A PLACE TO CALL HOME REALTOR® and Veteran Mark Solomon Is On a Mission to Help Homeless Vets In August 2020, ground was broken on the Veterans Community Project Village, a tiny home village in Longmont that will provide temporary housing to veterans experiencing homelessness. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis was on hand, as were a host of local dignitaries and community leaders. Colorado REALTOR® and Navy veteran Mark Solomon was there, too. As a co-founder of Veterans Community Project (VCP), it is a calling that brought him from Kansas City to Longmont in his mission to end a problem that has afflicted the U.S. for decades.
100% privately funded and now has a staff of 20. Solomon said that VCP’s private funding model enables them help all vets, reMark Solomon gardless of discharge status. Organizations that rely on federal dollars are not allowed to help vets who have been dishonorably discharged. Solomon says VCP defined a vet as anyone who took the Oath of Service, “whether they served for five minutes or 35 years.”
Solomon enlisted in the Naval Reserves as an Intelligence Officer in 2004 and has done tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2015, Solomon and a group of his combat veteran friends gathered in a Kansas City restaurant to discuss vets in crisis and their need for housing, counseling, and other services. Several of Solomon’s friends were working with organizations that specialize in helping vets. Those assembled expressed frustration at the lack of funds available to provide them with basic necessities while government red tape proved to be a hinderance in getting them aid.
“My buddies and I who started VCP at some point raised our hands and took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, up to and including with our lives. We thought if people were willing to write a blank check to their country, the least we could do is take care of them when the come home, regardless of the circumstances or outcomes of their service,” said Solomon. One of the VCP’s first actions back then was to provide bus passes to veterans so they could get to their jobs.
Their meeting would lead to the creation of Veterans Community Project (VCP), a multi-million-dollar charity that is
“We had a line around the building for our bus passes. And then we got around to asking what else we can do,” said Solomon. “We came up with this plan to end veteran homelessness. At the time we were thinking we were going to do that in Kansas City and maybe expand,” he said. “It morphed a lot faster than we thought it would ever be. Solomon sketched some ideas on a napkin. One of his goals 16
