody. He’s quiet, soft-spoken,” Goodman said. “This is why some of these veterans need someone who’s going to speak for them.”
Over the next year, the veterans recently placed will get referrals from Bethesda Cares for food donations from Manna Food Center in Gaithersburg and for a service that provides free desktop computers. Goodman said the computer will allow the veteran to browse job listings.
Goodman will also take many of the veterans to Montgomery Works, a state-backed workforce development center in Wheaton that provides placement services, resume preparation assistance and other services.
“There’s job training, but it’s self-motivated,” Goodman said. “We’ll kind of give them a walk-through, but they’re going to need to put a little bit of fire in the tank and get there and handle those things.”
Mendez, who along with Bethesda Cares Executive Director Sue Kirk has been one of the biggest proponents of the Housing First philosophy in Montgomery County, said formerly homeless individuals become more motivated once they have housing.
Montgomery County is taking part in a national initiative known as Zero: 2016, with the goal of housing all homeless veterans by December 2015.
Kirk and Mendez praised County Council President George Leventhal, who spearheaded the effort to put the $500,000 in this year’s county budget.
But they also said continued funding is needed to sustain the progress that’s already been made.
“We’re doing a better job of reaching out and we hope, sooner or later, the public will stop tolerating people living on the streets, and not only veterans,” Kirk said.
“We have to stop blaming the veterans for these issues and we have to look to ourselves sometimes,” said Mendez, who served in the Marine Corps from 1991-1995. “These veterans made the decision to serve and they made it when they were young. How are we going to help that veteran a little bit because he’s down and out now?”
