Success Stories

Hank got involved in drugs and had run-ins with the law. For a long time, he couldn’t afford a home and spent his nights on friends’ couches. Life began to unravel. Things got so dire that Hank attempted to take his own life. Hank knew he had to make a change in his life. He called his mother, who drove him four hours to the nearest VA Medical Center. “VA is the only reason I am still alive,” Hank acknowledges.

After spending time in a substance abuse treatment program, Hank enrolled in VA’s Compensated Work Therapy program as an electrician. As of early 2012, Hank is two years sober and, thanks to VA’s vocational rehab program, is enrolled in community college. He is also looking for an apartment of his own with a HUD-VASH voucher. Hank realized he needed to make a change. By using VA’s services, he was able to get back on his feet, overcome homelessness and his substance abuse.

However, the rock band lifestyle quickly took its toll. His drug and alcohol use led to several arrests for fighting, disorderly conduct, and driving under the influence, ultimately costing him his marriage and his children. He tried to recover on his own. Construction work and restaurant jobs kept him afloat for a while, but his continued and excessive substance abuse only led to joblessness, crime, more jail time, and eventually homelessness.

While homeless, he befriended a Vietnam Veteran who was also homeless and alcoholic. They stayed together most nights, under bridges, in shelters, and at motels. On one particularly cold night, they could not find indoor shelter. The next morning, Michael woke up but his friend did not. The young soldier spent the next two weeks dazed, praying for answers. He contemplated taking his own life. But instead of making that fatal decision, he remembered the Veterans Crisis Line number he’d seen on a poster, called it, and was connected with a caring and “angelic” operator. Within hours, he was picked up and driven to a VA facility.

Michael got enrolled in a program for homeless Veterans and received substance abuse treatment. He is now pursuing a double major in English and philosophy and serves as secretary of his campus Veterans club. He aspires to become a college professor at a local university.

After she lost her eldest daughter to a rare childhood cancer, she chose to leave the military. Shortly after her discharge, she went through a painful divorce and was diagnosed with breast cancer. She underwent 18 months of radiation and chemotherapy, but after the cancer retreated, she suffered from several other health problems.

Things began to look better when she remarried, but her husband was laid off soon after when a job-related injury prevented him from working. Then she was laid off, too. As all this was happening, their landlord abandoned the property they were renting. The water heater broke, the roof leaked, and the power lines were damaged, but they had nowhere else to go, so they stayed in the building. Soon, the property was foreclosed on and they lived in constant fear of eviction, never knowing when the city would arrive to kick them out of the abandoned property.

Faced with impending homelessness, Karen turned to VA and learned about the HUD-VASH program. She was awarded a Housing Choices Section 8 voucher, which she used to rent a duplex for her family. Her youngest daughter, now in a stable home environment, is thriving in school, and Karen is pursuing a master’s degree in education. She currently works as a substitute teacher and runs a program teaching fashion, sewing, and textiles to children.

She moved into an apartment of her own, but found it difficult to maintain steady work. As her savings quickly dwindled, her depression deepened. Memories of suicide bomb victims and a friend who killed himself in Iraq courted her growing fears of becoming homeless. Despite her downhill slide, she was too proud to ask for help, “I thought, ‘I’m Army strong. I don’t need anybody’s help.’”

Having grown up a foster child with no family support to rely upon, Ebony forged on alone as best she could. But her best found her without a job and living out of her car. After six months of roughing it on the streets, her luck changed. A friend invited her into their home, a turning point. At the encouragement of an old Army friend, she visited the VA near her and was surprised to learn of the services offered there. She started treatment at the women’s clinic, including getting help for her post-traumatic stress disorder. She applied for and received HUD-VASH assistance with housing. Living and thriving on her own again, with an inspiring story to tell, the local VA hired her on as an outreach worker.

He tried going to college but realized that he could not attend school and support a growing family on his own. He started drinking heavily and sold drugs on the side to make ends meet. But the substance abuse caused things to unravel quickly. Jobless and homeless, JB moved from place to place with his three young daughters, sometimes staying with friends, sometimes at halfway houses, and many times in his car.

His mother eventually convinced him to visit VA—for his children. He agreed and went to rehab to learn “how to be a real person again,” he says. He stayed clean for a while, but was found on the streets starving and homeless by a friend a few years later. His friend took him to get something to eat and then called a VA hotline, asking them to pick up JB and take him directly to a VA Medical Center.

JB says he had to “go back to basic training, learn about survival, and identify that homelessness was the enemy.” During his stay at VA, he completed the detox program, applied for and got approved for HUD-VASH funds, and took every class and program offered at VA. JB got a job working for VA distributing mail to patients in the hospital, regained custody of his three girls, one of whom is an honor roll student, and now provides them with a stable home environment. He also gives presentations in support of VA’s substance abuse programs.