Homeless veterans find a safe haven with Passageways

Which is worse: nightmares or no place to sleep?

Army veteran Bobby Rico said he has experienced both.

After serving for four years in the military – including 18 months in Iraq, he said – Rico returned to the United States and worked in the oil fields of Oklahoma. The company for which he worked began to falter, he said, so his workweek was reduced to two hours.

He couldn’t pay his rent, and his landlord evicted him.

Enter Passageways, a faith-based nonprofit that provides homeless and near homeless veterans with a temporary safe haven – at no cost – in an effort to get them re-integrated into the community.

“There’s this misnomer that these guys come home and everything’s hunky-dory,” said Susan Moellinger, one of Passageways’ founders.

The group, which started in January, operates out of a house in west Wichita.

“These men and women were coming back to nothing, no help whatsoever,” said Jennifer Garrison, Moellinger’s daughter and another founder of Passageways. “It really bothered us to the extent where we had to do something.”

Passageways serves veterans like Rico. He said he had no income and no place to live, sleeping wherever he could – on friends’ couches, on rooftops, in abandoned houses. Police in Seward County, he said, arrested him for breaking and entering.

“There wasn’t a front door,” he said.

Rico was homeless, a situation all too common for many veterans.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, a national nonprofit that provides services to homeless vets, cites a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report that there are about 50,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. on any given night.

In 2010, the White House and the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a plan to end homelessness among veterans by the end of 2015. A local VA official said in a statement that there has been a 13 percent reduction in homeless veterans in the past three years and that ending homelessness by the end of the year is “a reality and achievable.”

United Way of the Plains reported 59 homeless veterans in Sedgwick County as of January. The number, which accounts for homeless people who identified themselves as veterans at a United Way event, could be severely underestimated.

There’s no easy fix to homelessness among veterans, given the multitude of barriers.

Many veterans, including Rico, live with the lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Some struggle with alcohol or substance abuse, which is exacerbated if the veteran has no family or social support system.

Furthermore, skills acquired during military occupations and training are not always transferable to the civilian workforce, reports the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

Moellinger and Garrison said they grew up in a military family. Both quit their full-time jobs last fall, signed the lease for a home in west Wichita and opened Passageways in January.

The process at Passageways begins when the Department of Veterans Affairs, Catholic Charities or the Salvation Army makes a referral to the program. Veterans move into the Passageways house and receive food and clothing.

“This is not a handout,” said Sean Garrison, Jennifer’s husband. “Jennifer calls it a hand up.

“Life happens, and you can’t focus on your future when you’re worried about where you’ll be sleeping.”

Workforce, a state agency that helps the unemployed, works with the veterans on their resume and interview skills.

Searching for an apartment is complicated for veterans like Rico who have prior evictions and missed rent payments. For many, simply having an address aids in their job search.

“I can’t get my mail under the bridge,” said Larry Arnold, a Navy vet who said he was homeless for a month before he found Passageways.

The organization runs entirely on community donations and boasts a volunteer network of almost 50 people. Jennifer Garrison went so far as to connect with a couponing group.

“You got a stockpile of men’s deodorant?” Moellinger remembers asking them once.

While depending on the charity of others has its challenges, it can also be advantageous.

Rico recalled a time when another veteran went to the VA for clothing only to be sent from department to department. After several hours of searching for the right office, Rico said, the man was given a pair of underwear. He returned to Passageways, and a full box of clothing was waiting for him.

Veterans don’t need any more red tape than they already must deal with, Jennifer Garrison said.

The house accommodates up to eight veterans; seven live there now. While there is no set deadline when veterans must move out, Sean Garrison estimates that most stay for a month and a half at the house.

“Graduates” – there are seven so far – can pick out furniture for their new apartments from donations Passageways receives from the community. And while graduate Craig Barkus enjoys his new freedom, he often visits the Passageways house for a taste of the camaraderie he shared with others.

“We (civilians) can’t pretend to understand what they went through,” Jennifer Garrison said. “But the other guys know firsthand.”

Arnold called Passageways a “lifesaver.” Without it, he said, he would still be sleeping under a bridge.

“When I hit that lottery, I’m donating to them,” Arnold said.

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Homeless veterans find a safe haven with Passageways."