For Vietnam Veterans, Old Hotel Is a Healing Place

On July 4, 1976, the night of the American Bicentennial, Vietnam veteran Bill Leed drove his pickup truck onto the railroad tracks and headed toward the white light of the oncoming train.

Leed had left Vietnam in 1969, a decorated combat veteran, but for the next seven years he kept his war record a secret. He burned his uniform. He did not tell friends he had been in the service. He tried to bury all thoughts about Vietnam.

But the patriotic fervor of the Bicentennial celebration, the drinking and the fireworks, brought back many painful memories. That night he headed for the train, “because I couldn’t take it anymore . . . all this anger I had at my country, all these problems I had got totally out of control.”

Hitting Bottom

He ended up parking on the tracks and hopping out just before the train obliterated his truck, but his life “bottomed out” after that July 4. He became an alcoholic and a drug addict. He could not hold a job. He served time in jail. Finally, like tens of thousands of other Vietnam combat veterans, Leed became homeless.

But while many others have nowhere to turn but the local rescue mission, Leed heard about a shelter for homeless Vietnam veterans in Santa Barbara, the only one of its kind in the country, according to the local Veterans Administration.

Last month, Leed, 40, was living in an abandoned trailer and drinking heavily. Today he is sober, living in a renovated hotel with other Vietnam veterans and working for the city’s parks department.

“I used to drink myself into oblivion to feel some sense of safety,” Leed said. “But I feel safe here, like a tremendous burden has been lifted off my shoulders. There’s a lot of people around here who know what I’m going through, who I can ask for help.”

The nonprofit hotel, which opened earlier this month, is operated by the Santa Barbara chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America. John Darlington, president of the local VVA, said projects like the hotel can redress some of the wrongs Vietnam veterans have endured during the last two decades.

“In some ways, programs like this are 20 years too late,” said Darlington, who manages the hotel. “Guys left Vietnam changed forever, but society didn’t give a damn. Because so many weren’t helped then, we’re seeing them on the streets now.”

Shortly after Vietnam veterans returned home, the American public began hearing about the “flipouts and arrests” of maladjusted veterans, Darlington said. Then came reports of alcoholism, drug abuse and mental disorders.

Now the problem of homeless veterans is finally being recognized, Darlington said. About one third of all homeless people are veterans, with Vietnam-era veterans making up the largest single group, national studies indicate.

“Some of the veterans have had the whole range of problems and ended up on the streets, but this is where we want to stop it,” said Darlington. “We’ve lost two members of the VVA in the last year to suicide. We don’t want to lose any more.”

Reaction to Trauma

There are a handful of homeless shelters for Vietnam veterans throughout the country, but the Santa Barbara program is the only one designed for veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, said Denver Mills, director of the local Veterans Administration center.

The disorder is a delayed emotional reaction to the trauma of combat and symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, emotional numbing, panic and depression. Many with the disorder also have histories of alcohol and drug abuse.

Although most of those who served during the Vietnam era have long ago readjusted to civilian life, a significant number are still struggling. Vietnam combat veterans are widely believed to suffer from higher psychological casualty rates than in any other modern American war, said Jack Crane, head of the Homeless Veterans Project, a local referral and service group.

The soldiers in Vietnam were younger than American veterans of other modern wars, Crane said, faced a higher percentage of combat situations, were forced to fight a guerrilla war and had little time to adjust to civilian life.

Residents of the Santa Barbara hotel receive counseling for stress disorder or drug and alcohol problems. Those with serious substance abuse problems can be treated at VA hospitals and then return to the hotel. Job counseling and referrals are provided by a variety of local agencies.

“We’ve found that homeless veterans seem to fare better when they’re living with other veterans than those who live alone,” Crane said. “There’s a certain healing process for them in that community life.”

Landmark Saved

The program is a success on many levels. In addition to aiding the veterans, an important architectural landmark was preserved. The hotel where the men live is not just another grim downtown shelter. Designated by the city as a “structure of merit,” the Hotel de Riviera, built in 1915, is a quaint redwood and stone structure with large bay windows looking out onto rose gardens, winding stone pathways and arbors covered with bougainvillea.

When the property was offered for sale last year, many local residents feared for the future of the landmark hotel. But this is a city that has a tradition of architectural preservation. The Santa Barbara Community Housing Corp. raised enough local, state and private funds to purchase the hotel and then leased it to the VVA.

Residents, who are accustomed to sleeping in bushes or on cots at rescue missions, say they appreciate the landscaped gardens and elegant environs of the hotel.

