Veterans advocacy, housing, and homelessness solutions

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm delighted to have with us in the studio Irene Cruz and Teresa B. Thompson. Welcome to the Coon Ram Report. Thank you, Melvin. Let's start off. Can you tell our listening audience just a little about your background and the goal for Veterans Advocacy Connection? My name is Irene Cruz. I'm a six-year Marine Corps veteran. I've been very active in the veteran community. Actually, this year, earlier this year, I was nominated. I was named 2014 CalVet Women Veteran Leader of the Year. And we actually had a tie. There was another women veteran who this was the first time that they had a tie for this award. I'm chair of the Minority Women Veterans Conference, which we recently held at the Proud Bird. I'm also chair of the Labor Union's Veterans Caucus. I'm a member of the American Legion, and I'm their Veteran Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission for the Department of California. There are six of us throughout the state, and I represent the Los Angeles area. Also, there's a branch of the American Legion called the Los Angeles County Council, and I am the vice commander representing women. Thank you. Thank you. As well as, I also collaborate with a number of other veteran-minded organizations to do different things throughout the veteran community. Okay. And Teresa. Oh, hello. I'm Teresa, and I'm a four-year veteran of the Air Force. And I've been rather separated from the veteran community. It's what I find with a lot of veterans. I've had veterans, male and female, that once we get out, we just kind of like go on with life. And didn't have too much contact with veterans, or if they were veterans, we didn't know they were veterans. Especially females, because they don't identify themselves as veterans. And I've even met a female veteran who says she didn't know she was a veteran, you know, until a few years ago. And she's been out, what, 20-some years, 30-some years. But she didn't know she was a veteran because she didn't go to war. And as for me, I've been more in the academic field, teaching and working with kids, a lot of work with kids. And so it seems that things have moved me around where this past year, I would say, I've gotten more involved with veterans. And it's like, God, move me back into the veteran community. And I've been able to get more involved because he knew it was something I would be passionate about. Once you lose your passion for something, it becomes a drudgery. And I had kind of lost my passion for the teaching. I still love teaching, but where I was at, I was just, it wasn't motivating me enough. So when I was moved back into getting, working with veterans, I found that was my passion was there again. Because. I want to see people helped. I want to see people get out of situations that they're in. And so this past year has been a blessing to me. And not just to the people that I was able to help by referring them to the resources, to see them get off the streets, to get into housing, to get benefits, to whatever it was that they need to get health care. So, you know, I know it's something that I love doing. And. You know, doors open because of that passion. I believe other doors open as a result of us even being on your show, because it's like anything that had to do with working with the veterans. I was there always ready to, you know, volunteer, come in and do this and going an extra mile for veterans. So and then having a chance to meet Irene has opened the door where I get a chance to meet more women veterans because I was meeting a lot of male veterans. So I'm still working it. And. I see how much more we can be of assistance to the veteran community, working with Veterans Resource Corps, which is what we're expanding and trying to make it even better. And that's what I hope that we can do. OK. With your show. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because hopefully you're looking towards 2015, the year 2015, to do your own weekly show. Do you think a show like this for veterans? Would be more valuable to them? What time of the day? What day? Because that's something to think about on. I know it's a lot of veterans in the Skid Row area and they utilize the resources down there during the day. But one good thing is that always can go into the archives to pull up that kind of information. Yeah. I don't know. I hadn't really thought about. I haven't thought about that either. A weekend show. Or something like that, which would be in terms of it would be more conducive. I guess we'll have to take a poll and find out. We'll have to take a poll from our veterans and find out, you know, when they would think it would be a good time. Yeah. Right. To listen. And watch the show. Mm-hmm. So. Yep. And also, when we had Reverend Murray on it, Reverend Cecil Murray, former pastor of the FAME Church. Mm-hmm. He mentioned something I keep thinking about. A concept of developing veterans programs in each one of these churches. Develop some kind of concept or format. Mm-hmm. That we can push out to the churches so they can start seeking out the veterans in their congregation and in their community. Maybe that's something that you guys can also look at. I'd like to play a clip. From a little short four-minute speech clip. A four-minute speech. Four-minute clip from that speech. Talking about veterans issues and homeless veterans. Then we'll come back to a quick community calendar. And then we'll go into your section. Okay. Okay. I'd like to say that I am a veteran. I'm a Vietnam veteran. 