Because Relationships Matter
Who were America’s homeless and at-risk Veterans in 2021? In South Florida, they were overwhelmingly single men with one or more disabilities who had served in the Army.
Local nonprofit sets goal to replicate Miami-Dade’s 2018 end to chronic veteran homelessness in nearby Broward. Broward County will host Dr. Paul F. Lawrence, former Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Wednesday, November 17, 2021 to celebrate the opening of the Operation Sacred […]
For homeless veterans, VA one-stop shops are rapidly getting them the help they’ve earned and deserve. VA professionals say the approach is saving lives.
Veterans helping veterans overcome homelessness is becoming increasingly common as needs and challenges continue to grow.
PEMBROKE PINES, FL (OCTOBER 28, 2020) — The phone calls, texts and emails from veterans in crisis never pause at Operation Sacred Trust, South Florida’s largest nonprofit serving homeless and at-risk veterans, Jacob Torner said. Veterans helping veterans get to a better place is becoming more common as needs and challenges increase.
Torner, 23, got a job with the local VA-funded Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program three years ago as an Intake Specialist. Relentless hard work, leadership, and unique problem solving skills helped him grow quickly as needs and resources expanded. Today, Torner is the nationally-accredited agency’s Vice President of Operations, helping oversee a $6.5 million budget and 45 full-time team members working 24/7 to keep Florida’s military veterans alive, stably housed, and off the streets.
Torner’s responsibilities include evaluating candidates who respond to the agency’s regular job postings on Indeed.com.
“Less than one in a hundred of the applications we receive are offered a position,” he said. “We have to know every member of our team will uphold our sacred trust through every point of contact. That’s not an easy challenge for anyone. Veterans helping veterans is becoming one of our most important resources.”
“Knowing every moment is urgent, that each person you’re serving is a hero whose life is at risk, that you can’t just call it a day at any specific time when your veteran needs help, that goes so far beyond what most people are ready to sign up for.”
~ Jacob Torner
“Few people can balance the constant state of crisis you face compassionately serving veterans who don’t have a safe place to sleep or are within days — sometimes hours — of losing the place they call home,” Torner added. “Knowing every moment is urgent, that each person you’re serving is a hero whose life is at risk, that you can’t just call it a day at any specific time when your veteran needs help, that goes so far beyond what most people are ready to sign up for.”
Increasingly, Torner is finding the most promising applicants are veterans themselves who embrace selfless service as a way of life and bring perspective that helps them quickly connect with their fellow veterans going through hard times.
“Everyday, I get to help veterans. It doesn’t feel like work.”
~ U.S. Marine Corps Veteran Noah Eisenmann
Noah Eisenmann, 24, is a Veteran Engagement Specialist at Operation Sacred Trust. Eisenmann joined the agency just ten days after completing his service in the U.S. Marine Corps, including multiple global deployments. A year after joining the SSVF team, Eisenmann said even the hardest days don’t feel like work.
“Everyday, I get to help veterans,” Eisenmann said. “It doesn’t feel like work.”
Torner said that’s the attitude he’s looking for as the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program continues growing to meet the increasing needs of local veterans impacted by Covid-19, job losses, and South Florida’s extreme shortage of affordable housing.
The program has current openings on five teams: engagement, care, information technology, housing and legal, Torner said.
Despite the urgency of filling open positions, Torner doesn’t ask people to apply or work through traditional recruiters.
“The level of commitment it takes to stick it out in a position serving veterans in crisis at a mission-driven agency like Operation Sacred Trust has to come from the deepest place in a person,” Torner said.
“For people who are driven to serve, among the brightest and most innovative in their fields, and who recognize the debt each of us have to our military and veteran families, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” he said.
More and more, for veterans who have already served for years or decades, helping their military brothers and sisters get to a better place is an opportunity they’re eagerly pursuing.
Low-income veterans are facing increased hardships, threatening South Florida with housing challenges that could impact the Miami-Fort Lauderdale landscape for years.
Low-income veterans are facing increased hardships, threatening South Florida with housing challenges that could impact the local landscape for years.
Pembroke Pines, Florida, October 20, 2020 — Purpose Built Families Foundation today announced preliminary data for the agency’s Operation Sacred Trust Veteran homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing program for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020. Results demonstrate veterans in the greater Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area are facing increased hardships, resulting in elevated demands for more low-income housing, jobs, benefits, and financial resources. Activists say addressing these needs is necessary to protect veteran lives and prevent consequences that will ultimately cost more and take years to repair.
