Reenlisting in Life
To understand where Dennis Norris is going, you have to understand where he’s been.
For four years, he said, he lived in a dilapidated tent or a beat-up cardboard box on the grimy streets of San Pedro, nurturing a heroin habit that was slowly unraveling his ability to survive. When times were really tough and food was scarce, he’d dive into trash bins to forage for a tidbit.
In 1991, he lost his job in a hotel bar to a toxic mix of booze and drugs. His 5-foot, 11-inch body dwindled to 118 pounds.
“Once you get that far down, you don’t have any concept of getting up again,” said the wiry 49-year-old.
After being arrested in 1995 for heroin possession and sent to a drug rehabilitation program, Norris was referred to an Inglewood residence for homeless ex-soldiers run by L.A. Vets. If it hadn’t been for this program, Norris, who served as an aircraft radio repairman during the Vietnam War, might have plummeted further.
“I was at the bottom,” admitted Norris, who works as the breakfast cook at the residence. “Now I’m easing my way back to society.”
L.A. Vets is a public-private joint venture started by activists who in the early 1990s noticed a gap in the various government programs designed to help homeless vets. It is the only program of its kind, according to Steve Peck, one of the founders, because it features on-site social services provided by the Veterans Affairs Department and because the vets are required to pay rent ranging from $255 to $400 a month.
The National Coalition for the Homeless says that one of every five homeless people in the country has served in the military. Homeless vets make up an estimated 24,000 of the 80,000 homeless people in Los Angeles County, according to county data.
Founders of the residence were particularly concerned that homeless vets were being rotated in and out of substance-abuse and counseling programs at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in West Los Angeles without adequate follow-up. Instead, they were being sent to live in halfway houses or sober houses where they later got little counseling, emotional support, or job training.
“They could get their substance abuse problem taken care of, but there was a much broader issue that was not being taken care of,” said Peck, community development director for L.A. Vets and a former social worker at the VA Medical Center. “They would get out sober but have no social network, no job skills.”
The private component of L.A. Vets, headed by real estate developer Tim Cantwell, bought an old eight-story dormitory that used to be part of Northrop University, an engineering school that closed in the early 1990s. The dorm rooms were upgraded and the facility welcomed its first five residents in May 1993.
Since then, the program has expanded to its current population of 215 residents. L.A. Vets is refurbishing several more dormitory floors in hopes of doubling that number by the end of the year.
Residents have their own rooms or share one with another person. The dormitory has a cafeteria, and bathrooms are shared.
Daily on-site services range from employment information to counseling to give the veterans, who have to be drug- and alcohol-free for at least 90 days to get in, the support they need to rejoin society.
“If you’re homeless and penniless, it is a major job getting from one place to another,” Peck said.
Mandatory rent payment, he said, is the first step in making residents take responsibility for their lives.
The on-site Economic Development Center run by the government helps residents find jobs in some of the service-oriented businesses around nearby Los Angeles International Airport. There is a vocational training center and a “small-business incubator” that encourages veterans to start their own ventures. One man is running a janitorial service out of his room.
Over the last three years, 600 homeless veterans, averaging 41 or 42 years old, have passed through the L.A. Vets program. The average stay is just under one year.
When times are rough, there are counselors to consult. And there are scores of fellow vets around to lend a sympathetic ear to people like Thomas Grayson.
“If I get the blues really bad, I’ll sit with the guys in the television room,” said Grayson, 52, who moved in last May.
For years, Grayson said, he had his own cleaning business and his life was going smoothly. But in the early 1990s, he began drinking and using drugs after a series of tragedies, including the deaths of his son, brother and cousin.
When he finally picked up the phone and talked to a counselor at the VA Medical Center, Grayson learned about the residence hall.
He now has a permanent job at the VA Medical Center, working as a housekeeper in the nuclear medicine department. “I like Thomas Grayson today, and this place helped,” he said.
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The Beat
Today’s focus is on L.A. Vets, which runs a residence in Inglewood for homeless veterans who have been free of drugs or alcohol for at least 90 days. The residence, which opened in 1993, has on-site counseling and an employment center to ease veterans back into society. For more information, call (310) 348-7600.
