Homeless veterans fight for respect, more assistance

INDIANAPOLIS - Darryl Boyd exudes strength from the shaved head crowning his 6-foot-5, 235-pound Navy veteran's body to his T-shirt's image of bulging biceps pulling a forearm free of shackles.

But look more closely, and you see the shirt's message: "Freedom from Active Addiction." Listen more closely, and Boyd speaks of a life filled with weakness: homelessness, alcoholism, crack addiction, mental illness, rejection by his family.

"Every time I'd get a fleeting glimpse of reality, it was depressing," Boyd said.

Many of the estimated 500,000 homeless among the nation's 27-million veterans share parts of that reality. More than two-thirds of homeless veterans battle drug and alcohol problems, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and nearly half contend with mental illness.

This year, they are mustering to win more respect from Washington and the public at large. A federal panel on homeless veterans presented its first recommendations in July, urging more mental health funding and improved service by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans groups also are urging more help for former military personnel now out on the streets. Among their leaders is Chuck Haenlein, a retired career Army officer and president of the board of the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans.

Haenlein also is president of the private, not-for-profit Hoosier Veterans Assistance Foundation, which houses 127 homeless vets in houses, apartments and a detoxification center in Indianapolis. Its annual budget is less than $1-million, including 30 percent from federal grants.

In June, the foundation created a new program allowing 40 veterans to stay in four- to eight-bedroom houses as long as needed while they attend a rigorous substance abuse counseling program and receive medical care, if necessary, at the nearby Roudebush VA Medical Center.

Drug or alcohol abuse in a homeless shelter typically means eviction. But the new program takes a different approach. It requires drug tests, but backsliders get sent down the street to a 50-bed treatment facility. "There's a lot of baby steps, and sometimes a few steps backward," Haenlein said.

Groups like Haenlein's are sprinkled across the country, in many cases working with local VA hospitals to provide a continuum of care that includes medical wards, detoxification centers, transitional housing and job training. The VA in August awarded up to $8-million in per-diem payments to 44 programs in 25 states.

Veterans are not immune from the conditions that lead to homelessness, including joblessness, a shortage of affordable housing and a shrinking public safety net. Many homeless vets no longer trust the government, said Ron Conley, immediate past national commander of the American Legion.

"The country as a whole turned their back on them . . . so they've kind of dropped out of society, a large part of them," Conley said.

Congress passed the Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act in December 2001. It required the VA to provide more help for homeless vets and those at risk of becoming homeless, and to speed up their benefits claims. The law also prompted the creation of a 17-member VA Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans.

The panel presented its first annual report in July, delivering recommendations in 30 areas. They include increasing to $100-million the total amount the VA delivers to local agencies serving homeless vets (the statutory limit now is $75-million) and working with the Defense Department to counsel servicemen and servicewomen at risk of homelessness.

Boyd is one of the many who needed help. He enlisted in the Navy in 1982, working as a radioman on a submarine tender. After his shipmates learned he was gay, he tried to take his life with 60 pain pills.

The Navy discharged him in 1986, and Boyd worked as a barber. His mother threw him out when his crack habit nearly cost her her home. He lived on the streets of Indianapolis for more than a year, working as a prostitute and contracting HIV. He bounced in and out of rehab programs.

The turning point came last year. He moved into a mission and completed a VA drug rehabilitation program. He found a job and took real estate classes on the side. The 12-step spirituality of Narcotics Anonymous resonated within him.

Now he hopes to pass his state realty exam in January and pursue a goal of buying properties to create transitional housing for homeless veterans.

Said Boyd, confidently pointing to his shaved head, "I've got a plan going on here."

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