Anonymous donors help save the day for veterans shelter
After receiving a hefty payment,
Carmen Fields, director of media relations for KeySpan, said service was restored just after 6 p.m. because shelter officials paid $10,600 of their $12,600 debt.
KeySpan officials are "still looking forward to that conversation [about some kind of payment plan], but we considered that a good-faith first step, and that's why it was restored so quickly," Fields said.
Ralph Cooper , executive director of the Veterans Benefits Clearinghouse, which runs the shelter, said payment was made through the shelter's development corporation, but he was not sure where the money came from. He speculated that media coverage may have elicited a donation.
"I was very glad to see them come and turn on the gas," he said. "These folks will be able to get their showers and cook food and do their laundry."
Before service was restored, he was livid.
"We're talking about men and women who are making it possible for you to earn money and live free in America and you're saying: 'We don't care. We're going to cut you off anyway,' " he said.
A police escort joined a work crew to shut off the gas at Veterans Arms on Humboldt Avenue in Roxbury early yesterday, Cooper said. The shelter houses up to 10 veterans, and provides job and computer training, counseling, and other services. Cooper acknowledged that his group had fallen behind in payments, but maintained that it was catching up.
But Fields disputed that account, saying the last payment of roughly $2,000 came last August, when the nonprofit worked out a payment plan to repay its debt in monthly installments of $2,000.
Fields said the veterans group never paid again. Despite at least a half-dozen notices sent since January, Keyspan had received no response, she said.
"We do not shut down service to anyone that communicates and makes a good-faith effort to keep any bargains or agreements entered into," Fields said.
The 15-year-old shelter has 10 single rooms and a common kitchen and bathroom. Without gas, the veterans had no hot water for showers or cooking.
"I'm kind of appalled because this is a place for veterans," said Walter Randolph, 61, a veteran of both the Army and the Navy who lived at the shelter for two years .
The clearinghouse's two shelters have a $1.2 million annual budget, but have lost about $300,000 from a grant program at the US Department of Labor's Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program in each of the last two years, Cooper said.
Stephanie Ebbert can be reached at ebbert@globe.com. 