1969 to 71. Can I tell you my age? Yeah. Yeah. And not only am I a veteran, but I come from a family of veterans. Out of a family of seven males and two females, six of us served in the military. Three in the Army, two in the Air Force, and I served in the United States Marine Corps. So this is why this is such an important issue to me. And not only that, since we've been working in the Skid Row area, one of the things that we notice is how many veterans that's living in the streets. See, and we're going to talk about that in a little while when we do our monologue. And so what we try to do with Drama Stage Goon Run, we feel that people talk so much about the problems. And everybody knows the problems because it's amplified. You can read it in the paper and all that kind of stuff. What we try to talk about is solutions. Solutions. What is the solutions to the homeless problem? Now here's what we come up with. Because we talk to other homeless people who have been homeless, homeless veterans, and we want to get their opinions on what do they think it takes to solve a homeless problem. And here's where we're at. I think the first step in solving the homeless problem is make the homeless problem the homeless veteran problem. That's the start point. By making it the homeless veterans problem, you put it on the shoulders of the United States government, who sent all of these young men over to fight in all of these particular wars and things like that, and come back traumatized, etc., like that. So we feel that it is also the duty of the American government to finance the solutions to it. Not just the non-veterans who's laying in the street. We feel that the starting point, make the homeless problem the homeless veterans problem. Get the American government to finance some think tanks where you can get some of the best minds in the United States, get them together, make the government pay for it, come up with some solutions, and then spread those solutions out to the rest of the homeless in terms of solving that. Now look in the inner face. What can the inner face community do right now to make a dent in the homeless problem? Number one, I'm going to talk about Los Angeles because Los Angeles is the homeless capital. See, it's the homeless capital of the United States. Not only is this the homeless capital, you probably got more millionaires here in Los Angeles, kind of Los Angeles property than anywhere else in the United States. But you also got the blight of people laying down there in the Skid Row area down there. So here's the second part of doing something right now. We feel that the three major religious institutions can also work with the city to find out all of these empty properties around here. To either buy these empty properties, rent these empty properties, and start programming what the Prophet Muhammad, what Moses, and what Jesus taught. It's right there in the scripture. You know, they started off Messiah Jesus when he announced his Messiahship. It's tied into that and Isaiah on what they were supposed to be doing. You know, working with people coming up out of prison, people in need and all that kind of stuff. And then, Umar, he mentioned, it's tied into the scripture of Islam. It's also tied into the scripture of the Torah. See, so we feel that if these three major religions buy, rent some of these empty properties, start programming, start picking some of the people up that own Skid Row, start bringing them into some of these houses, and at the same time provide support, and help them get out of this system. Okay, that was just a little short clip about the homeless solutions. What do you think? Any quick comments? You put it down there, Brother Melvin. I actually, last month, had looked at this, listened to this clip. I went through the archives and listened to this clip. And I thought you made some very good statements. And some very good points that more attention needs to be brought to the homeless veterans issue. And actually, I believe homeless and the word veteran shouldn't even be in the same sentence. And if they can solve the homeless veterans issue, they could solve homelessness all the way around. Or at least... Put a bigger dent in it, I would say. Because there may be some people you may not ever be able to get them off of the streets. Depending on how long they've been there and other issues that could affect that. Okay, you want to make a comment, Teresa? Yeah, because, you know, the homelessness is there. And you have to look at, okay, what population? We know it's the veteran population. And then we have to break it down, okay? We have the Vietnam era veterans that are suffering homelessness. You have the 9-11, post-9-11 veterans. You have the women veterans. You have, as we go more into our society is aging. And you're going to have more of the aging. Veterans. And those are needs that we need to start looking at right now for the aging population. What they call the baby boomers. Where you're going to have right now, I think they said overall in this country is about 80 million baby boomers. Those from about 50, what is it, 58 years old, I think? To 60-something. From 1964 back to 19... 