THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 11, 1994 TAG: 9411110649
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PATRICK K. LACKEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
Plans are being laid and volunteers sought to build and staff a tent city for homeless veterans this spring.
The tent city is supposed to have doctors, dentists, therapists, social workers, Social Security and employment counselors, financial advisers, lawyers and even judges and politicians - everyone needed to help homeless veterans get back on their feet.
The city is to stand three days - May 18 to 20 - and could hold 1,000 or more homeless veterans. Nonveteran homeless people are welcome to come sleep, eat and get clothes, but the main help is for veterans.
The event is billed as Stand Down-95, one of about 60 such events planned around the country. The first Stand Down was organized in San Diego in 1988 by a Vietnam veteran.
Stand Down is a military term for a respite from action in a relatively safe area where soldiers can rest and attend to personal needs before returning to battle.
For the homeless, life itself is a battle.
Stand Down-95, the first for Hampton Roads, is being sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Salvation Army and Hampton Roads Homeless Veterans Task Force, a new coalition of agencies that deal with homeless veterans in Southeastern Virginia.
At Stand Downs elsewhere, courts have been held and misdemeanor charges settled. Also, ID cards from the VA are issued and veterans are helped with tax problems. Some veterans might be eligible for food stamps or low-income housing.
One of the first to push for the Stand Down was Beverly Gray, a registered nurse with the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Hampton, who goes to the streets to find and win the confidence of homeless veterans, so they will agree to be helped. Since starting her program in April 1987, she said, she has worked with more than 3,000 homeless vets.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development puts the number of homeless people in America at about 600,000. Gray estimates that there are 5,000 to 6,000 homeless veterans in Hampton Roads. She was recently honored by the Department of Veteran Affairs for her work with the homeless.
Co-chairpersons for Stand Down-95 are Dennis L. Saylor and LaDawna C. Saylor, a married couple who run Veterans Emergency Transition Shelter Inc. in Hampton. Their nonprofit organization provides three mobile homes for 10 homeless vets.
``We want to make the homeless aware that there's help there for them,'' LaDawna Saylor said.
Also actively involved is Larry McCauley, executive director of the year-old Vetshouse Inc. in Virginia Beach, which is providing housing for 15 vets, one spouse and two children. He also is director of the Hampton Roads Homeless Veterans Task Force.
The task force has three teams: one headed by the Saylors to put on Stand Down-95; one to identify community resources for providing shelter, employment and counseling; and one to make long-range plans for helping homeless veterans.
McCauley, 42, a military veteran, said he was homeless in the winter of 1983-84 after a job and plans to attend college fell through. ``It's not that I failed to plan,'' he said. ``It's that my plan failed.''
Oddly enough, he was bailed out by his ex-father-in-law, who put him up for a few months while he got his life back together. The temporary helping hand was all he needed, he said, and it is all many homeless vets need.
The public holds two erroneous stereotypes about homeless vets, he said.
One is that the Department of Veterans Affairs is magically helping them. It may be helping, he said, if they have a health or drug problem, but not if their problem is that their jobs pay minimum wage with no benefits or that a big chunk of their money goes to ex-spouses.
``Homeless veterans are a community problem,'' McCauley said. The VA has estimated that a third of the nation's homeless are veterans, though the percentage could be higher in Hampton Roads.
The other stereotype is that homeless vets wear five layers of clothing and stare off into space and are unfit to work. The vets he helps at Vetshouse, he said, only need a start.
One man needed shoes and glasses. McCauley said. After the man got them, he landed a job as a chef.
Clothes, food and hundreds of volunteers, including people to transport veterans, will be needed for Stand Down-95.
Stand Down-95 is slated to be at the Salvation Army at 1033 Big Bethel Road.
``We need people power and money and food and clothes donations,'' said LaDawna Saylor. Contributions are tax deductible.
The next planning meeting for the Stand Down will be at 7 p.m. Wednesday at VFW Post 176, 24 Forest Drive, Newport News.
For more information about Stand Down-95 or to volunteer labor or goods, call the Saylors at 249-5304. by CNB