Homeless Veterans Get a Helping Hand at Fair

Waking up on skid row one morning from a 30-year heroin- and whiskey-induced stupor that he said cost him his wife, job and home, Ken Sanders decided to put Vietnam behind him.

“You get older and you start to reflect,” said Sanders, 48. “Wherever I went, there I was. I couldn’t run from myself.”

Sanders was one of several hundred men and a handful of women who attended the seventh annual Homeless Veterans Fair on Thursday. The Santa Monica event offered everything from free legal advice to job leads to a shower and new underwear.

Los Angeles County is believed to have the nation’s largest population of homeless veterans, ranging from 20,000 to 30,000, according to estimates by New Directions, a nonprofit veterans’ assistance organization in West Los Angeles. Of these, experts say that 30% to 50% are Vietnam veterans whose median age is 50.

As they enter middle age, many of these veterans are coming out of the woodwork, said Karen Howard, a social worker with the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, one of several government and community agencies that sponsored the fair.

“When you’re young, you can live on the street,” Howard said. “But when you’re in your 40s and 50s, your body doesn’t hold up as well.”

Illnesses related to poor hygiene, such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and skin infections, are prevalent among this population, as are alcohol-induced liver problems, she said.

The homeless fair was advertised by various agencies, and bus tokens were offered to veterans throughout the county. By the time the event began at 7 a.m., a line of about 35 veterans had already formed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Many signed up for detoxification and mental health programs. Among them was Sanders, who said he started using drugs in Vietnam to “not feel the pain of what I had to do over there, and to not feel the neglect” when he came back.

Others just ducked in for a quick shower, a bite to eat, a haircut and clean clothes.

Charles Springer, a Marine Corps veteran in his 40s who lives “behind a building on 9th Street” in Santa Monica, came for a free medical exam, including HIV testing and “anything else that’s free.”

Daniel Polley, a retired Marine, came to clear two traffic tickets he received for driving without a license. Several public defenders were on hand to offer advice on how to dispose of such misdemeanors as jaywalking, petty theft, drinking and urinating in public. Fair organizers arranged a 1 p.m. hearing across the street in Santa Monica Municipal Court, where a judge reduced many veterans’ fines to time served or community service.

James Irwin, 44, a former sergeant in Vietnam, came seeking employment and left with a tip that a local hotel was hiring janitors for $7 an hour.

“That’s damn good money,” said a grinning Irwin, a slender man who stills sports a buzz cut. Now he only had to persuade his doctor to take him off the antidepressants that “help erase the memories but make me a vegetable.

“I want to start becoming a human being again,” he said.