46 or something like that. That generation born in, those are the baby boomers. Those are the ones that made changes all along the way in this country. They have had the biggest impact on America because it was so many baby boomers that may cause changes to be happening along the way. And so the same thing with homelessness. We're going to have it. They're going to have an impact. Because we're already starting to see more elderly. Veterans. Veterans who are in their late 60s, early 70s now. That are becoming homeless. And need that help. And so there's going to be an impact. Even in, because of that generation of people that are coming more into that state where they're going to need more help. And so the government has to prepare for that. It's not going to be just young men. 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds. That's going to need help. I think the elder generation is going to need more help. And so we have to look at all those facets and see what is it. We can't, it's just, there's no one size fits all solution. It has to be different solutions depending on those, the gender. Whether children are involved if they're younger. If there's mental illness. There's so many factors to consider. That I think that's why right now they're struggling to resolve the issue of veteran homelessness. Because it's not just young men that went off to war and they came back and now they need a place to stay. You know, you have young ladies that went off to war and have children with them. You have married couples that need places to stay. And that's some of the issues that you're going to deal with in your section. Right. Yeah. Okay. Let's take just a little quick break for the community calendar. And then we'll come back and go into our special section dealing with veterans. This is the community calendar for upcoming events. The Roby Theatre Company presents Dunbar World Premiere. The magnificent Dunbar Hotel. A stage play written by Levy Lee Simon and directed by Ben Guillory. The performance will continue through December the 25th. 2014 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. The location is 514 South Spring Street, Los Angeles, California. It's about the 30s and 40s on Central Avenue in Los Angeles. Where the Duke, the Count, Dorothy Danridge and Lena Horne perform your favorite songs. This place is the magnificent Dunbar Hotel. For information on the show, visit www.dunbar.com. For information about tickets, please call or contact the LATC at 213-489-7402. Or log on to latc.org. And you can contact the box office at 866-811-4111. Upcoming guests on the Qumran Report, Monday, December 15th. 2014 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. We are delighted to have some of the actors from the production of the magnificent Dunbar on our show. Discussing their roles in the play. And also discussing the need for a national black theatre company. If you have a community event that you would like announced on our show, send the information to Drama Stage 1. www.dramastage1.com. Attention Earline Anthony. The call in number to ask Irene Cruz and Teresa V. Thompson questions about veterans resources for our show is 800-893-9562. Now back to our host. Thank you, Miss Earline Anthony. Now at this point in our show, I would like to turn it over to the Veterans Advocates Connection. We are going to be talking about the Veterans Advocates Connection. We are going to be talking about the Veterans Advocates Connection. We are going to be talking about the Veterans Advocates Connection. With Irene Cruz and Teresa Thompson. I spent six years in the Marine Corps. Between 1984 and 1990. I was stationed here in Tustin, California. And I was in air traffic control communications tech. So I've been a veteran for about 24 years. And I joined the American Legion approximately about four years ago. And it is an opportunity to assist other veterans who have been going through a difficult transition. And it is an opportunity to assist other veterans who have been going through a difficult transition. That having veterans work with veterans would be the best thing. That having veterans work with veterans would be the best thing. Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good down here on Skid Row, we have many people that don't have their ID. So we can help them get their ID. Oh, okay. So for this segment, we wanted to talk about housing and homelessness and talk about some of the issues and some of the resolutions that are out there now that's happening right now and how we can help veterans with getting housing and what can we do to make the housing situation better, especially downtown, but all over America. But right now we want to focus on that area and just talk about housing and homelessness. I want to start off with just some of the issues that are out there so that people know about them. And maybe they have some solutions too that they would like to share. So one of the things is it seems that right now there's sort of like a cookie cutter approach to assisting veterans with housing and homelessness and things like that, where they are looking at them as just a, well, not just a veteran, but looking at them as a veteran. And then saying, oh, well, you need this, this, this, and this. But they're not asking the veteran what they actually need. And so that has led to some of their frustration. And as Teresa said earlier, this particular war, there's a wide range of different types of veterans