Homeless Veterans

Keith Church left the Navy in 1974 after a two-year stint, worked for years as a maintenance mechanic and never considered asking for veterans benefits. But in December, Church, 54, was jobless, coping with health problems and on the brink of homelessness - "couch surfing" with friends, he says - when he turned to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for help. Within a few months, he moved into an apartment, thanks to a VA program that started in Maryland this year to help homeless veterans.

In Baltimore CityBrooklyn man, 26, convicted of killing neighbor in her homeChristopher Stanley Mills was convicted of first-degree murder yesterday in the June 1998 stabbing death and attempted robbery of Leona Gast Klimm, 91, his southern Baltimore neighbor.Mills, 26, was arrested by the FBI in a New York City phone booth about three months after Klimm's body was found at her home in the 3500 block of 4th St. in Brooklyn. He was tracked down by tips phoned in to authorities.Baltimore Circuit Judge John C. Themelis will sentence Mills on Nov. 17. An accomplice, Carlos Roy Holcomb, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the incident.

WASHINGTON -- Winter comes this year without one of its smaller mercies.After a decade during which the U.S. Department of Defense distributed 4 million of its unlovely but warm blankets to homeless programs around the country, the money for any more is gone and the supply has run out. At hundreds of shelters, the loss is being felt."

The Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training was honored in Washington yesterday by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans for displaying "extraordinary leadership."The center, formerly known as Maryland Homeless Veterans Inc., received the coalition's Outstanding Membership Award for bringing service providers together to help homeless veterans, said coalition Treasurer Tim Cantwell.Said coalition spokeswoman Julianne Crane: "We hold [the center] up as a role model" for its team-building.

In the 1970s, Thomas Cameron and his mates spent much of their time longing for when their Navy submarine docked for liberty after 30-day cruises 1,200 feet deep."

WASHINGTON -- The first shelter for homeless veterans in Washington is expected to open sometime this summer.The shelter will be the only transitional shelter in the country that will set aside a building for female veterans and their children, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.Pete Dougherty, program manager for the Veterans Help program at the VA, said the shelter was named after Sarah McClendon, 87, because she has been pestering the government to do more for women veterans for about as long as she has been posing questions to presidents.

WASHINGTON -- The first shelter for homeless veterans in Washington is expected to open sometime this summer.The shelter will be the only transitional shelter in the country that will set aside a building for female veterans and their children, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.Pete Dougherty, program manager for the Veterans Help program at the VA, said the shelter was named after Sarah McClendon, 87, because she has been pestering the government to do more for women veterans for about as long as she has been posing questions to presidents.

PERRY POINT, Md. -- At a time when the federal government is squeezing many social programs, the veterans medical center here, on a serene 400-acre campus on the Chesapeake Bay, has opened a new refuge for people like Stanford Avant.After his discharge from the Marine Corps, with which he served in Vietnam, Mr. Avant spent 25 tortured years "drinking and drugging," as he puts it, on the streets of Wilmington, Del.Now he is 46, and he has been at Perry Point since a sanctuary for homeless veterans opened here in September.

Marylanders paused from leaf-raking and football yesterday to honor veterans at numerous Veterans Day services around the state.They gathered at veterans cemeteries and war memorials in several counties as well as at the Maryland Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Baltimore and the Maryland State Veterans Cemetery in Owings Mills.Yesterday's rain came too late to affect most services. But at an afternoon gathering at the Maryland Homeless Veterans Center in Baltimore, a driving rain and strong winds forced more than 100 people to scramble from the parking lot into a large meeting room.

Calvin King has been homeless since July. The first seven days he slept on benches outside buildings downtown. He feigned serious illness so he could sleep in an emergency room. He did get a job last month as a night watchman, but pretended to be asleep on the job so he would get fired. He was afraid he would lose his shelter bed if he wasn't there to sleep in it.There are probably other stories similar to Mr. King's among the 3,850 military veterans who are homeless in Maryland, 1,170 of them in Baltimore.

Do more to reach homeless veterans The Baltimore Sun gave important coverage to a critical housing program for veterans in the article "Struggling veterans find hope in program" (April 13). The Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (VASH) program can provide a rent subsidy to veterans that allows them to pay approximately 30 percent of their income for rent. This program is a major tool to end homelessness. But, as the article notes, veterans still comprise up to one-third of the homeless population nationally.

