Shelter opening to help vets turn around

On Veterans Day, Harry Serulneck and David Patten met at an open house at the shelter, Larry’s Place, and quickly found themselves swapping stories of their overseas military service. Even with a 52-year age difference between them, the two veterans found they shared similar experiences, including having had a tough time transitioning back to civilian life.

“It was hard to get started again. You don’t want to do what you did before you went into the Army. It takes a good couple of years,’’ said Serulneck, a 91-year-old decorated veteran of World War II. The retired New York City cab driver moved to Framing ham in 1983, and was a volunteer member of SMOC’s board of directors for about 20 years. He’s quartermaster at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 929, and lives in senior housing.

Serulneck said he spent some time in California after returning from the war, then moved back home to Brooklyn.

For Patten, 39, who served in the 101st Airborne Division in Kosovo, the transition has been more challenging. Since his two years in the military ended in 2002, the Norwood native has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, struggled with marijuana abuse, and found himself unemployed and homeless after a tree fell on a trailer where he was living in New Hampshire.

But Patten, who now lives in housing provided by SMOC, has hope that he will be able to turn things around after moving into Larry’s Place.

“The first thing that’s really most important is my sobriety,’’ said Patten. “I can’t stress enough how important programs like this are for veterans.’’

Patten toured his future home at the Nov. 11 open house, while SMOC leaders looked to turn the page on the opening chapter in the shelter’s history, which has been mired in controversy and litigation.

“It took us four years. . . . We need to find ways to make peace with the community we provide services in. Our mission is to help this community, to help its people,’’ said SMOC’s executive director, James Cuddy. “The community needs to find peace in the services we provide.’’

“It’s been a long haul, but it’s always worth it in the end,’’ the agency’s chief operating officer, Charles Gagnon, added.

In October 2007, SMOC filed a federal lawsuit charging 15 town officials and citizens with conspiracy to discriminate against its clients, many of them poor, disabled, or battling substance addictions. The lawsuit said an Internet-fueled campaign created a hostile atmosphere in Framingham that encouraged town officials to illegally stall the social service agency’s plans to open Larry’s Place and a 2005 proposal to relocate Sage House, its facility for recovering drug addicts and their families.

Town officials and defendants have denied the allegations, and the lawsuit remains in court.

Building Commissioner Michael Foley blocked SMOC’s application for Larry’s Place in September 2007, saying it did not include educational space or a common area. As a so-called Dover Amendment proposal, it was required to have some religious or educational purpose to qualify for the special zoning consideration offered by the state law.

The town’s Zoning Board of Appeals overruled Foley’s decision several months later.

In a phone interview before the recent open house at Larry’s Place, Foley said the zoning board reversed his decision after receiving additional information from SMOC about the building’s educational use.

Foley added that he welcomes the shelter’s opening.

“I think this is a great thing for the town,’’ he said. A program designed to assist veterans “would be welcomed in any community,’’ he said, adding that Framingham officials “are not opposed to these types of programs.’’

Board of Selectmen chairwoman Ginger Esty, a defendant in the lawsuit, spoke at the open house, saying, “I just want to bring greetings from the town.’’

She then went on to address how veterans can be affected by their military service.

“Once someone goes off to serve they’ve changed. They have different needs. As a mother of a helicopter pilot, I know they change. They’re never the same.’’

Both SMOC and town officials declined to discuss the lawsuit, since it is still in the courts.

According to Darlene Assencoa Mazurek, SMOC’s director of housing operations, Larry’s Place has accepted about 10 applications, and she expects the program to be at full capacity, with 18 veterans overseen by a resident house manager, within a couple of months.

The building is on track to be ready for its first occupants within a week or two. The veterans will stay in the program until they can live independently, which can take six to 18 months.

Waltham resident James Bushard, who will be serving as the house manager, said he suffered from alcoholism and mental health issues after his service in the Army during Vietnam, but has since recovered and earned a clinician’s license.

“I bring that to the table, too, that there’s a way out of it,’’ said Bushard. “Experience is really important.’’

When he was homeless and trying to get back on his feet, Bushard recalled, he stayed in a much larger shelter in Boston with about 300 residents where “it was easy to just get lost.’’

“This is what this is all about. This kind of setup is what we need, not a big homeless shelter,’’ said Serulneck, noting the proximity of the shelter to health and mental service facilities, including the MetroWest Medical Center’s Framingham Union campus on the other side of Lincoln Street. “Something like this is a home away from home.’’

SMOC housing coordinator Ron Teixeira, also a veteran, will work directly with Bushard and the residents. Each resident will have a case manager to help create an individualized plan to move forward. Mary Shanahan, who as SMOC’s supportive housing director will also supervise the shelter, lost two brothers, who were veterans, to drug and alcohol abuse.

The housing program will allow residents to link with a variety of educational, employment, and counseling services, with the goal of helping them achieve economic sufficiency and independence, according to a SMOC announcement on Larry’s Place.

They will also participate in weekly group meetings and be assigned household chores, such as housekeeping, property maintenance, and cooking, the agency said.

The three-floor, 6,500-square-foot building has undergone around $650,000 in renovations since work began in March, said Gerard Desilets, SMOC’s planning director, with some of the money provided by the state Department of Housing and Community Development. More than 100 years old, the building was a duplex before being used most recently as office space for SMOC.

The new configuration has 19 bedrooms, five bathrooms, a kitchen, laundry room, and common space, including areas for residents to use computers, said Steve Rando, serving as the site superintendent for BWK Construction Co. of Medfield, which has been working on the renovations.

The shelter is named after Larry Mace, a veteran and former SMOC housing resident who struggled to stay sober before he died in May 2007.

“While these veterans are quite proud of their service to our country, they have struggled since their return to civilian life because of physical disabilities or behavioral health care concerns,’’ executive director Cuddy said in the SMOC announcement.

“Their return has sometimes been a difficult journey. Larry’s Place is meant to be a home where they can share similar life experiences with other veterans, while receiving the critical support services they need and supporting each other as they work to be productive citizens once again.’’