in the sense of age. You have some that are 18, just out of high school that went in. But then you also had older vets that went either back in or with this particular war, like for instance, the Army raised their age requirement. So now you had older vets going back into war that were not there before or is not the norm. You had couples and things like that. So there needs to be more of a focus on particularly what that veteran needs. There needs to be a conversation as opposed to just giving them a stack of forms and say, here, fill this out and you can't ask any questions until you fill these forms out. And so I would like to talk about some of that as well as the type of housing issues. A lot of agencies will say, well, if you want to get off the street or if you need housing right now, a lot of them will refer you to a shelter. A lot of vets don't want to go to a shelter. And there's different reasons why. I witnessed an older female vet who had a vehicle, who had been sleeping in her vehicle. And at one of the stand downs, she was offered to be able to go to a shelter. The counselor was going to call or case manager was going to call, make a phone call and get her in the shelter that night. And the first question was, where can I park my car? Because that's been her home. And so she was told, well, we don't really have any parking. You can park it on the street. And so her response was, then I'll stay in my car. I don't want to go to the shelter. Then I've heard men veterans say. They don't want to go to a shelter because there are. And I'm not stereotyping, but there are lots of times there are convicts in the shelters. And as a vet, you're because you don't know the people there, you have a tendency more to keep to yourself and stay within. And you're perceived. Sometimes you're perceived. Sometimes you're perceived. Sometimes you're perceived as a victim. That way. And so then the convicts will come and approach you. And that's gone, as I say. And I hate to say it, but, you know, that could, depending on the people, could lead to an incident where the police are going to have to be called. And so to avoid all of that, because they don't want to go to jail. To avoid all that. They don't want to go to the shelter, which is totally understandable to me. So there needs to be some kind of alternative or rethinking in this process of ending homelessness. So I just wanted to put that out there. Well, you know, when you talk about cookie cutter. The government. Their model was based on a single male. That's that's what the model was based on. Because that's who was going off to war. You know, oh, bring the young men home. Okay, we're going to get them started, get them married and get them working and everything. But as years went on, that the demographics changed. It was no longer just young, single males. And so the shelters, even Skid Row area was basically for men. It was all designed for men. It was not set up. It was not set up for women. It was not set up for children. That's why there's no place. There's only one place on Skid Row that accepts children. And that's the Union Rescue Mission. There's no other place that accepts children because it was not designed for children. This was an area that was single males. And at one time it was single white males that didn't have jobs who came through the depression. And needed places to stay. They were alcoholics or whatever. And they got their lives back together. But then the demographics on that changed. As anything else does, it changed. And so now the government realized it's not just single white males, but it's single black males started coming in. And then as the drugs came in in the 80s, guess what? Who else started coming? Women started showing up. And then the government started saying, okay, what are we going to do with these women? We got to do something with the women. And then you start having families. And it's only within the past five or six years that the Union Rescue Mission started accepting families. So just like this change, the government has to see that change within their demographics of veterans. They have to do the same thing. They have to make some changes. They have to have the resources available. And they've made some changes. And there's still a lot more that needs to happen. Because when you talk about a married couple that one of them is a veteran or either both of them could be veterans. But there's no place where they can stay together as a married couple. They will have them. One may stay on one floor and the other one stays somewhere else. But the government hasn't taken that into account of a couple that can be together without change. Now they've made some accommodations for married couples that have small young children. But then they didn't make accommodations for women because I had a lady to tell me the other day she had teenage children. She's a veteran. They could find a place for her. Oh, well, we got this room over here we can put you. But your children got to go somewhere else. Are you crazy? You know, she wasn't going to separate from her children. So she had to go back and say no. She said they did couch surfing, her and her two kids. They did couch surfing because there was no place where they could be together as a family. And so the government has to rethink all of that. And they haven't taken that into consideration. That's why you have married couples