Health care for homeless veterans

Services available for homeless needing health care

“Attention Spokane! I am a homeless veteran…I need lots of help. I don’t know who to ask or where to go first. Can you help me?”

This is a question that Gordon Graves and his team from Healthcare for Homeless Veterans hears and tries to answer every day. Below you can find his response, which includes sharing info about many local Veteran Service Organizations and how they pool their efforts and resources to help our troubled veterans.

It is not just about helping them find housing but helping them get jobs and get healthy so they can stay in their housing.

I work for the VA homeless program Healthcare for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) as the Employment Coordinator. Typically, I have a revolving door of 25-30 veterans referred to me for help finding employment or in connecting to veteran programs, agencies and resources to fulfill various needs.

Under normal (non-COVID 19) circumstances I will be meeting with people in the Greater Spokane and North Idaho community giving presentations on what we do as a team and what I try to do individually toward helping veterans.

The goal is to help the veteran develop a path out of homelessness and work toward independent living. Along the way I work with and lobby for the veteran to receive help and it’s hard for me to mention ALL the veteran-centric programs out there that contribute but I will do my best.

First, hats off to Goodwill with its SSVF (Supportive Services for Veteran Families) program for working with our HCHV program. It also works in close collaboration with Volunteers of America and our GPD (Grant and per-diem) transitional housing program.

All of us turn to and refer Veterans to Spokane County Regional Veteran Services so those who are eligible can apply for different types of help which includes applying for Service Connected or Non-Service-Connected disability claims.

I work hand in hand with and as much as possible with Work Source and the veteran representatives there and the Department of Labor in Post Falls. Help comes in different forms through various programs they offer and through them Veterans can also apply for employment related funds from the Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program.

Our local veteran community is just so awesome when it comes to pulling together toward helping a veteran and their unique needs. We always encourage our veterans to not be afraid to ask for help and seek to make appointments with our Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center or an outlying CBOC (Community Based Outpatient Clinic) in Coeur d’Alene or Wenatchee.

For combat veterans we make sure they are aware of the Vet Center and the multitude of counseling and therapeutic programs they offer as well as help with claims. There’s also the Combat Vet Riders in Spokane and North Idaho who provide financial help to fill different needs.

Other agencies instrumental in helping Veterans are Newby-Ginnings in Post Falls where veterans newly housed can get help with furniture, clothing small appliances and more. I want to mention that our office, is so grateful for hygiene items donated to us, in the form of care packages from Red Cross and other people. We also get food items from Northwest Harvest and other people as well. All of these items are handed out on a daily basis and we try to spread it out among all the veterans we can so everyone in need gets a share.

More agencies that deserve mention are Rotary 21, all the local VFWs and the Elks who recently reached out and want to help newly housed veterans. I also have to mention ALL the employers out there (like Skils’Kin. and Cabela’s) who go out of their way to hire veterans.

So after all this, I apologize if I forgot someone, but I want to mention an agency, Operation Spokane Heroes, that has helped me help countless veterans as I’ve gotten to know them better over the years.

I’ve approached them for help in getting an airplane ticket to get a veteran over to Seattle and then to Alaska to work on a fishing boat. They’ve put up funds for so many veterans to get auto tabs, driver license renewals and classes if needed. They provided one veteran with funds to get gas, phone minutes and a propane tank last winter because he was living in a trailer with no electricity nor running water. He’s now employed full-time and doing well and when he tries to give me credit for “saving his life,” I just tell him to thank our local veteran community and especially OSH.

They have helped with rent, saving several veterans’ storage units and filled a multitude of unique needs which enable a veteran to just “breathe a little easier” as they work to just get back on their feet. They help veterans on a one-time basis to address literally any emergency (up to $300) and they rarely turn someone down.

From the bottom of my heart,

Gordon Graves

COLIN MULVANY/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW

After a ribbon-cutting, Shannon Dunkin, Healthcare for Homeless Veterans coordinator, on right, gives Spokane’s then-Mayor David Condon and former Director of Veterans Services Cathrene "Cat" Nichols a tour of the new Healthcare for Homeless Veterans building in May 2018.

Health care for homeless veterans program

Initially serving as a mechanism to contract with providers for community-based residential treatment for homeless veterans, many HCHV programs now serve as the hub for myriad housing and other services that provide VA with a way to reach and assist homeless veterans by offering them entry to VA care.

Supportive Services for Veteran Families is a housing stability program serving veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Goodwill partners with Volunteers of America to provide these intensive services to veterans and their families in Spokane, Stevens, Pend Oreille, Kootenai, Ferry, Lincoln, Whitman, and Bonner counties. SSVF assists over 400 veterans each year.

If you or someone you know needs help you can find the contact information for these organizations in the “How can I get help?” section on Page 5 of this publication