Homeless South Shore veterans
get help from new program
Rocco DiSalle says he hasn’t had steady work since 2007 and that he lives in his Ford Focus when he’s not crashing on friends’ couches, but the 30-year-old Navy veteran and Army reservist is optimistic.
“I have a lot of faith that things are going to work out this time,” DiSalle (at left) said.
A welder by trade, DiSalle started working part-time a few weeks ago serving food at High Point, a drug-rehabilitation center in Brockton. He’s applying to area colleges, plans to take advantage of the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill, and hopes to live in a soon-to-be opened low-income apartment at a facility operated by Father Bills & MainSpring in Brockton.
He dreams of opening his own business. “I’d like to own my own kitchen, maybe a cafe,” he said.
DiSalle got this fresh start through a program at Father Bill’s & MainSpring that is funded by a Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program grant from the US Department of Labor. The $200,000 grant was awarded on June 30 to the state Department of Veterans’ Services, which in turn awarded $175,000 to Father Bill’s & MainSpring, which serves the homeless around the South Shore.
The group currently has housing and medical facilities in Brockton, Quincy, Stoughton, Middleborough, and Plymouth, and is trying to establish a home for homeless veterans in Hingham.
The new program seeks to help homeless veterans get temporary or transitional housing and to find jobs by providing them with services ranging from resume writing to commercial drivers license classes.
DiSalle is one of 19 homeless or at-risk veterans who have gotten full- or part-time work since Father Bill’s started the program this summer.
“We’re fairly pleased with that number,” said Paul Key, who recruits employers to hire veterans from his program.
But those 19 fell short of the 34 Father Bill’s had hoped to place by the end of February, and Key says the second half of the year has even “steeper” goals than the first – they wanted to place 80 veterans in jobs within the first year.
The job of finding anyone a job is challenging in an economy with an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent, according to Key.“God help us,” he said in an interview at MainSpring in Brockton.
The task at hand would be daunting without a recession.
Approximately 131,000 veterans nationwide are homeless on “any given night,” 45 percent of them suffer from mental illness, about 70 percent of them have alcohol or drug abuse problems, and 9 percent of people in jail are veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
But, says Key, Father Bill’s & MainSpring addresses those issues before they place the veterans in jobs – their institutional philosophy, he says, is to meet people “where they are.”
“Not everybody is ready when we are,” Key said.
But some employers are ready and eager to help veterans. One of them is American Sweeping, which does the street cleaning and snow plowing in Boston and other area municipalities. John Hogan, general manager of the Dorchester-based company, said he has hired seven veterans through the Father Bill’s program.
“Most of them are looking for a shot and we’re giving them that shot,” Hogan said in a recent phone interview.
The veterans can bring a significant financial advantage to an employer, Key says, because their health care costs are often covered by the Veterans Administration.
While Key says they need to place about 60 more veterans in jobs, their goals include far more than job placement. By the end of June, he and his colleagues aim to, among other things:
• Enlist a total of 120 veterans in their program; they’ve enrolled 68 so far.
• Place 73 in classroom training – they’ve helped 54 so far
• Help 106 with job searches – 61 has participated so far.
The grant is renewable for two more years, after which Father Bill’s & MainSpring will have to reapply, Key said.
As far as John Hogan is concerned, he benefits from the program, even though he’s not a veteran.
“If they continue sending me good guys ... I’ll continue to use them as employees,” Hogan said.
Waiting for Twitter to feed in the latest...