that are saying, well, we want to be together. So we'll just sleep in a tent outside on the ground so we can be together because there's no place where we can be together. The government still hasn't done that. The government still hasn't taken that into consideration. Or another couple might say, well, we'll just stay separated until we can get together, you know, in our own place. And so all of that contributes to the housing. And then the elderly, okay, we have some places available for the elderly, whether they're single. But if they're married, what happens? I had one lady that came to us. Her husband, they had housing. And he had a stroke. Went into the hospital. And when he came out, he was in a wheelchair. They couldn't live in the same place. The government did not help them. The VA did not help them. So when he was able to leave the hospital, there was nowhere for him to go. And she told them, well, we need some kind of help. We need VASH. We need something. But there was no help for them because of the fact they said, well, he can go home. Well, we have no home because he's in a wheelchair now. So he has to have accommodations for that. And we don't have the money for that. And so, you know, we had to refer her to some of the directors of the program, different programs, and put them on the job to see what they could do to help her and her husband. Because she wound up living in some little single SRO room for a while while her husband was at the VA discharge. But in the area. The resting area where they put him. Another area that they put him in after he was released from the hospital where he could stay there. But they couldn't get together. The government didn't have no place to put them. And I don't understand. They're each other's. A couple. That's each other's. They're each other's support system. Right. So if you break up that support system, that leads to a whole other level of stress, anxiety, depression. Right. Because they don't have that person that they've been depending on, even though they may have been in tough times, if they have each other. Right. They still have that love for each other that carries them through, which we talk about a lot, particularly, you know, down south and things like that. That love will carry you through the tough times. And so when you break those couples up, you're doing. I know they want to say they're doing good, but you're actually doing a lot of mental damage to those two people. Right. And that's why the couple I told you about that, they said they would rather live in their tent because together they could survive. You know, they can go to the showers or to wash clothes or you stay here while I go get this here. You watch this. And, you know, if we go to the library, we'll put this thing away. You can watch them and I'll go get this or whatever. And then you can go in that. But because they had that support for each other, you know, and they didn't want to be separated. Sure, we could have put him in a two year program, a single room. Well, it's a single room. Let him and his wife use that single room until they could get back on their feet. But they couldn't get back on their feet because they're too busy trying to survive. And so they had to move to a homeless state that they were in. And so the government has to come in and start taking a new look and make some other changes. It has to be some changes made that will accommodate these various groups that we have. And I just I just know in the next, what, five years to ten, five to ten years when you're going to have more baby boomers reaching that retirement age, that there's going to be even more. Because a lot of them haven't planned for retirement. I mean, I just I just remember one guy. He was 69 years old and he was telling me he said, I never expected to live this long. He had been a gang member, you know, living the wild life, you know. And, you know, when he got out the service, he said, I remember riding the bus home and he said, I threw that discharge paper out the window. And, you know, he was free from the service. But here he is. You're 69, 70 years old now. And he said, I just never expected to live this long. So how many more of those people do you have out there that are saying, well, I'm going to go. I just remember nine of those people that are saying I never expected to live this long. And now, you know, you need help from the government and your status as a veteran is the way to get that help. Well, you said something interesting with respect to getting out and going on about your life. when we talked about jobs, getting a job, and you felt a lot of, well, some vets that I know felt that they should have been able to get a job once they got out because of the type of training that they received while they were in the service. So it should not have been a problem. Um, and, but it ended up being a problem for a number of different reasons. But the baby boomers, they are, their numbers are rising every day. And not only that, but they actually have a lot of economic power, um, to channel where things, uh, different solutions and different things that are being produced throughout the country. Um, a lot of those baby boomers have a lot to do with it. Then you have veterans like myself, I didn't have a GI bill. So when I got out, I couldn't, I didn't, I couldn't go to school. I didn't have a GI bill. And I've told that to other vets and they're like, what do you mean you didn't have a GI bill? It was after Viet, because I came in after Vietnam. Mm-hmm. And so we didn't get, we didn't get a GI bill. