Legion Family gets up-close look at life-changing veteran facilities

For Diane Schmidt, veteran homelessness hits close to home. Very close.

Decades ago, the veteran slept in her car while pregnant. The experience led to a passion to assist others in similar circumstances, which is why she took the opportunity to visit multiple homeless veteran facilities in New Orleans during The American Legion National Convention.

On Aug. 26, the Legion’s Veterans Employment & Education Division (VEED) organized a trip to the facilities for Legion Family members that included VEED commission members, staff and representatives from other veteran service organizations. And Schmidt wasn’t going to miss the trip.

“I was homeless. It was 1978, and I was pregnant, and my husband had left me,” said Schmidt, 12th District chaplain and commander of American Legion Post 328 in Christmas, Fla. “Actually, I asked him to leave because he was abusing me. So, I left and slept in my car in a Florida hospital parking lot for about six months. I had a job, and I went to work every day. I showered where I worked. And I eventually got home safely.

“I’m very passionate about female (veterans), especially those with children. Men have it easier because they can sleep in the woods. Women don’t sleep in the woods. They live on couches. They go from one couch to another until they run out of friends. So, we need to give them a safe place to get back on their feet. I came to the convention to learn more about what we can do for all veterans. And the chance came to see the shelters, and I stepped on it. And I am so excited about it.”

During the course of the day, the entourage also handed out 140 gift bags at the facilities that included personal hygiene products and other items, as well as $2,000 worth of gift cards. The first stop of the day was at the Bastion Community of Resilience. The sprawling campus provides a supportive living environment for injured veterans and families within an intentionally designed neighborhood by augmenting their care with neighbors, volunteers and clinical specialists for a holistic approach to community integration.

There are 58 veterans currently living at the facility; with family members included, Bastion’s total residency totals 120 men, women and children. The facility is the nation’s first intentional living community for disabled veterans and their families, which Executive Director Jackson Smith explained in simpler terms.

“We’re the first community in the country that was designed and is now operated from the ground up to provide veterans a long-term living environment,” Smith said. “Not a program, not a retreat. A permanent living environment that presents to them the opportunities for belonging, for identity, for purpose, for support and connection among one another the way they had in the military.

“So many veterans, the struggle of civilian life is defined by the loss of what they had in uniform. Here, we try to give that back to them.”

Bastion provides a vast array of rehabilitative services to its veterans and has an elected Resident Council so its veterans have a stake in decision making and leadership.

One member of that council, Air Force veteran Susan Lutz, said Bastion saved her life. “I have a severe mental illness. I was having delusions, self-harm, suicidal ideation. I was basically at rock bottom,” she said. “And I was here for that, and they tolerated me, so that I could get to the point where my medications were working, and that where I could take care of myself. I had friends. Things just worked out really well.”

Lutz said she and the other veterans there are offered various programs, such as, “wellness events like yoga, sound bath, things like that. Acupuncture. We have social events, which is huge, because I’m the type of person that would isolate. That alone has rescued me, pretty much.”

Smith said stories like that still inspire him. “When I talk about veterans here at Bastion, our core constituency are what we call tough cases: multiple injuries, multiple diagnoses, chronic health conditions, in addition to service-related injuries, the list goes on,” he said. “Veterans come here with a lot of complex problems all tangled on top of one another. And they transform their lives.  They transform one another’s lives.

“You will hear in this community, on a weekly basis, ‘I don’t know where I would be today if it wasn’t for Bastion. I don’t know if I would be alive if it weren’t for Bastion.’ And that means the world to us. In our community they are changing each other’s lives and saving each other’s lives.”

And visits like the one the Legion contingent help the facility’s effort. “A day like today is really as good as it gets for us here at the Bastion Community, to have visitors come to see us,” Smith said. “They want to know, ‘What is it that you’re doing here, and how can we learn and how can we take this back with us?’ That’s really the good stuff.

“To see folks from an organization like The American Legion, with the history that it has, with the stature that it has, the reach across the veteran population nationally, you all are the ones who can take a look at this and say, ‘We have seen what is going on all across the country. We see how unique this is, and we see how significant the need for programs like this is across the country.’ That is how real and meaningful change starts to happen – when friends like you all at The American Legion come away from this and go back to your communities across the country and say, ‘There’s something special going on down in New Orleans. We need to learn more about this. We need to see how we can bring this to our communities.’ And I promise you’ll have willing partners here at Bastion.”

Schmidt left the visit liking what she’d witnessed. “What they’ve done at Bastion is unbelievable. It’s just like a barracks there, a campus for veterans. And they start off in a mess, and they go through counseling, they have the resources they need there … and now they’re becoming productive citizens with a chance to make it on their own. I’m impressed.”

Two of the stops were at Volunteers of America facilities: the Oscar J. Tolmas Veterans Center and the Oscar J. Tolmas Veterans Pavilion. The former provides a 24-month program offering veterans intensive case management, support services and treatment, with a goal of staff working with residents to develop a plan to stabilize their lives and then move out of the program into permanent housing.

The Veterans Pavilion also provides transitional housing, along with rehabilitation services that include substance abuse/mental health counseling, educational services, comprehensive employment training and placement, permanent housing placement and supportive services for veteran families.

One of the Veterans Center’s success stories, Gerald Cordier, now lives on his own and is employed at the center. He was homeless at one time and found VOA’s program by chance.

It changed his life. “I went through the program twice,” Cordier said. “The first time I was there three weeks and was fortunate enough to get an apartment and moved out. But the landlord was shady, and things fell through and I ended up having to go back (to Veteran Center).

“The second time I went through the program I went straight through. Six months and did everything I needed to do. Followed the rules and regulations. You have to do the legwork, you have to do the groundwork and you have to do the paperwork. And I got an apartment. It’s very nice.”

Cordier served in the U.S. Army from 1978 to 1982 and then the Army Reserves from 1983 to 1986. Working at the center now gives him an opportunity to be proof that the program can work to its current and future participants.

“It’s my way of giving something back, because these guys are going through the same things I was going through,” Cordier said. “Any insight I can give them about how I got through the program and got to where I am, I’ll do that. I can just give them my story.”

The group also made a stop at the New Orleans VA Medical Center to hand out the gift bads to female patients. One patient, a U.S. Army veteran, told her visitors, “This was definitely a treat. Thank you. It’s been so nice to see you.”