From October 2019 through September 2020, Operation Sacred Trust (“OST”) served 1,800 very low-income veterans and family members in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Founder & CEO Seth Eisenberg reported. That’s nearly double the number of veteran households receiving assistance from the agency last year.
The nationally-accredited, nonprofit based in Pembroke Pines reported distributing $3.7 million in temporary financial assistance for veteran families in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, 64 percent of which went to rental assistance and security deposits, according to consolidated data for Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
“We’re fighting day and night to keep veteran homelessness from leading to hundreds of our former servicemen and women from living on the streets in Broward and Miami-Dade counties,” Eisenberg said. “Since launching services in 2011, our community succeeded far beyond many other large cities. Those successes are threatened if we don’t rapidly address the increased hardships facing local veterans.”
More than three quarters of veterans who were literally homeless when they reached Operation Sacred Trust this year were disabled and had total household income below 30 percent of the Area Median Income. In Miami-Dade County, that means total household income below $19,200 annually. Thirty percent of those veterans were chronically homeless.
“For more than two-thirds of veterans served by Operation Sacred Trust this year, the combination of COVID, job losses, increased daily living expenses, and lack of low-income, affordable housing pushed them into their first tragic experience of homelessness,” said Eisenberg.
“There’s an urgency to preventing more veterans from becoming homeless in our community and interrupting homelessness for those who already are. That’s a sacred trust we have with those who served, and the cost of not acting effectively will be exponentially greater,” Eisenberg said.
Homeless veterans are more likely to be high utilizers of costly emergency services, face incarceration, addictions, and grapple with other challenges that are far more expensive to the public than providing housing, studies have shows. Veterans experiencing homelessness are also at higher risks for suicide.
Eisenberg reported that more than 90 percent of veterans enrolled in prevention services were able to stay in their homes this year, while more than two thirds of those reaching out literally homeless were able to be placed in permanent housing. Keeping local veterans housed was largely due to support from Carrfour Supportive Housing, the state’s largest nonprofit housing developer, he said. Hundreds of extremely low-income veterans served by Operation Sacred Trust today live in Carrfour communities throughout Miami-Dade County.
Juan Flores, the local SSVF’s program’s Director of Engagement, said that despite help from Carrfour and others, there’s an extreme shortage of low-income, affordable housing for local veterans. Nearly 200 veterans remain housed by Operation Sacred Trust in local hotels while a team of care managers help them navigate challenges to receiving increased benefits, job training, employment, and permanent, affordable housing, Flores said. Vouchers issued by local housing authorities often in coordination with the Miami VA are the most important resource to keeping extremely low-income, disabled veterans from living on the streets, he said.
As a result of the novel coronavirus, Purpose Built Families Foundation spent $737,373 to provide emergency housing assistance this year, a more than 10-fold increase over prior years, Torner said.
“COVID left us with no choice,” Flores said of the agency’s decision to provide hundreds of emergency hotel rooms to keep veterans off the streets after coronavirus became widespread in the community.
The agency was fortunate to be able to access increased temporary federal assistance for local veterans through CARES funding expedited by VA as shelters and other emergency housing options either shutdown or posed health risks to veterans already facing complex health challenges, Torner added.
Nearly ninety percent of those served this year were single person households, Eisenberg reported. The majority were older than 55, he said.
“The number of veterans in urgent need of services peaked to a nine-year high in July,” Eisenberg said. “We expect the number of veterans needing emergency help to increase again as local, state and federal eviction moratoriums are lifted.”
“We’re already seeing evictions resume,” added Flores. “Without significant additional funding or contributions to keep hundreds of veterans in emergency hotels, many of these heroes may tragically have no safety net.”
“The combined impact of COVID closures, high unemployment, higher daily living costs, and lack of affordable, low-income housing could lead hundreds more veterans to become chronically homeless in Broward and Miami-Dade counties,” Flores said.
“How we collectively care for those who have borne the battle and their loved ones will impact our community for years to come.”
