For the last year I have been embroiled in a fight with the Manhattan VA, NYC Department of Veteran Services, and NYC Social Services over a veteran who has now been transferred a total of ten times between one homeless shelter and another for the last 19 months.
In an effort to deflect from its job of obtaining necessary documentation, the NYC Department of Veterans Affairs is accusing McKeehan of Stolen Valor.
When I met Kolden he still had not gotten a New York State Identification, his DD-214, Social Security card, and his EBT benefits were suspended because required documentation had not been submitted. As a former ‘resident’ of Borden Ave., I was also subjected to a staff complicit in following up on the needs of the veterans while disparaging us with comments such as to “Suck it up” and “Be a man,” Staff and VA officials alike make comments accusing veterans of freeloading off the shelter system just to avoid paying rent. And while there is a certain number of veterans at Borden Ave. which would be content living out their lives in a cubicle style environment, there is also a misconception that because “some veterans are lazy, they must all then be lazy” which is how I was treated, and many other veterans are still being treated.
Numerous inquiries and discussions with VA officials including Housing Director and Veteran Lamar Wheeler of NYC Department of Veterans’ Services (NYC DVS) and Director of Homeless Services Karen Fuller, for the Manhattan VA have gone nowhere to explain why the VA and Dept. of Veterans Services continues to impede housing for a combat veteran while providing little details. McKeehan has had housing available for months yet neither Fuller nor Wheeler can explain why the Veterans Affairs is involved demanding documentation from Kolden even they don’t know is required. When asked what the role of DVS had in providing housing for McKeehan and PJ, Fuller responded, “Ask them.”
On June 12, and an hour before the scheduled meeting for housing processing, Mr. Wheeler cancelled citing an ‘emergency’ with a promise to try and schedule another meeting on that following Tuesday. When I asked him what documentation we would need, he didn’t have an answer and when pressed at when Mr. McKeehan could expect housing, Mr. Wheeler became irate, telling me that it was only a ‘courtesy call’ and I wasn’t entitled to anything beyond that. A promise to call Mr. McKeehan later in the day never materialized, so McKeehan and PJ continued to sleep on my floor for a total of eight days over two weeks.
After being told by Director of Social Services Sonya Russell to return to another shelter in Brooklyn, Kolden was directed to a single small bunk of 25 others in a large dorm. He had been there for just a few days when on July 2nd he was again ‘rolled up.’ Kolden was outside the facility at approximately 4pm when another resident approached and said his possessions were boxed up and in the waiting room. Apparently, the bunk he was told to sleep in because of PJ was instead assigned to another shelter resident and Kolden “no longer had a bed there” and to come back at 11pm that night. When there was no bed available at 11pm, Kolden and PJ were forced to sleep on the waiting room floor. As Kolden tells it, they had them waiting there all night from 11pm to the next day on the cold lobby floor. “You know frightening for the animal to try and sleep; the fireworks were going off outside, it was a horrible night. I didn’t deserve that.”
The next morning Kolden found himself at the 30th St. Bellevue shelter. But unlike previous transfers this time he was provided with a transfer form directing him to the Bronx. Lanets Place Is a shelter up near Crotona Park in Bronx and where he was provided a room of his own and an opportunity to work with housing staff who have been proficient in obtaining a CityFHEPS voucher which will at least give him some forward motion. He finally managed to secure an award letter stating, “he may be eligible for CityFHEPS.” After nearly two years of being kicked out of one shelter to another, the City of New York has finally informed him and PJ they ‘may be eligible’ for a voucher. And while he may be eligible for a voucher now, he has already been transferred to another shelter in the Bronx, so Kolden and PJ will be again forced to start all over with new housing staff in a new shelter.
Timothy Pena initially traveled to NYC at the invitation of RIP Medical Debt founder and U.S. Navy Veteran Jerry Ashton to collaborate for his project, Veterans Mission Possible. Soon after arriving, Tim decided he would rather be homeless in NYC than commit suicide in Phoenix and spent five months in a shelter before obtaining his HUD/VASH voucher for supportive housing while detailing his journey from homeless to homeness with a series of articles called, 'Be the Story'. He has testified before the NYS Department of Veterans Affairs, is a member of the NYC Veterans Task Force and Military Veterans in Journalism, while founding The Forgotten Veteran non-profit. Email: Timothy Pena