Fair Offers Help to Homeless Vets

About 500 homeless veterans streamed into the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium Thursday for free medical exams, housing referrals and legal advice at the sixth annual Westside Homeless Veterans Fair, a program hosted by several local veterans groups.

Veterans swarmed around tables for information about social security benefits, ducked in side rooms for free haircuts and lined up for medical services including HIV tests, eye exams and physicals.

“We’re trying to bring all of these services to one location,” said Jerry Melnyk, director of the Culver City-based Vet Center, a counseling service. “It would easily take them a month to go to all these places on their own.”

Coordinators estimated that about 3,000 homeless veterans live in West Los Angeles, many unable to make the transition back into society after returning from combat duty.

“A lot are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,” Melnyk said.

“They have a feeling that they don’t belong. What we’re trying to say is no, you do belong. You don’t have to live on the streets--you’re part of this country.”

Roger Holt, 52, said the services he received at the fair several years ago helped him get off cocaine and Skid Row.

“I wouldn’t have made it without programs like this,” said Holt, who served on a Navy attack cargo ship during the Vietnam War.

“I had similar problems most guys had trying to come back to society--the instability, the substance abuse, unable to hold down a job.”

Now, Holt volunteers at the fair and works at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center as a social services assistant. He hopes to become a drug and alcohol counselor.

Leaders of veterans groups said they were disheartened to see that many younger veterans are on the streets.

“We’re seeing a lot more Persian Gulf vets, an indication to me that we still have a huge sociological problem,” said Harry Shaw, president of the nonprofit Veterans Foundation Inc., which has sponsored similar fairs in six other California cities.

“Vets are still having a problem coming back into society.”