Vets down on their luck find safe harbor: this Minnesota program has assisted some 2,600 veterans, giving them a helping hand and a chance for a new start. VFW Posts and members play an instrumental role

VFW Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2004 by Janie Blankenship

On a quiet street in Minneapolis sits a quaint stucco cottage. With its hardwood floors, arched doorways and cozy fireplace, it's a house most people would be proud to call home. In the kitchen window sit plump tomatoes freshly picked from the lush plants growing in the yard. An unsightly tree stump out back has been painted to look like the U.S. flag, and the pansies are in bloom. Vince Hallas, a previous resident, can be thanked for these artistic endeavors.

But after all his hard work, he had to leave. Hallas, 43, wasn't prepared to live alone. Not yet anyway. He was living in the cottage as a guest of Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans (MACV).

A former Marine, Hallas was sober, but knew that to continue healing, he would need to go back to MACV's Building 47 on the campus of the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center. It's a place, Hallas says, he can get the support he needs to stay on track.

Since its inception more than 12 years ago, MACV has assisted 2,600 homeless veterans, or about the equivalent of five battalions, as the program's president and CEO, Jimmie L. Coulthard, likes to say.

And for veterans like Hallas, it has become known as a haven for homeless vets. A Marine from 1979-1982, including a year at U.S. Naval Air Station Keflavic, Iceland, where he was a helicopter door gunner, Hallas says he had non-combat-related psychological problems, which he later tried to bury, with alcohol.

After being honorably discharged from the Marines, he went from one job to the next. Undergoing bouts of homelessness, Hallas wound up at MACV a little over a year ago.

He is preparing to move to a state veterans home in Hastings for further rehabilitation.

Hallas' story is like many others who have come through MACV's program, according to Coulthard, who can personally relate to these veterans.

After serving with C Co., 3rd Bn., 196th Light Inf. Bde., in Vietnam in 1967-68, Coulthard found it nearly impossible to reintegrate into society after the war. He was drinking all the time, but admits he was a heavy drinker before he went to war.

Coulthard became a riverboat captain, pushing barges down the Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois rivers. It was a job, he says, that saved his life.

"We worked 30 days on and 30 days off with six-hour shifts," says Coulthard, now 59 and celebrating 20 years of sobriety this month. "It exhausted me, and I just needed to sleep."

He came off the river in 1986 to become a substance abuse counselor at a halfway house. Six years later, with "nothing but a yellow legal pad,' Coulthard was hired by a committee to develop a statewide homeless veterans program initiated by a VFW member.

VFW Gets the Bail Rolling

When WWII veteran Geri Wedel heard about a homeless veteran freezing to death on the streets of Minneapolis, she was incensed. The tragedy spurred her to action. Having served as an Army nurse in the Philippines, Wedel asked her VFW Post to provide her with $500 to get 501(c)(3) status to start a homeless veterans organization.

Post 6845 in St. Paul put up the cash, and the program became a non-profit corporation. Coulthard said Post member John O'Neill, who also served as Department adjutant for 18 years, even paid for some of the start-up costs out of his own pocket.

MACV secured a home where Coulthard lived for a period with the program's homeless. He describes it as a "hectic" time.

In July 1993, MACV secured a Homeless Chronically Mentally Ill contract from the Health Care for Homeless Veterans Program at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. It was able to convert a building on the sprawling VA campus into a 13-bed facility--it's fondly known among the homeless as "Building 47."

For $1 per year, MACV leases the facility, which was once a day nursery for children with family members in the hospital. (The nursery was the project of 1962 VFW Department Commander Al Loehr and Ladies Auxiliary Department President Lola Reid. They remain active supporters of MACV.)

Coulthard notes that what was once a gift from VFW and veterans has now been returned to the veterans.

"It's nice to see that this building has really come full circle," he says.

The program has grown tremendously since its beginning. Today, there are eight transitional homes in Minneapolis and one in St. Cloud.

Offices in Duluth ('veterans Outreach North) and Mankato (Veterans Outreach South) also assist veterans. In Mankato, 11 units for disabled veterans are being built. Furthermore, an impressive $16 million expansion project (paid for by general obligation bonds) will add 140 permanent supportive housing units on the Minneapolis VAMC grounds and 60 units in St. Cloud. It will be a "veterans gift to the community" since half the beds will be filled by non-veterans. But it will never be occupied by less than 51% veterans, according to Coulthard.

Widespread Support

Noting that about 85% of MACV's funding comes from federal and state grants, Coulthard said that without the supporting entities, none of this would be possible. The U.S. Department of Labor, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Minnesota VA are just a few.