~ CEO Seth Eisenberg
Funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families (“SSVF”) program, Operation Sacred Trust is one of 300 public-private partnerships the VA has created since 2011 to end veteran homelessness in communities across the country. Before the pandemic, the program was credited with reducing local veteran homelessness by more than 50 percent and ending chronic veteran homelessness in Miami-Dade County.
Care Director Camille Eisenmann said it will take increased resources and the highest level of coordination between VA, SSVF providers such as Operation Sacred Trust, United Way’s Mission United partnerships, Miami’s Advocate Program, and local Continuums of Care for the community to have any hope of maintaining those hard fought gains.
“No one can solve this level of challenge alone.”
~ Care Director Camille Eisenmann
“No one can solve this level of challenge alone,” Eisenmann said. “Our most vulnerable veteran families are counting on VA, our community, and everyone who cares about those who have served to do more than we’ve ever been asked to do,” Eisenmann said.
“The pandemic has forced us to show who we are as a community beyond anytime in recent memory,” Eisenberg said. “How we collectively care for those who have borne the battle and their loved ones will impact our community for years to come.”
To be eligible for SSVF services from Operation Sacred Trust, a Veteran must be very low-income, have served active duty, received a discharge other than dishonorable, and be homeless or facing imminent homelessness. For more information or to help, visit ostfl.com or call (855) SSVF-411 (855-778-3411).
A survey of 3,335 adults reveals how couples are getting in the mood for sex. Talking and playing are becoming increasingly popular choices.
A survey of 3,335 adults reveals how couples are getting in the mood for sex.
When it comes to making love, old fashioned kissing is still how most people prefer to get in the mood, according to a recent survey of more than 3,000 adults.
Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nationally accredited nonprofit in Pembroke Pines, Florida, invited people to anonymously share their perfect love-making scenarios. CEO Seth Eisenberg said there were some surprises in the 3,335 responses.
While kissing topped the list, talking before becoming physically intimate was a close second overall, and most important for many, Eisenberg said. “Various ways of touching, cuddling and hugging, playing together, and showering were also among the most common activities adults said they valued before going further,” he reported.
“Given that bonding – that unique blend of emotional and physical intimacy – is a basic need for humans, it makes sense that aspects of both are part of the act of making love,” said Marriage and Family Therapist Marisol Wetzstein. “It’s the dance of the two dimensions – imagination and physical, mind and flesh.”
The survey began prior to COVID-19. Eisenberg said talking and playing together became increasingly frequent top mentions in the months after lockdowns starting impacting couples worldwide.
“COVID has forced couples across the globe to get to know each other in new ways,” Eisenberg said. “Working at home, living at work, increased isolation and for many, increased anxiety — that’s all forced couples to either learn to embrace each other in deeper ways or quickly find their homes separated into demilitarized zones full of pain, sadness and despair.”
Wetzstein said the survey shows couples are finding ways to meet their needs for closeness. This month, she led an online PAIRS training for singles and couples seeking to improve communication, conflict resolution, and emotional closeness.
“In that unique space in between two human beings, a space that can become a fountain of anticipatory pleasure, each partner brings a hope of an unmet need for attachment, validation, closeness,” Wetzstein said. “It can be a most healing experience of body, mind and soul when each partner’s vulnerability is met with empathy – or one partner’s open heart is met with presence. The art of desire is one of courage and surrender: To feel safe enough to be vulnerable to go further.”
“Although at times stereotyped to each gender, these statistics echo others in the field and suggest what perhaps most poetry already knows,” Wetzstein said. “Each invitation to connect, if met with the same level of resonance, only enhances the experience for both partners and has the potential to be new and healing for both each time.”
Veterans who have overcome homelessness are helping others get VA benefits and permanent housing.
Veteran driven nonprofits such as US Vets, Operation Sacred Trust, and 300 VA-funded Supportive Services for Veteran Families programs across the nation are reaching thousands of Veterans who are often hesitant to reach out to VA directly and many more referred by VA professionals.
The Navy invested hundreds of thousands of dollars training Isabel as an advanced warfare specialist. She helped fight the war on terror from 2001 to 2004. She spent three of those years deployed overseas.
It wasn’t enemy fire that caused the trauma that continued to haunt her long after she honorably completed years of exemplary service, but the scars of military sexual assault.
The best job she could find after leaving the military paid $8.50/hour.
Isabel went bankrupt, became homeless, and attempted suicide. After hitting rock bottom, she reached out for help.