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't, and I believe the, the GI bill that they have now didn't take effect right away. It was, uh, after a period of time that the Gulf War started that, and they started to come back, that the GI bill was reestablished. Oh, okay. Um, so there's a, there's a lot of different issues. That's why I said this cookie cutter approach. Um, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, and so, not working and there are entities that are noticing that it's not working but they don't have the solution they don't know where to start with the solutions and I think a lot of that is because they've been looking at things on paper and not actually talking to vets hearing their stories and what has happened to them because some vets that we know and have worked with when they told their stories to different people the people look bewildered they were like what do you mean and they you know they're saying and this is a maybe a government entity or upper-level manager in one of these programs they're like what do you you know what do you mean that wasn't supposed to happen and a lot of times it's because you're looking at what's on paper things can look good on paper but then reality is something else and I think they need to look more to reality and actually hear those veterans voices to give you an example it's a female vet that I know that not too long ago earlier this year was promoted to captain she's a active duty reservist and she was living in transitional housing and so she had to go away for her duty right because she's still on active reserve when she came back it kicked her out of the program for being gone now that shouldn't happen because they knew when they took her into the program that she was an active duty reservist so there has to be some kind of give-and-take there has to be some policy changes there has to be some new legislation that needs to be introduced to address these types of things because if you're in the if you're in the business you're saying you're preventing homelessness and a vet has to go and and fulfill their duties and then when they come back you you've kicked them out of their home and they're not going to be able to live there anymore and so it's then you're not helping. You're part of the problem. Right. And it's those type of organizations that are, you know, doing those things that requires the government to be more involved. Don't just give money to an organization because they say they're helping veterans. How are they treating the veterans? Because, like I was sharing with you, I have a veteran that he moved into a grant for DM program, which we know is where the government pays that organization for providing the housing for that vet and even the meals for the vet. And so he was given a referral to one program, but when he went to the VA, they sent him somewhere else to this other housing place. And he had problems from the very moment he got there. It seems like things were happening. It seemed like things were happening with the case managers and, you know, it just wasn't working for him. And so I said, well, let's try to get you into where I originally wanted you to go. And he was ready to go. And I had talked to the program director, got things set up for him, and he decided, well, no, I might as well stay here. Because why? He had fear. He was afraid that he would lose his grant for DM. I said, they can't take it away from you because you're dissatisfied over here. And so he stayed, but it just got worse. And just recently he had found a job. Now, they didn't have to pay. And when he got into the program and everything, there was no payment required. He finally found a job and had started working. But one day he had a severe medical issue. He couldn't barely walk. He called me and said, should I go? I need to get to a hospital or something. Should I go to the VA or whatever? And I said, no, I can't. And I gave him some suggestions. He got to the VA hospital and everything. But what had happened to his body was he couldn't work. The doctor told him he couldn't work anymore. And so he had to stop working. Now they're telling him, well, we started this program. They've implemented a payment plan, a payment for the veterans. And they're requiring the veterans to pay a certain amount of money each month. And he was concerned that he couldn't pay it. Because I'm not working now. And now they're saying we got to pay. And he was really upset and distressed. In fact, I almost wanted to play his message on my phone. So people could hear how serious this is. Because you could hear the depression in his voice. And that's somebody I have to lift up in prayer. Because he was getting so distraught because of the fact he said, I don't know what they're going to do. I asked the case manager. He said, well, you know, two weeks before. Before I leave, they'll tell me what I can do. They'll try to work with me. And then I get another call saying, well, they're saying if I don't have the money to pay, they're going to kick me out in the streets. And I don't want to be out in the streets. Well, he doesn't want to be out there. What vet does? What person does? What human being does? But this is the way the veterans are