Mobile Vet Center works to help homeless veterans

Carl and Sandra Murray met and fell in love as soldiers in the U.S. Army.

It was the late 1970s and the two were serving in Darmstadt, Germany -- Carl was a helicopter crew chief and Sandra worked in a military communications center.

They soon married, finished their Army tours and eventually bought a home in the small Bollinger County community of Grassy, Mo.

Now, five children and three decades later, the two U.S. veterans have found themselves to the brink of homelessness.

"It's looking like that could happen, unfortunately," said Carl Murray, 54, who still walks with a cane after crushing two discs in his back when he jumped from a hovering Army chopper.

The Murrays' home in Grassy was severely damaged in the spring storms when heavy winds caused damage to one wall that they fear could collapse their modest rural home.

"We have land," Carl Murray said. "We just don't have the means to fix [the house] or to build something else. We came here looking for help."

The Murrays were among a handful of area veterans Wednesday who sought out the Mobile Vet Center, in reality a supersized recreational vehicle from Memphis, Tenn. The vehicle was camped outside the John J. Pershing VA Medical Center's Community-Based Outpatient Clinic at 3051 William St. near West Park Mall.

The four-hour event was part of the Poplar Bluff-based medical center's "Homeless Stand-Down."

The purpose of the event was to be a "one-day, one-stop shop" for services and resources for veterans who are homeless or at risk to be homeless, said Kristina Bowlby, the medical center's homeless coordinator.

The RV served as a mobile office where veterans met with eligibility specialists and learned about benefits, temporary and permanent housing and employment opportunities, Bowlby said.

"We just want to get them in the system," she said. "It's amazing how many veterans aren't even in the system."

Sixteen veterans showed up to the Mobile Vet Center on Wednesday, the first time it had visited Cape Girardeau, Bowlby said. None of those were actually homeless, she said, but there were people with housing issues and some who could be categorized as at risk for homelessness.

Most of the veterans Wednesday came with questions about benefits, she said, which is all right, too. On Tuesday, when the mobile center visited Farmington, Mo., they did take one homeless veteran to an emergency shelter.

The mobile center will also visit Sikeston, Mo., West Plains, Mo., Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Paragould, Ark.

While no homeless person went to the mobile vet center Wednesday, the problem of homeless veterans is real, Bowlby said.

Exact figures are hard to measure, Bowlby said, but the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates about one-third of the adult homeless population are veterans. The department says the nation's homeless veterans are predominately male and the majority are single; come from urban areas; and suffer from mental illness, alcohol and/or substance abuse or other disorders.

Nearly half of the homeless vets served during the Vietnam era, the department says. About 1.5 million of other veterans are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.

Those statistics are unacceptable, said Levi Woods, the VFW's District 15 commander. Woods was on hand Wednesday to help veterans fill out referrals for benefits.

"I think it's pitiful, awful," said Woods, who served three years in the Army, including one in Vietnam. "Every vet should be entitled to a home, food, warmth -- the whole thing. There should not be one vet, who stepped up to serve his country, who is walking the streets without a home."

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

3051 William St., Cape Girardeau, MO