Rosemary Griffin: Hi, I went out to the local community Safeway
to do some outreach. When I fell upon a gentleman sitting out on
the parking lot, teat sitting there talking about God on His,
on his cardboard sign,
Jim Patterson: I believe in God. And at the time, he was trying
to walk the way the Bible wants me to walk in that and other
trying to do the God thing, no parking lot a wall, or Safeway.
Rosemary Griffin: I thought, you know, this individual looks like
a veteran to me. And the way I summed it up was, the backpack
that he had, sitting next to him was rolled similar to what you
would see in a modern day, rucksack for military.
Jim Patterson: She asked me if I had a veteran.
Rosemary Griffin: And he said, Yes, ma'am. Proudly, I am. And I
said, Well, do you happen to be homeless? I didn't want to miss
judge. And he said, No, ma'am. I'm not homeless. I'm traveling.
Jim Patterson: Let me let me show you some. I didn't get
close enough to the camera. Let's see this. Can you see
that? That's what I used to do. I hitchhiked around the
countryside for 15 years doing that thing, and drove a couple
hippie buses, and had my backpack. And my dog, I had my
props as we call them a prop.
Rosemary Griffin: And I said, Do you have a place to stay
tonight? And he said, No, I'm going to be staying outside in
the elements. And I said it was getting warm. And I asked him
point blank. How do you feel about having some housing taken
care of by the VA, and HUD VASH and the HUD VASH clinic? And he
said, How much is it going to cost me? I said, Well, we can
talk about that. But I first have to find out if you're
eligible. So I took down his information
Michael Wiseley: she called. She said, Hey, I found a veteran
gave me his name and his social security number. We had to
verify obviously, that he was a veteran. So I was able to do
that relatively quick, and assist him and getting in
immediately into a motel
Lourdes Mulick: I remember when going into homeless is at the
veteran, the veterans family and their housing, to provide them a
dignity to provide him a place to live and take care of their
own health and their daily activities.
Rosemary Griffin: And I told him, I said, we can do this for
you, we can get you set up and replace as quickly as possible.
And he said, Okay, let's do this.
Lourdes Mulick: We help our homeless veterans get into the
housing and we case manage them. We help them we visit them every
month or sooner if they need it, we assist them with all their
needs housing, medical, mental health.
Rosemary Griffin: And so we brought him back to the office
over the period of the next week to do the paperwork for the food
stamps, medical care. I call contacted the eligibility
enrollment clerk got him set up with an ID card for the VA.
Michael Wiseley: And because of how quickly the SSVF program can
work with veterans to pay a deposit pay the first month's
rent, he was able to get into the apartment with the SSVF
program. He was able to get it furnished get initial needs for
the apartment. And then we proceeded from there. From the
Jim Patterson: time I met rosemary in the Safeway parking
lot. Within a week, an apartment within one week.
Rosemary Griffin: He's actually found a job part time job. He's
his apartment is immaculate He has acquired some TVs, furniture
tables, to help him live as happy as he can. He has air
conditioning and heat if he needed it. He can cook his
meals. And he's a good cook from what he says
Jim Patterson: about me a $500 ban finally got to Brixton a non
blaming event. So I went from being a traveler, or just some
adulting right now, you know, trying to be an adult.
Rosemary Griffin: And one of my visits to him, I asked him if he
had reconnected with, with any of his family. He said, Yeah, I
invited my daughter over, and we're going to have dinner, I'm
going to fix her dinner. And I thought, that is just amazing.
Jim Patterson: Really, and truly the BA gets critical. I just
went along with thing you know, I bought and really expected us.
So I wasn't really expecting to have a place. I wasn't really
expecting just a leader.
Rosemary Griffin: One of the questions that I asked of Mr.
Patterson was, is there anything else you need? And he said, I'm
sorry. He said we did everything. He did everything
for me. He gave me a home. I don't need anything else.