Center addresses plight of Cedar Rapids' homeless vets

CEDAR RAPIDS - The bed where Kevin Squires sleeps isn't his own, but the former serviceman is working his way out of the cycle of homelessness that can trap military veterans.

“I kind of gave up,” said Squires, 51, of Cedar Rapids, who is staying at the Willis Dady Emergency Shelter, 1247 Fourth Ave. SE. “There didn't seem to be any jobs out there.”

Squires, who drove tanks for much of his six years of peacetime service in the U.S. Army, is enrolled at Kirkwood Community College with the help of student loans and hopes to move into an apartment near campus.

Case manager Martha Carter, who works with Squires at the shelter, keeps him on track.

Sometimes that extra support is needed for veterans who can experience difficulty adjusting to civilian life after their service, according to a national prevention program that seeks to end homelessness among veterans by 2015.

One element of that initiative, offered through the departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development, opens Friday in Cedar Rapids.

The Iowa City VA Health Care System's Cedar Rapids Outreach Center will offer a daytime sanctuary for homeless veterans and those at risk of living on the streets.

“We're trying to prevent them from becoming homeless,” said Iowa City VA spokeswoman Valerie Buckingham, noting that the center will assist homeless veterans and those facing foreclosure or otherwise in danger of losing their homes.

Buckingham said the center, which cost $500,000 for renovating the site at 1535 First Ave. SE, is the first the Iowa City VA has opened in Iowa. A similar center opened in Rock Island, Ill., in 2008 and the VA Central Iowa Health Care System opened a Des Moines outreach center last year.

The new center has showers, a food pantry, clothing pantry and washer and dryer for homeless veterans to use.

Veterans also can find assistance with housing services, employment and job training and obtaining VA benefits at the site.

Sarah Oliver, homeless program coordinator for the Iowa City VA, said Cedar Rapids was chosen because of its population size and because of the Floods of 2008.

“We really needed the extra attention in Cedar Rapids because the area was so devastated,” she said.

Linn County is home to 20,000 veterans who have served from World War II to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to a national, single-night census, 67,495 veterans were homeless in the United States in January, down from 76,329 in 2010, but local numbers are rising.

Don Tyne, director of Linn County Veteran Affairs, said his office served 145 homeless veterans last year, up from 109 the previous year.

“That's expected to increase with the war winding down,” Tyne said.

The number of military veterans applying for service-related injury benefits hit an all-time high in Linn County last month, with 104.

“I usually see 65 to 85 in a month,” Tyne said. “Sometimes those are the ones that end up homeless.”

Counseling and health care services are already available in Cedar Rapids for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other difficulties that can make them especially vulnerable, he said.

The new outreach center will fill the void for veterans who need a shower or clean clothes, Tyne noted.

“If you can't wash your clothes and you go in for a job interview, you're not going to be competitive,” he said.

Tim Wilson, executive director of the Willis Dady shelter, said the new outreach center will complement the city's emergency shelters by providing a food pantry and other services that the shelters don't have.

“It's really rare when we don't have at least one veteran in here,” he said.

Squires, the veteran staying at that shelter, has made the dean's list in Kirkwood's liberal arts program, and despite temptations from former friends, remains drug- and alcohol-free.

“I feel like I'm only going forward,” he said. “I would tell anyone who's a veteran: the world's out there. You just gotta grab it.”

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