On a hot late-May morning in Woodbridge, Virginia, the last few well-groomed commuters are boarding buses for the hour-long ride into Washington.
Meanwhile, a handful of other men and women, tired and tattered, are drifting up the road toward a small gray building beyond the bus depot.
They are headed for a drop-in center for the homeless, supported by Prince William County and local churches, offering showers, food, water and other bare essentials.
Michael Anthony, 60, wearing a threadbare black t-shirt hangs back.
He has been banned from the drop-in center for fighting. He’s hungry and he’s anxious.
He has been camping in a tent in the nearby woods for over a year, with a few other men.
“We’re all veterans. We don’t allow nobody in there,” he explains. “We’ve done our time.”
There’s camaraderie in the wooded campsite. The guys look out for one another – and for a raccoon they call Napoleon.
Still, Anthony, who says he served in the Marine Corps from 1972 to 1984, is haunted by pain, and memories he doesn’t
like to talk about.
“I’ve got a bullet in my hip that hurts every time it rains,” he says. “I drink every day constantly, just to get my nerves together.”
Such suffering is all too common.
A total of 692 veterans were included among the 11,547 people surveyed for this year’s regional point-in-time homeless
count conducted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG). The annual enumeration, conducted on a single day and night in January, gathers ground-level data on the homeless men, women and children living in Washington and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia, providing vital information to service providers and federal agencies that fund and oversee homeless and housing programs both locally and nationwide.
Many homeless veterans struggle with chronic substance abuse and severe mental illness, the annual report observed. Yet
concerted efforts to reach and help them are paying off.
The 692 veterans counted this year, living in shelters, transitional housing programs, alleys and campsites throughout
the region represent a 31 percent decline from the total of 1,004 veterans included in the 2009 count.
Nationally too, progress is being made.
While on a single night in January of 2012, 62,619 vets were found to be homeless across America, that was a 17 percent reduction from 2009, when 75,607 veterans were found.
A national strategic plan to end veterans homelessness known as “Opening Doors” is helping to make a difference, federal and local officials say. Central to the plan is a permanent supportive housing program known as HUD-VASH which combines rental assistance from HUD and case management and clinical services from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Since 2008, a total of 48,385 vouchers have been awarded through HUD-VASH. Currently, 42,557 formerly homeless veterans are being housed through the program.
And while across-the-board spending cuts due to federal budget sequestration are reducing the number of subsidized rental assistance vouchers to thousands of poor families, the vouchers available to homeless vets are exempt from the
cuts, the region’s annual homeless report pointed out.
“With a coordinated, concerted effort, there is an opportunity to house significantly more homeless veterans during
2013,” noted the COG report.
Late in May, federal officials announced that soon, 9,000 more homeless vets will get help and housing thanks to an additional $60 million worth of vouchers.
“It’s a national tragedy that those who served our Nation in uniform can end up living in our shelters or on our streets,”
said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, who joined VA Secretary Eric K. Shineseki in announcing the new funding at a May 29
address to the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans.
A total of 65 of the new vouchers will go to the District of Columbia Housing Authority, according to the VA. Another 15
are headed for the Prince William County Office of Housing and Community Development.
That’s the county where Michael Anthony and his fellow vets are squatting in the woods. This morning, though, Anthony is just focused on finding his next meal.
He casts another longing glance at the drop-in center.
“Look at me, I’m starvin’ like Marvin,” he says. “I’ve gotta calm down.”
