Long Beach officials are optimistic the city will soon be able to declare an effective end to veteran homelessness.
“I accepted President Obama’s challenge because every veteran deserves a home and support from their community,” Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia said in an emailed statement while traveling abroad this week. “We have stepped up our outreach efforts and coordination with our federal and local partners and am confident that we will reach functional zero in the next couple months.”
Garcia declared in April that his administration would accept what the federal government called the Mayor’s Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness.
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This doesn’t mean anyone can say that there are no homeless veterans anywhere within Long Beach’s city limits. Instead, Long Beach officials use the phrase “functional zero,” which city Community Health Bureau Manager Susan Price said means all veterans have access to the support they need and want to avoid staying on the street.
Long Beach had 214 veterans living in emergency shelters or transitional housing in January, according to numbers from the city’s Department of Health and Human Services. By August, health department staffers had tallied 261 housing placements and reported that care providers would need to make 47 additional placements by December to reach “functional zero” status.
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If current trends continue, the city’s numbers suggest it is quite possible to make the necessary housing placements. The data show an average of 37 homeless veterans have been placed in housing every month from February though August. Care providers will need to achieve an average of 28 placements per month to reach their goal.
Homeless resources
Long Beach is relatively well-positioned to solve the problem of veteran homelessness because the city is home to several resources available to help those who need it, Price said.
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City Hall uses the term “continuum of care” to describe the range of homeless services offered through the city and other agencies and organizations working locally. Health Department staffers and people working for allied organizations work from the Multi-Service Center, which sits on former U.S. Navy property at 1301 W. 12th St. on the city’s west side,
For veterans, Price said the city’s key relationships include the VA Long Beach Healthcare System and Century Villages at Cabrillo.
Mechel Stanley, a program coordinator and nursing manager at VA Long Beach Health Care System, said that as of this week, the hospital will have staffers assigned to working at the Multi-Service Center, and it also assigns outreach workers to the streets. She said the largest population of homeless veterans are those from the post-Vietnam era, but some are in their 20s.
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Homeless veterans may have medical conditions, such as traumatic brain injury or undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder, but Stanley said it’s not unheard of for a recently discharged veteran to end up sleeping on a couch somewhere after breaking up with his girlfriend.
Century Villages at Cabrillo is a 27-acre campus on the site of former Navy housing that has nearly 600 housing units for veterans and others. More housing from the same nonprofit is on its way: The Long Beach Planning Commission has already approved the construction of a 120-unit residential complex at 2000 River Ave., 75 of which would be set aside for veterans.
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Price said Long Beach’s efforts to reduce veteran homelessness have also been aided by $500,000 in annual funding secured by Los Angeles County Supervisor Don Knabe and two key federal programs: Supportive Services for Veteran Families and the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, which is also called VASH.
The former program is a Veterans Affairs program in which the department awards grants to organizations helping low-income veterans find or remain in permanent housing.
Congress authorized Supportive Services for Veteran Families in 2008 and the VA recently announced nearly $300 million in grants to be provided through the program during the budget year that began Thursday.
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VASH is a voucher program designed to help eligible veterans pay their rent. Since 2008, the government reports having issued more than 79,000 VASH vouchers nationwide.
In Long Beach, Darnisa Tyler, the city’s Housing Authority bureau manager, said more than 500 veterans who are also receiving case management services through the VA have obtained housing through the VASH program.
Southern California’s expensive rental market, however, poses a challenge for service providers and veterans using the VASH program. September’s average rent for a one-bedroom Long Beach apartment was $1,100, nearly 8 percent greater than rates just last year, according to Apartmentlist.com.
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In other words, it’s a landlord’s market.
“The market is such that there is not a lot of wonderful housing out there, and what’s out there is expensive,” Tyler said.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert A. McDonald mentioned the same challenge during a mid-September meeting with Los Angeles News Group reporters and editors.
“We ask for the patriotism of these individuals,” he said during the meeting.
One veteran’s story
Navy veteran Michael Stuthers never ended up on the streets, but said he lost his Lake Elsinore home in 2009 after he lost his job as a tile setter when his employer’s business went under.
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“I put my eggs in the wrong basket. He folded up. I folded up,” Stuthers said of a job he had held for 26 years.
Stuthers said he had bad knees, no income and lived at his daughter’s home in Lakewood before spending three months at Century Villages at Cabrillo. He was then able to obtain a VASH voucher, which has helped him the last four years. He’s been in his current Long Beach apartment for two years as of next February.
Stuthers’ VASH voucher now pays nearly half of his rent. He pays the remaining amount of about $530 per month. He said he also benefits from a Veterans Affairs pension.
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“That gave me the start to supporting myself,” he said.
Stuthers’ landlord is American Family Housing, an Orange County nonprofit that owns more than 50 properties in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties.
Stuthers said he joined the Navy at the age of 17 and served from 1970 to 1974. He served on the USS Constellation aircraft carrier and was deployed to Vietnam twice, he said.
Michael Taylor, housing director for American Family Housing, said he is also a Navy veteran. His military experience helps him to relate to other veterans.
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He also has to build relationships with landlords, because American Family Housing does not own all of the properties where its workers seek to find housing placements for veterans and other needy persons, he said.
Although Taylor said veterans tend to prove themselves as model tenants, he said some landlords fret that renting to veterans will lead to problems. He said portrayals of Vietnam veterans in movies like “Born on the Fourth of July” and “Jarhead” have contributed to that sense of wariness.
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“I’ve heard from different landlords, ‘OK, they came from combat. I don’t want Rambo here,’ ” Taylor said. “That’s one of the biggest challenges. It is the adjustments and people willing to take a chance.”