“This ain’t some flophouse,” Leed said. “It feels like home.”

Leed, like many veterans at the hotel, adjusted fairly well immediately after leaving the Army, but years later began having problems related to his Vietnam experience. Leed, who earned eight Air Medals, a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a helicopter door gunner, attended college for a few years after leaving Vietnam and then worked as a roofer.

But one afternoon, as a neighbor was burning trash in a 50-gallon drum in his back yard, Leed grabbed his uniform from his closet and tossed it in the fire.

“I guess it was some vain attempt to bury something I felt I could never explain to anybody,” Leed said. “I wanted to forget the whole insane experience in Vietnam and pretend I was normal.”

For seven years, Leed said, he succeeded. But after the night of the bicentennial, Leed, who was living in Michigan at the time, realized “I couldn’t bury it anymore.” The images of friends being killed or maimed and the atrocities he had seen began to plague him. His nightmares became more frequent and more grotesque. He began waking every night in terror, screaming, punching the walls.

Leed became afraid to sleep, so he took amphetamines to stay awake. Eventually he began injecting methamphetamines and developed a serious drug habit. Leed could not hold a job and lost his apartment. He began sleeping in his car or spending all night nursing coffee at Denny’s.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” Leed said. “I didn’t want to live, but I was too scared to die.”

He checked into a Veterans Administration hospital, where doctors eventually diagnosed him as being 50% disabled as a result of post traumatic stress disorder and awarded him a $426-a-month pension.

Many Vietnam veterans are critical of the VA for refusing for years to acknowledge the high incidence of psychological problems among Vietnam veterans. It was not until 1980--seven years after major American involvement in the Vietnam War had ended--that the Veterans Administration and the American Psychiatric Assn. approved criteria for diagnosing post traumatic stress disorder.

“The Army discharged my ass 20 years ago and that was that,” Leed said. “They didn’t recognize my problems, and, for a long time, neither did I. So I wasted years of my life. It’s pathetic.” He shakes his head and briefly closes his eyes. “I’m 40 years old and I’m just learning how to take care of myself.”

But those who run the veterans hotel hope that many of the residents will be self-sufficient within a year, move into their own apartments and turn their rooms over to other veterans.

The hotel can accommodate about 50 people, and the monthly cost of a double room is $260 a month. Funds are available for veterans while they are looking for work or awaiting social service benefits.

Because the hotel receives state funding, it is prohibited from turning away non-veterans, but the majority of the beds are designated for Vietnam veterans. The hotel is expected to be full within a month; currently there are 30 residents, 25 of them veterans.

The huge number of Vietnam veterans among the homeless is helping change the perception of homeless people as simply bums and winos. Of about 2 million people who are homeless at some time during the year, up to 700,000 have served in the armed forces. About 40% of these veterans served during the Vietnam era, VA surveys show.

When servicemen returned from Vietnam they faced scaled-back GI educational benefits and a stagnant economy. Because many veterans were poorer and less educated than those who avoided the war through student deferments, they were more vulnerable during the 1980s when many industrial jobs were eliminated and federal funding was sharply cut for low-cost housing. And those veterans with drug and alcohol problems and psychological disorders had an even harder time staying off the streets.

Veterans’ advocates argue than many of these men made great sacrifices for their country and deserve some compassion and assistance in return. But many homeless veterans do not qualify for the narrow pensions and health programs offered by the VA. A Los Angeles study several years ago found that only 2% of the homeless veterans were receiving veteran’s benefits, although many could qualify if they applied.

Fighting Bureaucracy

“The VA seemed inaccessible to a lot of veterans when they returned from Vietnam,” said Crane of the Homeless Veterans Project. “There was so much bureaucracy and red tape, and the people who worked there acted so patronizing. A lot of the troubled vets couldn’t get the help they needed.”

In response to these complaints, VA officials say, the agency has established outreach centers, known as Vet Centers, throughout the country for Vietnam veterans. The Vet Centers offer counseling, group therapy and job referrals, said Denver Mills, head of the local Vet Center. The Santa Barbara center, Mills said, now works closely with the veterans’ hotel.

“In the past it was very difficult for us to offer homeless vets any real counseling,” Mills said. “If a guy comes in with no food and no job and no place to sleep, we’re not going to say to him: ‘Tell me about Vietnam.’ But now that we have a safe place to send them we can begin talking about the traumatic experiences that led them to the streets. . . . We can begin talking about Vietnam.”