LA Daily News reports that “Pentagon studies show it [military sexual assault] continues to rise significantly every year — a 50% increase from 2017 to 2019 to more than 20,000 — but little is being done successfully within the military establishment to combat it.”
“I think the suicide rate shocked everybody,” former Marine Steve Peck says. Peck heads up US Vets, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit veteran service organizations.
“They’re coming back carrying this very heavy load of challenges. The divorce rate is very high, they’re the sole provider for their children, there’s no housing or jobs, and they’re battling PTSD (post-traumatic stress),” Peck said.
In 1962, Peck’s father, actor Gregory Peck, played Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Gregory Peck’s portrayal became a model of empathy, compassion, and fairness for millions of fans worldwide. At 74, Steve Peck is playing that role in real life, “helping women in the military who have come home emotionally scarred and broken, not from fighting a common enemy in the Middle East, but from fighting their own side — men using their physical dominance and rank to sexually assault and harass them.”
After years of fighting the battle on her own, Isabel hit rock bottom. She reached out to VA where a psychologist helped her learn to deal with her PTSD and a social worker connected Isabel to resources to reclaim her life. Today, she’s using her painful experiences to help other Veterans who are barely surviving on the edge of life.
Isabel this year became a peer-mentor for Operation Sacred Trust, a VA-funded Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program in South Florida.
Veteran driven nonprofits such as US Vets, Operation Sacred Trust, and 300 VA-funded Supportive Services for Veteran Families programs across the nation are reaching thousands of Veterans who are often hesitant to reach out to VA directly and many more referred by VA professionals.
More than two thirds of women don’t go the VA for help, Peck said. “They view it as a male bastion. If they suffered military sexual trauma they certainly don’t want to be the woman sitting in a waiting room with 20 guys. It’s the last place in the world they want to be.”
Often led by Veterans themselves, VA and privately funded programs like US Vets and Operation Sacred Trust are working 24/7 to reach Isabel and thousands more.
“We’re digitally reaching out to them, looking to help that woman sitting alone in her apartment right now trying to figure out what she’s going to do next, helping her put her life back together,” Peck said.
Kevin Williams served nearly 30 years in the U.S. Army. Like Peck, his commitment to service didn’t end when he took off his uniform.
Williams directs Operation Sacred Trust’s innovative Battle Buddies peer-mentoring program where Isabel volunteers to work one-on-one with Veterans who are homelessness.
“There’s no one better able to help a fellow Veteran through a crisis than a Veteran who’s overcome that crisis,” Williams said.
His’ motto: “Battle buddies always have your back.”
“Make each day count,” Williams urges.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded $27.5 million to help fight Veteran homelessness in Florida.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded $27.5 million to help fight Veteran homelessness in Florida. To find help from VA’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program serving Veterans in your Florida community, visit www.veteranhousinghelp.com.
If you served in the U.S. Military and are experiencing a housing crisis, there are resources available. In Broward or Miami-Dade County, you can contact Operation Sacred Trust’s SSVF team at 855-SSVF-411 (855-778-3411), or by email to intake@411Veterans.com. To locate programs throughout Florida, visit veteranhousinghelp.com. Elsewhere in the United States, contact the US Department of Veteran Affairs National Homeless Outreach Team at 1-877-4AID-VET.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has awarded $27.5 million to help fight Veteran homelessness in Florida.
The money under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program is going to 12 non-profits.
Purpose Built Families Foundation’s Operation Sacred Trust program was awarded $3,418,865 to serve homeless and at-risk Veterans in both Broward and Miami Dade counties. United Way’s Mission United program received $3,211,157 to assist Broward County Veterans. The Advocate Program received $2,097,768 to help Veterans in Miami-Dade and Monroe counties.
These grants will give thousands of low-income Veteran families in Florida access to case management, emergency financial assistance, and other services.
Florida’s grantees collaborate to provide the highest standards of care to Veterans throughout the state with the goal of rapidly re-housing Veterans who become homeless and preventing Veterans from becoming homeless.
“VA’s funding supports our continued efforts to end Veteran homelessness in South Florida, a top priority for our community,” said Operation Sacred Trust CEO Seth Eisenberg.
Operation Sacred Trust has served thousands of homeless and very-low income Veterans. Already this year, the program provided more than $1.75 million in financial aid for housing related expenses to Broward and Miami-Dade County Veterans. Eisenberg said local needs have grown exponentially in the wake of COVID-19.
