Woman wants shelter for Vernon veterans
Published 8:49 am Friday, December 5, 2014
Angie Babineaux said she understands too well how homelessness can make someone feel totally unworthy and unloved. She was homeless from ages 15-19, bouncing from one friend’s couch to another to avoid a sometimes-dangerous domestic situation in her own home.
But while her experience informed her about some of the struggles of being homeless, she said veterans with no place to go have unique challenges that should be addressed specifically.
“Most (homeless veterans) feel as though they deserve to be homeless or are content thinking that this is their punishment for things they did in their lives,” she said. “That kind of thinking leads to more depression and more problems. It’s a continuous cycle.”
She said she dreams of helping to change all of that in Vernon Parish, which has no veteran-specific shelters. Her goal would be to create a safe place for veterans to get off of the streets and to get connected to the services they need, including medical care, mental health services, employment training, rehabilitation services and the like.
Babineaux organized a forum on veteran homelessness at the Leesville Veterans of Foreign Wars post on Monday. She told the audience she personally knows of about a dozen veterans in the parish who are homeless and in need of help.
Perhaps the most well known of the parish’s homeless veterans is Matthew Lambrecht, better known as “Stik.” He is usually somewhere in the vicinity of the Walmart parking lot in Leesville, where locals will stop him and hand him a couple of bucks or a cheeseburger from a nearby fast-food joint.
Stik, 57, served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War. He has been homeless for about six years now, he said. He told VFW members during the forum that although he finds shelters to be claustrophobic, he knows plenty of veterans in the area who could use those kinds of services.
“The thing is, some of these guys, they ain’t so tough,” Stik said. “They go to Iraq, and they go to Afghanistan but when they come back, they don’t know what to do.”
Stik said he knows of several younger veterans who live in the woods in the Leesville area.
When asked what it was that caused him to become homeless, Stik will point to his head and say “this, right here.”
Randy Brown, a spokesperson for the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans, said it is often the battle scars that are not visible that put former service members out on the street.
“Every homeless person has a different situation. Veterans are much more likely to have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from combat or other trauma from their service,” he said, adding that PTSD can be a serious hurdle to overcome in terms of maintaining employment and stable housing.
According to the coalition 12 percent of the adult U.S. homeless population are veterans, the majority of those being single males with mental illness and/or substance abuse problems. African-Americans make up 10.4 percent of the veteran population or Hispanics make up 3.4 percent, however, these two groups represent 40 percent of the veteran homeless population.
Brown said that veteran males are often particularly at risk because many shelters prioritize women and children, or exclude individuals with substance abuse issues or mental illness — two factors that permeate the veteran homeless population.
The Vernon Community Action Council, based in Leesville, is the nearest facility that provides assistance to the homeless. The group provides temporary and permanent housing solutions; emergency funding to help prevent an individual from slipping into homelessness and employment services.
Executive Director Renee Brannon said the facility does provide services to veterans and actually affords them priority, but she acknowledged that her organization is not well known in the area. She said her program does not have any veterans.
Community Action Council data on the number of homeless veterans in the Vernon Parish area were not immediately available, Brannon said, although the organization takes an annual count.
Babineaux said she worked with VCAC for some time, but was dismayed by its practices. She said she was asked to quit after people were turned away from receiving food donations for being 10 minutes late.
“The people have to beg to get some help from what is supposed to be their community outreach program and that’s not right,” she said. “Because of that experience I immediately noticed the need for shelters, soup kitchens and humanitarian services.”
Babineaux said she is hopeful she can get something off the ground for Vernon Parish, and possibly open a homeless shelter for teens, too.
“I am starting with veterans because there is evidence that there are homeless vets here,” she said. “I was outraged that this would happen with (Fort Polk) nearby. I couldn’t imagine how this could happen. Fort Polk trained more Vietnam soldiers than any other military installation in the world. On that fact alone you would assume that the issue would have been identified and resolved within the last 40 years.”
The Leesville VFW post will be holding another meeting to discuss opportunities for a shelter on Jan. 7 at the post at 7 p.m.