Chris Warner came for a haircut. Anthony Goodson wants to learn a new trade. Loren Dalbert is looking to update his resume. And each of them needs a place to live.
They joined hundreds of other veterans today for the eighth-annual Veterans Stand Down - a day-long event that pairs servicemen and women with local services and a chance to meet potential employers.
“You served in wartime. You served in peacetime. And it’s our turn now to serve you,” Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury said to a growing crowd of veterans at Portland’s Memorial Coliseum. “So we’re hitting the streets to find apartments.”
It’s part of the community-wide efforts to end homelessness for veterans by the end of the year. In collaboration with the county, the City of Portland, Home Forward and many other partners, A Home for Every Veteran has found permanent housing for 430 veterans so far this year. But at least 260 more need a home.
The Stand Down launches an effort to register any veteran in need of housing.
As veterans filled the room, volunteers served Starbucks coffee and croissants. Banfield Animal Hospital staff trimmed the nails and cleaned the ears of veterans’ service dogs. Multnomah County Librarian Kate Schwab signed visitors up for new library cards and talked about computer classes and job searching help.
That appealed to Anthony Goodson, an Army veteran who has struggled for a decade to find a job and permanent housing. He served time for selling drugs, and he says it seems he’s still being punished. Potential employers ask about his criminal history and then he never gets a job.
Unless he can find a someone with good credit to sign for him, no one will rent him an apartment. So he’s staying in the Salvation Army shelter in Beaverton. It’s a nice place, as far as shelters go. There are families and children, too.
That’s one reason Chris Warner feels safe there. He’s also an Army veteran. He landed at Salvation Army after he tried to kill himself. He was homeless, addicted to alcohol and in a deep depression. Now, slowly regaining his strength and hope, he finds joy in those little kids.
“I like hearing the children's voices. It recharges those batteries that I thought were dead,” he says.
If there’s a silver lining in his struggles, it's the compassion he feels in good times, for the men and women who still sleep on the street.
"I’ve learned that you have to know people’s stories before you judge them,” Warner says. “People walk by and look at homeless people like they just stepped in dog doo. I give them respect. We’re not that different.”
During the next week volunteers will go to day shelters and free meal sites to find qualifying men and women who haven’t yet been included in a registry of homeless veterans. A team will then work to find stable housing for the people on that registry.
Meanwhile, county and city officials are offering incentives to encourage more property managers and homeowners to rent to veterans.
“No one should sleep on the street...But we do not have enough places for veterans to call home,” pleaded Kafoury.
“We need the public’s help. If you know a landlord with an available apartment, please let us know about it.”