Nationally, Veteran Affairs SSVF program has served more than 105,156 individuals, including 70,524 Veterans and 20,608 children nationally in 2019.
The full list of grantees is available at www.va.gov/homeless/ssvf.asp.
After tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Marine comes home to fight for the lives of fellow Veterans without a safe place to call home. Twice as many Veterans are facing homelessness this year.
After tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, a Marine comes home to fight for the lives of fellow Veterans without a safe place to call home. More than twice as many Veterans are facing homelessness this year.
“I wanted to fight and be part of something bigger than myself,” Daniel Ayuso said of his decision to enlist in the Marine Corps two years after 9/11. Ayuso’s military service included the most difficult deployments a Marine could face: Fallujah and Ramadi in Iraq’s Anbar Province, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Helmand Province in Afghanistan. Today, Ayuso is fighting to save the lives of fellow Veterans who have no place to call home.
After eight years in the infantry, continuing to fight wasn’t Ayuso’s initial plan when he returned home.
“Ultimately, I wanted to start a family and open a business,” he said.
Seeing the needs of homeless Veterans in his community changed Ayuso’s plans. He surrendered his dreams for a business to an urgent calling he couldn’t ignore.
“I will always continue to help people that are in need,” he said.
Ayuso now serves on the frontlines in the battle against Veteran homelessness in America. He’s a Veteran Engagement Specialist for Operation Sacred Trust (“OST”), inspired daily by the resiliency he sees among Veterans surviving on the very edge of life.
Operation Sacred Trust is an initiative of the nationally-accredited Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nonprofit headquartered in Pembroke Pines, Florida. With funding from a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant, OST was established as a collaboration with Carrfour Supportive Housing in 2011 to end Veteran homelessness in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Carrfour is Florida’s largest nonprofit developer of low-income housing and has provided permanent housing to more than 200 formerly homeless Veteran families.
In 2018, Carrfour and Operation Sacred Trust led Miami-Dade County’s successful efforts to declare an end to chronic Veteran homelessness.
These days, said agency director Seth Eisenberg, 2018 feels like a long time ago.
“We’ve seen a 65 percent increase in the number of literally homeless Veterans this year and a 225 percent increase in the number of Veteran families facing imminent homelessness,” Eisenberg said.
Operation Sacred Trust has already provided help to 934 very-low income Veteran families this year, distributing more than $1.75 million for rent and utility payments, security deposits, moving costs, emergency housing, and other expenses to keep Veterans off the streets.
As a Veteran Engagement Specialist, Ayuso is often the first contact with a homeless Veteran.
“I made contact with a Veteran that was living behind a shopping center and enrolled him into Operation Sacred Trust,” Ayuso recalled about a recent experience.
“Just the simple fact that he was able to speak to me and I assured him that we will assist him with all our resources made a world of difference to him. It gave him a second wind to keep marching forward.”
Ayuso said that experience is not uncommon.
“I have seen this on a daily basis with my colleagues and the Veterans they assist,” Ayuso said. “It’s an extraordinary feeling knowing that we as a team are making a difference in our community.”
Despite COVID-19, Eisenberg said the agency has more than doubled its workforce this year to 40 full-time team members.
“We can never tell a Veteran we can’t answer their call for help today, no matter what we have to overcome to do that.”
“We’ve found many advantages to the operating changes necessitated by the pandemic,” Eisenberg said. “Our technology platform and unstoppable team of professionals allowed us to transition instantly without any service delays. We recruited and hired rapidly to increase our responsiveness and expand operations to seven days a week at five area locations while following rigorous safety protocols.”
“The Veterans we serve deserve to know their sacrifices for all of us will be honored no matter when they call,” Eisenberg said. “Knowing that homeless Veterans are at an elevated risk for suicide,” he added, “we can never tell them we can’t answer their call for help today, no matter what we have to overcome to do that.”
While Ayuso and many of the other Veterans continuing to serve are praised as heroes for saving the lives of their fellow Veterans, Ayuso said the mission he’s embraced is not entirely selfless.
“I’m a firm believer that if you do good, good will come back to you,” he said.
if there is anything even remotely beneficial about the need to limit our movements during the pandemic, it is that we have been granted a rare opportunity to get closer to those closest to us — our families.