being treated in the housing. And so I think that's very important that we start, the government starts looking into how veterans are treated. How are they treated in that place? How are other people treated in that? How are they treated in that organization? But mainly our veterans, 22 people, 22 veterans per day. That's high to me. When I first read that, I was just totally shocked. Twenty two veterans a day are killing themselves. And I know there's PTSD, there's MST, there's brain trauma, traumatic brain injury. I mean, I know there's different things. But it's just. To me. When you have a veteran. Who's trying to get his life together. Trying to get things together. And then they're telling you, oh, we're going to put you out. No. And then he asked for a recommendation to the other program that I had tried to get him into, or either to the VA. And the case manager refused. Refused. To give him a referral. So we have issues that because if we are the only game in town, you think it's okay to mistreat another human being. That's not right. I mean, the government should have people that come in undercover. They need to come in, move in undercover. Like the seats. Like the seats. Like they have their secret shopper. Right. Right. Like they have the secret shoppers. Have secret veterans come in undercover and see how the veterans are treated. See how that veteran is treated. Each one of these shelters around here to see how people are being treated are mistreated in the places that they're placed. The government is providing money for you to take care of them. And what are you doing? You're doing things to cause distress that may cause them to take a gun and put it to their head or to take some pills. So. That's one of those issues that we're, you know, we have to, we have to talk about it. And I think this is a great outlet to talk about it and bring attention to it because as long as no one is saying anything about it, these organizations around here who can get away with stuff like what they're doing, they will continue doing it. I don't care how big they are. Okay. Goliath failed. Okay. And so some of these organizations who think they're so big and they're untouchable. No, they can fall too. And they may need to fall in the sense of. They may need to fall in the sense of being closed down because I've heard some horror reports. We're not going to name any names right now, but later on, we're going to name some names. Okay. We're going to bring it out to the open. Who's mistreating vets? How are you stealing their money? You're stealing their food stamps. You're taking their cars. You're having their cars towed. I'm telling you, I've heard some horror stories that from veterans living in a certain particular one that I'm thinking of right now that they just had to leave because the mistreatment. So bad. So they don't need to come from fighting a war, having survived war and then come to a place to be mistreated. So that's another element in the housing market that we have to look at, look at even deeper. And I think, you know, it would be something good that we can bring up and bring, bring people online or in the studio who can share the stories. Share their stories. Right. Of what they've experienced at the hands of these shelters or other places. And people may not like that. But some of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good Good are paid to do for. And I will send a vet, not just to an agency. I will send a vet to a particular person at that agency who I feel knows their stuff, will understand, respect. That respect is very important. Understand, respect, and listen to the vet and assist them. So just as a disclaimer, I don't want to say they're all vets. It's just accountability for those who are the bad seeds. I would like to ask you about, what's something you was talking about earlier, and to know about what is the housing situation, what's the situation with same-sex veterans couple? Do you deal with any of that yet? We've had the experience of one same-sex couple that came to us, two men. They had been living in some place in Koreatown, I think, or somewhere. Both veterans? Both veterans. No, one of them was a veteran. The other one wasn't. Now they weren't married. They were just a couple and they wanted to be together, but there was nothing we can do for them because none of the shelters, no, no, they don't tolerate that. So they could have a place to stay, but there is no place for them. There's no place for them to be together, you know, in the same room or whatever they wanted. That was impossible, you know, and that too can create more problems. You know, when you talk about providing housing for couples, traditionally, we know it as male and female, but since our society has, members of our society have decided that it's okay to change what was from the original creation, you know, to something different, then it creates problems all along the way. In every field, in every area of our lives, it creates changes. It creates problems and, you know, it creates confusion. But did the military move away, did they move away from what's said, that don't ask, don't do, they still deal with that? The don't ask, don't tell, what does that say? Yeah, yeah, the don't ask, don't tell. It's still there. Some people were discharged out of the military because of it. But I don't think there's been any real resolution. In terms of benefits