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ADVOCATES SEEK AID FOR HOMELESS FEMALE VETERANS
-- "Folks are surprised when you tell them
about homeless
female veterans. You typically don't think of
women
as veterans, nevermind homeless veterans,
but it's a real problem..."
|
CAROLINE CONTRERAS was sexually
assaulted 20 years ago by fellow servicemen while she was at Fort
Dix, N.J. She says the incident led to a downward spiral into
substance abuse and eventually homelessness. When she reached out to
the VA, she says, no housing was available for her. (photo: SHANA
SURECK / HARTFORD COURANT) |
For more about women veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=women+veterans&op=ph
For more about homeless veterans, use the VA
Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=homeless&op=and
Story here...
http://www.courant.com/new
s/local/hc-femalevets0727.artjul27,0,2506691.story
Story below:
-------------------------
Advocates Seek Aid For Homeless Female
Veterans
By ANN MARIE SOMMA | Courant Staff Writer
Caroline Contreras says a rape at Fort Dix, N.J., 20 years ago derailed
her military career and sent her on an inexorable path of addiction and
homelessness.
But what the 48-year-old veteran says she remembers most painfully is how
her government let her down when she finally sought help.
Last year, Contreras showed up at the U.S. Veterans Administration
facility in West Haven homeless and ready to sober up and deal with the
trauma of the sexual assault by fellow servicemen.
She completed the VA's substance abuse treatment program, restored her
self-worth after working with a therapist and shed her destructive coping
skills. When she was ready to leave the program to rebuild her life, the
VA had no place to send her.
Women-only shelter beds in the state were full. Transitional housing
wasn't available. The best the VA could offer her was a bus ticket to a
shelter in Massachusetts.
"It brought me back to the way I felt when I was raped," Contreras said.
"I was insignificant. I wasn't worthy. No matter what I did, I couldn't
get the respect of a male veteran."
 Every
day, female veterans who are homeless in the state confront barriers in a
VA system where services and housing options for women lag in comparison
to their male counterparts.
Veteran advocates say the VA needs to address the national disparity as
200,000 female veterans return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, many with
combat-related stress and military sexual trauma — risk factors for
homelessness.
"Folks are surprised when you tell them about homeless female veterans.
You typically don't think of women as veterans, nevermind homeless
veterans, but it's a real problem that is starting to get attention," said
Natalie Matthews, director of policy and information at CT Coalition to
End Homelessness.
There are an estimated 8,000 homeless female veterans nationwide. Veterans
advocates say women account for about 4 percent of the total homeless
veteran population, meaning about 200 of the estimated 5,000 homeless vets
in Connecticut are women.
Of the 550 transitional housing programs for male veterans in the country,
only 300 can accept women, said Pete Dougherty, the director of homeless
veterans programs at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The VA recognizes the problem and is making available more grants outside
the VA system to develop more transitional and supportive housing programs
for homeless women veterans, Dougherty said.
"We need more programs for women veterans and the VA has identified women
as a priority for funding," Dougherty said.
Federal lawmakers have awoken to the problem.
Several bills introduced in Congress include development of affordable
housing for female veterans and linking the VA with the Department of
Defense to identify returning soldiers who are at risk for homelessness.
But even as the wheels of government begin to slowly turn, homeless women
veterans in Connecticut continue to struggle to find accommodations.
Joy Kiss, who runs Home For the Brave in Bridgeport, turns away women
veterans looking for a room in the all male, 33-bed transitional home.
"There is no place to refer them to in Connecticut. I know there is
housing in Massachusetts," said Kiss, who has plans to open some type of
supportive housing for women in Bridgeport.
At Columbus House in New Haven, a community-based transitional housing
unit for 12 men and eight women, the turnover rate for beds is slow.
Residents stay on average a year, getting the skills and counseling they
need while waiting for a housing voucher to move into their own
apartments.
"There are waiting lists for transitional housing because things move at a
snail's place as people wait to move on to permanent housing," said Alison
Cunningham, the director of Columbus House.
"A woman is going to have a harder time whether she is a veteran or not,
and I anticipate this is going to get worse before it gets better," she
said.
At the state veterans home in Rocky Hill, where male veterans live in
dormitory-style barracks, there is room for about only 20 women in a
separate, secure wing. The home cannot take in women with children, said
Linda Schwartz, the state commissioner of veterans affairs.
"During my military service, we weren't allowed to have children and be in
the military. Now 70 percent of women veterans have children and we need
to address the issue," said Schwartz, who served in Vietnam as a combat
nurse.
Schwartz said the state has paid to house women veterans with children who
sought help at the home. She is looking to convert vacant homes on the
Rocky Hill campus into transitional housing.
"It's only going to grow," Schwartz said. "People don't realize that when
people come home from war or out of the military, it's a big adjustment
and some don't hit the ground running."
Establishing Support
The plunge to homeless becomes harder to stop when the individual's
support system collapses.
For Gladys Twarkins, an Air Force veteran of the Iraq War, it was
triggered by the loss of her East Hartford home to a real estate scam and
an injury during an air raid in southern Iraq. She slept in her car when
she returned to Connecticut in 2005. Now she sleeps on her ex-husband's
couch.
Shortly after she returned from Iraq, she told a clinician at the
Newington VA that it was getting too cold to sleep in her car and that she
needed a room temporarily.
"I asked her if she could get me in [the veterans home in Rocky Hill]; she
gave me an application," said Twarkins, 53. She never filled out the
application.
Air Force veteran Nissa LaPoint says a sexual assault at the Westover Air
Reserve Base in Massachusetts disconnected her from her support system and
she became homeless.
In 2006, LaPoint, 33, was sleeping in her car at a rest stop on I-395 when
she called then-Congressman Rob Simmons for help. The blankets she had
wrapped around her were frozen to the window. Simmons, a decorated Vietnam
veteran, sent an aide to her rescue. She eventually found housing with the
help of John March, a state service officer for the American Legion.
"I got off active duty and they pretty much sent me on my way," LaPoint
said. "When I joined, the recruiter told me the Air Force was a better way
of life. I took that opportunity. He also told me the VA would always have
a place to stay, a roof over my head."
For Johanna Montalvo, who joined the National Guard in Puerto Rico, her
descent was touched off by drugs and the death of her father. She lives at
the Friendship Center shelter in New Britain in rooms segregated from
homeless men. She wants to move to a shelter or transitional housing
closer to the VA in West Haven, where she attends counseling sessions.
"There are a lot of us out there and the VA doesn't know what's going on,"
said Montalvo, 35. "We could be out in the streets, in crack houses,
corners of prostitution, and we'll find female veterans."
Kate Kelly, who works with women veterans for the Connecticut VA, said it
took her six months to secure a housing voucher for a female veteran with
three children living in a shelter.
Yet she doesn't think women veterans are being shortchanged.
"They have the same opportunities as women in the general population. The
reality is that it is going to be tough either way if you are male or
female veteran," Kelly said.
Finding Success
Ultimately, Contreras did not board the bus to a shelter in Massachusetts.
She ended upinsteadat the Beth-El Center, a shelter in New Milford, where
she stayed until she received a housing voucher.
Today, she lives in an apartment in West Haven and returns to Beth-El
every week to work as a residential counselor. She's become an advocate
for women veterans, speaking out against the lack of housing in the state.
She's spoken to groups in Washington, D.C., and community events in the
state. Her goal is to see transitional housing for women veterans built in
the state.
"It's an awful feeling when you've made up your mind to rebuild your life
and you have nowhere to go," Contreras said.
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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