Keith Church left the Navy in 1974 after a two-year stint, worked for years as a maintenance mechanic and never considered asking for veterans benefits. But in December, Church, 54, was jobless, coping with health problems and on the brink of homelessness - "couch surfing" with friends, he says - when he turned to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for help. Within a few months, he moved into an apartment, thanks to a VA program that started in Maryland this year to help homeless veterans.

Arecent report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness found that while veterans constitute about 11 percent of the civilian population 18 and older, they represent about 26 percent of homeless people. That proportion is lower than in the 1990s, when veterans were an estimated one-third of the homeless population, but the findings are disturbing nonetheless. Veterans are more likely to be educated and employed and less likely to be poor than the general population. As more veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan, the problem of homeless veterans is likely to get worse.

Eighteen months after she enlisted in the Army, Wanda Porter fell from a 50-foot tower, shattering her feet and ending her military career. Today, after three surgeries, a year in a veterans hospital, a failed marriage, bouts of depression and 17 years of therapy, Porter is taking classes at Baltimore County Community College and planning to complete a degree in psychology. She credits Veterans Affairs with helping her recover and was eager to attend a networking fair especially for women veterans at the Baltimore VA Medical Center on Saturday.

Blair E. Cross Jr., a Korean War combat veteran and a founder of the Maryland Homeless Veterans Rehabilitation Center in Baltimore, died of a heart attack Sunday at his Port Deposit home. He was 72. Mr. Cross was born and raised in Cockeysville and attended Towson High School until 1949, when he dropped out during his senior year to work for Acme Markets. "He was impatient and just wanted to get out into the world and go to work," said his wife of 51 years, the former Jane Leeson, a retired secretary.

CHICAGO - Our soldiers in Iraq face an array of dangers, including hostile fire, accidents and suicide. But apparently they are not out of the woods once they return to the United States. Here, we are told, they confront another serious hazard: homelessness. "I think that Americans would be shocked to learn that just by serving in the military, you increase your risk of becoming homeless," Linda Boone of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) recently told National Public Radio.

Goodwill Industries of the Chesapeake will hold its 47th Thanksgiving turkey dinner from noon to 2:45 p.m. tomorrow at the Baltimore Convention Center, with the help of 275 volunteers to serve the food. More than 2,200 people attended the event last year. In addition to providing a meal, Goodwill will be sponsoring a career fair for dinner guests. Representatives of more than 20 area social service agencies and employers will take part in the fair, and Goodwill's career development staff will provide career counseling and assistance with resume preparation and job searches from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets for the dinner are available through Goodwill and agencies including the city Department of Social Services, the Learning Bank and Bon Secours Family Support Center.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - They awake each day at dawn, rising from wooden benches, emerging from behind bushes, crawling out of alleyways and stairwells like creatures in a bad horror movie. But this is no cheap science-fiction thriller. The shadowy figures are homeless veterans stirring from the "spots" they call home. Though their nicknames - "Mountain Man," "Spinner," "The Colonel" - suggest men of independence and derring-do, the reality is anything but romantic. Stashing their meager belongings in blankets, gym bags, or underneath scraps of cardboard, they move out in all manner of dress: wrinkled windbreakers, worn-out baseball caps, dirty dungarees and sneakers.

Some nights, Timothy Dale Lewis makes it to the downtown Baltimore Rescue Mission - which offers a meal, a shower and a bed for a few dollars. Other nights, despite having a wad of cash from his temporary construction jobs, he doesn't. "I sleep on the streets sometimes," the 44-year-old Navy veteran said. "If I do drugs and use all my money, I can't stay at the mission because it costs $3. You get off work with $40 or $50 in your pocket, and the crack man's sitting on the corner with that good feeling."

In Baltimore CityBrooklyn man, 26, convicted of killing neighbor in her homeChristopher Stanley Mills was convicted of first-degree murder yesterday in the June 1998 stabbing death and attempted robbery of Leona Gast Klimm, 91, his southern Baltimore neighbor.Mills, 26, was arrested by the FBI in a New York City phone booth about three months after Klimm's body was found at her home in the 3500 block of 4th St. in Brooklyn. He was tracked down by tips phoned in to authorities.Baltimore Circuit Judge John C. Themelis will sentence Mills on Nov. 17. An accomplice, Carlos Roy Holcomb, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the incident.