If there is anything even remotely beneficial about the need to limit our movements during the pandemic, it is that we have been granted a rare opportunity to get closer to those closest to us — our families.
I needed a vacation — I had sat glued to my computer all day, every weekday, since the first of the year, and had spent the first quarter of the year on lots of airplanes. So, I found a three day window at the end of July with no immovable meetings and I planted a flag on the calendar.
“I may have been working hard at one of my jobs, but I hadn’t been working nearly as hard at another, more important one.”
And then, it hit me.
I may have been working hard at one of my jobs, but I hadn’t been working nearly as hard at another, more important one. Our two sons, eight-year-old Sammy and six-year-old Robby, had demonstrated uncanny levels of resilience and perseverance over lo these many months, finding ways to entertain themselves, keep the peace, and leave our home (mostly) intact. But just because they could manage without me all week long doesn’t mean they should. After all, if there is anything even remotely beneficial about the need to limit our movements during the pandemic, it is that we have been granted a rare opportunity to get closer to those closest to us — our families.
And yet, there I sat, sometimes just a wall away from my kids in the next room, and all I could do was work, with the occasional household chore mixed in.
Against that backdrop, I erased “vacation” from the calendar and wrote “Daddy Camp.”
I wrote a detailed set of camp rules and activities for the three days (hours of operation: 10am-8pm), and I wrote a one long, aspirational camp chant (“We love Daddy Camp because we have FUN!”). I had no idea what to expect but figured I would at least learn something and feel a bit more “essential,” at least to our sons.
Among other things, I learned:
1) Schedules are nice, but so are unscheduled periods. We all probably benefit from a certain amount of structure, and I have been getting more and more fastidious in making mine, even experimenting with the Pomodoro technique of 25 minute work periods followed by a five minute break. I think there are benefits to this for work, but camp isn’t work, nor should childhood in general feel like work. The most fun we probably had was a game our older son developed (it involves picking up cotton balls by the nose) that wasn’t “on the schedule.”
2) Presence matters most. I am pretty convinced that the boys would have been happy doing almost anything, and that is borne out by how much they seemed to like exercise/sports, card and board games, making lunch by themselves, swimming and riding on me, riding their bikes in abominable heat, and making up silly games. All that seemed to matter was that I was available to them. Which leads to…
3) Undivided attention matters. I deleted email and LinkedIn off of my phone and did not check them during the entirety of Daddy Camp; I also took previews off of my notifications and kept my phone on “do not disturb” a lot so I wasn’t checking every news alert. I took some time in the morning and night for catching up on the news, but I was otherwise giving the boys my full attention, and I think they noticed. I found it both difficult and liberating to be logged off for so long. I recommend it as a regular habit.
4) You get back more than you give. I got two requests as Daddy Camp was winding up: a) can we continue it over the weekend (kind of), and b) can we do it next year? That, plus getting unending and adorable requests for playtime, definitely made it all worth it, not to mention just experiencing the sheer joy they experienced during camp, getting to break out of whatever semblance of a routine they’ve had during this shelter at home without school.
5) I am not a young man. I needed a midday nap on the 3rd day and generally needed more of a recharge that I would’ve liked (like my overtaxed smartphone). As much as I want to do every day, my body needs a lot of rest, and I need to manage my expectations of what I can complete in a single day. If I don’t do everything I want to do, that doesn’t mean failure. It means success and the chance to plan for the next day.
6) There is no place in my world for perfectionism. Both boys got very upset, either with each other, themselves, or me, at some point over the three days. Our younger son even said, with a wry smile, that Daddy Camp was “okay,” before asking me to play with him again. I have had to work hard at curbing my perfectionist tendencies — and by that, I mean my penchant for making anything less than “perfection” feel like failure. I now understand how important it is to overcome a “fear of failure” or pursuit of perfection and just try.
7) My kids will barely remember or care about what I did “for a living” but they will vividly remember and care about what I did as their father. Yes, I have to help provide for them, but money is only one of the provisions they need — and much less important than unconditional love.
See you at the next Daddy Camp.
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Dr. Larry Schooler has filed stories for National Public Radio and Voice of America, facilitated interfaith dialogue and served as an ombudsman for the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the author of a manual entitled “Keys to an Effective Public Meeting” and a forthcoming book on truth and reconciliation commissions.
