VietNow
National Magazine
Veterans Incarcerated
Veterans Incarcerated
Chapter Meeting in Nebraska
By Matt Davison – VietNow
National Veterans Incarcerated Chair
Matt
Davison |
|
In 2006 I was coordinating
a pilot program called the Incarcerated
Veterans Transition Program, for the Department
of Labor. In the Fall of 2007, I got word
that the program was being terminated.
Knowing that the non-profit I was working
for at the time could not afford to keep
me on the payroll without this funding,
I thought about where I would most like
to continue my service to veterans. I had
been aware of New Directions, Inc., an
organization with an excellent reputation
for serving veterans in need and at risk,
and fortunately, they had an opening. More
fortunately, I was able to fill that opening.
The moment you enter the center, you will
see the mural “Healing,” created
by artist Lucia Vinograd, which covers
the circular exterior of the building’s
first floor conference room. The mural
incorporates selected lines from Wendell
Berry’s essay of the same name, and
symbolizes the journey undertaken by many
of the residents here. Veterans who traveled
from combat to addiction to homelessness
find at New Directions a family of healing
and renewal. When I saw the mural and read
the words, I knew I was home.
New Directions offers
a range of services for veterans who are
homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
These include long-term transitional housing,
substance abuse treatment, mental health
and PTSD support, counseling, remedial
education, vocational training and employment
assistance, family reunification, parenting
classes, and help in obtaining permanent
housing. Currently being served are chronically
homeless veterans, both men and women,
veterans diagnosed with substance abuse,
mental illness, or both, and veterans returning
from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation
Iraqi Freedom. Permanent supportive housing
is being developed for disabled veterans,
both older men and women, and younger veterans.
[story continues after picture]
New Directions began in 1972, when John
Keaveney returned to the U.S. after serving
two tours of duty in Vietnam. Suffering
from untreated PTSD, John soon fell into
a vicious cycle of abusing drugs and alcohol,
becoming homeless, and spending eleven
years in and out of prison. In 1983, John
was court-mandated to a Veterans Affairs
drug rehabilitation program called New
Directions. In 1990 John partnered with
another Vietnam vet, Larry Williams, and
with Toni Reinis, a public policy advocate
who had developed programs and services
for homeless people in the community. In
1992 John, Toni, and Larry established
New Directions, Inc., a nonprofit 501c(3)
organization named after the VA program
that saved John and Larry’s lives.
In
1994 New Directions became the first social-service
agency in the nation to establish a residential
treatment program designed for female veterans
dealing with issues of homelessness, trauma,
and addiction. Known as “The Last
House on the Block,” the
three-story building located on the West
Los Angeles VA campus houses up to a hundred
and fifty-six male veterans, a twenty-four-bed
detoxification and assessment center, dining
room and kitchen, employment center, gymnasium,
and classrooms for remedial education,
computer training, and construction management.
Another building on campus is geared to
veterans with co-occurring mental illness
and substance-abuse disorders. In
2007, New Directions partnered with A Community
of Friends to sign a seventy-five-year
lease for two buildings on the Sepulveda
VA campus in North Hills. These structures
will be developed into a hundred and forty-seven
units of permanent supportive housing to
serve the needs of disabled veterans.
It
all begins with outreach. Staffed by veterans,
the outreach team visits parks, skid row,
recreational areas, jails and prisons,
shelters, and VA medical centers. They
accompany incarcerated veterans to court
hearings in the hope of securing their
release into our custody and into the New
Directions detoxification center for assessment.Earnest
is the spiritual center of this team. He
watches out for their safety, and brings
harmony to places of great despair and
potential violence.
The Employment Center
empowers veterans to return to families
and society. Some of these veterans face
significant barriers such as felony convictions,
mental health issues, or spotty job histories.
Nevertheless, the New Directions vocational
team has been highly successful in
helping these individuals return to the
workplace. In addition to Employment Services,
the Education Services, in partnership
with the Los Angeles District’s Adult
Division, has been teaching reading, writing,
and mathematics to veterans since 1997.
New
Directions even has its own choir that
travels around California, bringing joy
to all who attend their performances. They
say that when one door closes, another
door opens. The door that opened for me
over a year and a half ago opened wide
and welcomed me home.
The veterans of New
Directions are turning their lives around,
and I feel honored to assist. To quote
Wendell Berry, “The
most creative works are all strategies
of health. Good work finds the way between
pride and despair. It graces with health.
It heals with grace. By it, we lose loneliness:
the scattered members must be brought together.”
Matt Davison,
Veterans Advocate with Joint Efforts,
Inc., began working with veterans incarcerated
two years ago through the creation of
the Veterans Support Group at the Federal
Corrections Institution at Terminal Island,
San Pedro, CA. He has also counseled
pre-release veterans at the Los Angeles
County facility in Lynwood, CA., and
worked to get a veterans incarcerated
support group set up at San Quentin.
He received the “Beacon of Light” award
from FCI Terminal Island for developing
the fastest-growing program at the institution.
Back to main Veterans Incarcerated page.
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