of that. Right. Now I have seen, I have seen same sex couples as far as women actually attending military functions together. But like, like Teresa said, one is a vet and one is not. I haven't really experienced where both of them are vets. Mm-hmm. Um, so I don't know. It's, that's something we may, we'll have to revisit that. Yeah, because we were, we're getting ready to work with a veteran organization that's up in Brentwood that we want to work with. Um, and the person that runs the organization is a veteran. You know, I have great resources. It's only been in existence, I think, a little over a year. Mm-hmm. And it's going to be interesting to see how that developed throughout the veterans community once they come outside of the service. Mm-hmm. But like you say, some states recognize, some states don't. Mm-hmm. And I guess that would affect veterans all over. Now, how about veterans coming out of prisons? Uh, they, they have housing for veterans. They can get into the grant per diem programs. Mm-hmm. Um, if they're on, uh, what is it? Pay, uh, um, Oh, parole. Parole. Or if they are, Yeah, they have housing for them if they're on parole where they can go. Mm-hmm. And they have places, uh, specifically designed for, for those veterans. Mm-hmm. So it's, it's, that's one of, uh, one of the population, uh, that they are, um, they ha, they ha, they know they have a need for that. You know, so they have addressed it, but it's not, they can do more on that also. You know, it, it's still something that, they just gotta work out so much stuff, you know, with the change in society and the creation of so many different, uh, facets in our society of different members in different situations. It just got the government probably scratching their head, like, what are we gonna do? We got this, now we got this, and now we got this, and now we got that. So they have to make. Because I, I know at one time the county jail had a program in which, when veterans coming out of prison, getting ready to go to prisons, or veterans who go do county time, they had a list and they would send them all out to Linwood. Mm. I don't even know if that situation is going on now, but they, all of the veterans that would catch any kind of case, they would identify them and they would, uh, Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. to Linwood, and the VA was connected with that Linwood program to try to get veterans and stick them into different programs, retraining and all of that. Yeah, and I'm wondering if that's still in existence. We'll have to look into that and bring that up at another time. Okay. We're winding down. That time shot by. It ran away. Well, you know, for the veterans, homelessness, when you're talking about housing and homelessness, they created a definition for what defines a person as being homeless or a veteran as being homeless. And one of the problems we have found out is that you have different organizations that define that differently. You have one group might say that based on the McKinney-Vento Act under HUD, basically tells you that a homeless individual is one who's living in a place that's uninhabitable, is by humans, not supposed to be habitated by humans. If you're living in transitional housing or a shelter. But then what happens is they want to say, well, you know, if you're not chronically homeless, you're not eligible. But we found out today that that's not true. You can be chronically. You don't have to be chronically homeless to be eligible for certain programs. And that's where the misinterpretation, that's part of the misinterpretation that we need to check into. Can you give us a contact information? Just say we've got a veterans out there that hear this and they're homeless and they want to call somebody to move them through the process. What? Just a contact. Can you give them a contact number that could start them off? Yeah, for the Veterans Resource Corps, the number they can call, let me give you that number, is 213-689-2282. And that's the director of the program that will redirect it to one of the benefits councils. So, if you need any help, just call the counselor. Counselors should give the help that they need. Okay. We're winding down. Is there another number? No. Well, there's a lot of different numbers. It just depends on what you're looking for. I mean, well, then there's the Los Angeles Homeless Service. Mm-hmm. Their number. We also own this. Oh, you want to give that? 213-683-3333. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then we also put it on the website, the Veterans Advocacy Connection at gmail.com for those that want to email. Okay. I want to say a special thanks to Irene Cruz, Teresa Thompson. Thank you, Ms. Earlene Anthony. And for those who would like to pull up some of our archive shows, just Google in the Coombran Report. Thank you, Ms. Earlene. Thank you, Ms. Earlene Anthony. So let's close out. I would like to extend a special thanks once again to Irene Cruz, Teresa B. Thompson. Please listen to past shows of the Coombran Report by Googling in Coombran Report. Thank you for tuning in to Coombran Report. From my host, Melvin Ishmael Johnson, my co-host, Earlene Anthony, may the peace and blessings of the life-giving creative spirit be upon you and upon your family. I leave you with a song. Beautiful Woman by Cam Melville and Chief Yellow Mustard. ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you.