Originally published on Medium.com.
Military veterans have been hard hit by coronavirus. Those serving on the frontlines are urging homeowners and banks to open up vacant properties for veterans who can pay reasonable rent, calling affordable housing a matter of life or death for many.
Military veterans have been hard hit by coronavirus. Those serving on the frontlines are urging homeowners and banks to open up vacant properties for veterans who can pay reasonable rent, calling affordable housing a matter of life or death for many.
MIAMI, FLORIDA (July 28, 2020) — Military veterans are taking a hard hit from COVID-19 in South Florida. Miami-Dade and Broward counties have become an epicenter of the coronavirus with more than 156,740 local residents testing positive, 8,262 hospitalizations, and more than 2,000 deaths reported by the Florida Department of Health.
The impact goes beyond the direct health consequences.
As stores, restaurants, businesses, and construction sites shut down, many very low-income veterans lost jobs and income. Before coronavirus, the area was already one of the nation’s most expensive rental markets.
Nine hundred veterans have turned to Purpose Built Families Foundation’s Operation Sacred Trust (“OST”) program for help this year.
The nationally accredited nonprofit based in Pembroke Pines, Florida receives funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. It is one of 300 SSVF programs nationwide.
VA funding has enabled the agency to distribute $1,447,656 this year for emergency housing, rent, security deposits, utility bills, food, supplies, moving costs, and other urgent necessities to keep the area’s most vulnerable veterans off the streets.
Engagement Director Juan Flores, a Marine Corps Veteran, said Operation Sacred Trust has placed 173 veterans in local hotels, nearly ten times more than prior years. The increased pace is continuing, he said.
Flores joined OST in 2017 and today directs the program’s extensive outreach and engagement efforts across South Florida. Flores said daily coordination with the Miami VA Medical Center is critical to making sure at-risk veterans can rapidly access help when they need it most.
Farrah Farivar, 34, is an Army cadet and one of Torner’s veteran engagement specialists.
Farivar will be a 2nd Lieutenant when she graduates from FIU. Before moving to Miami, she completed basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma where she was recognized as the program’s female honor graduate.
Despite recent surgery to repair hamstring tears, Farivar joined Operation Sacred Trust in May to serve on the frontline of the fight against veteran homelessness in Miami.
While the agency implemented a strict safety program in March that has most of the 39-member team working with veterans remotely, Farivar insisted on serving in the field where she regularly comes in contact with veterans overcoming COVID-19.
“I understand what it feels like to be a veteran and to sacrifice for our country,” Farivar said.
“It’s inconceivable that a home or apartment is vacant while a veteran who offered his or her life to protect our freedom and could pay reasonable rent is not able to live there. It’s truly a matter of life or death for many.”
~ Seth Eisenberg
Purpose Built Families CEO Seth Eisenberg has directed OST since its inception in 2011. He said the agency hired 12 new care managers this year to meet the increased needs of local veterans.
Veterans facing homelessness are at increased risk for suicide, Eisenberg said.
“Every veteran we serve deserves a compassionate, dedicated, highly skilled care manager to help them through this crisis,” he said.
Eisenberg said affordable housing is the agency’s biggest challenge.
“There are thousands of people and banks holding vacant apartments and homes in our community and across the country,” Eisenberg said.
“We urgently need that housing to be accessible to these veterans who have given so much,” he said.
“It’s inconceivable that a home or apartment is vacant while a veteran who offered his or her life to protect our freedom and could pay reasonable rent is not able to live there. It’s truly a matter of life or death for many,” said Eisenberg.
You can reach Operation Sacred Trust at (855) 778-3411, by email to intake@411veterans.com, or online at 411Veterans.com.
On the anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, four Korean war era Veterans who overcame homelessness talk about their memories of military service and hopes for the country they love.
As America commemorates the 67th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, Seth Eisenberg spoke with four Korean War era Veterans who have overcome homelessness about their memories, advice to young people, and hopes for the country they love.
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It was the last Sunday in June, 1950.
Eighteen-year-old Raymond Dyson had given up on a high school education and was “playing around” in Memphis, Tennessee.
Not far from Savannah, Georgia, Watson Plummer was six days shy of his 21st birthday.
Sixteen-year-old Pablo Ithier had already been performing with the Puerto Rican Symphony Orchestra for more than a year.
John McGuire was 15, living in an Irish-Italian-Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx. His parents had immigrated to New York from Scotland searching for the life of opportunity. His father rarely spoke of his service in the British Navy, McGuire said.
A world away from the lives they knew, North Korean soldiers, tanks, artillery, and aircraft flooded across the 38th parallel that had formally separated communist North Korea from capitalist South Korea since Soviet and American leaders divided the peninsula at the end of World War II.
June 25, 1950.
It’s unlikely young John, Pablo, Watson, or Raymond knew that events taking place thousands of miles from home would forever touch their lives and millions of other Americans.
Five days later, President Harry S. Truman ordered a naval blockade and authorized Army General Douglas A. MacArthur, popularly known as the ‘American Caesar,’ to send ground troops to Korea.
The fight for South Korea led America to call 5,720,000 of its citizens to the Armed Forces. Nearly two million were sent to Korea itself.
By the time the guns of war were silenced by signatures upon a fragile truce 37 months later, three million were dead. Thirty-three thousand six hundred eighty-six Americans returned in coffins. Half a million more were wounded.
More than 7,100 American soldiers were captured and held as prisoners of war.
Sixty-seven years later, thousands of America’s Soldiers, Sailors and Marines sent to Korea remain officially “unaccounted for”.
While those who served during the Korean War era represent some of America’s oldest living warriors, over the past decade, 31 of them were among thousands of South Florida veterans who the VA-funded Operation Sacred Trust Supportive Services for Veteran Families program helped overcome the imminent threat or tragedy of homelessness.
As we commemorate the 67th Anniversary of the Korean War Armistice, I spoke with four of those warriors about their memories, military service, advice to young people, and hopes for the country they love.
Each of the three McGuire boys served in the U.S. Navy. Now 85 and the only survivor among his siblings, John McGuire has clear memories of that time in his life.
McGuire grew up in a neighborhood familiar with the cost of war.
During the years of World War II, he recalls how all the adults in the neighborhood would freeze when “an enlisted man passed.”
“You’d hear the screams and the next day you’d see a gold star in the window,” he said.
Neither those memories nor the headlines of bloody battles in Korea stopped McGuire from catching a bus to downtown New York on January 18, 1952 to enlist in the Navy.
“I was ready to the max. When you’re young like that, there’s a patriotism and pride. You feel like steel.”
~ John McGuire
He was 17.
“I was ready to the max,” he said. “When you’re young like that, there’s a patriotism and pride. You feel like steel.”
Before long, McGuire was looking at the USS Lake Champlain, an Essex-class aircraft carrier that had been modernized for the fight in Korea. From the moment the Champlain left Mayport, Florida on April 26, 1953 until it returned on December 4, 1953, it would be his home.
“My God!,” he remembers thinking, marveling at the size of the ship stretching nearly three football fields (888.5 feet), that could cruise at 33 knots, house a crew of nearly 3,500, and carry 80 – 100 planes.
“The whole thing was an adventure. I was really proud to be part of the U.S. Navy,” he said.
On his way to Korea, McGuire remembers navigating the Suez Canal where he saw Arabs and camels on both sides, five-cent bottles of wine in Portugal, passing through Hong Kong at a time “it looked like a horror movie,” reaching port in Japan, and then joining the battle off western Korea in mid June.
“Aboard a carrier, it can be dangerous,” McGuire said, recalling pained memories of Sailors who lost their lives because of a moment’s distraction.
Nearly 70 years later, the sounds and images of “boogies at 25,000 feet and then 18,000 feet” remain sharp and real, as is the sound of the whistle that meant it was go time.
“One of my buddies, he was crying when he was telling us what happened because it hurt so bad.”
~ John McGuire
McGuire can also still hear the words of Florida college kids who greeted the battle-weary, returning Sailors with vulgar names.
“They were so misinformed and we got hell,” he said.
“One of my buddies, he was crying when he was telling us what happened because it hurt so bad,” he recalled.
Raymond Dyson’s brother James — two of 17 surviving siblings in the Dyson family of Warford Street in Shelby County, Tennessee — was already serving in Korea when he was inducted into the Army on January 17, 1952.
At 89, Dyson’s memory of that day, the months, and years that followed remains vivid.
After basic training, he boarded the USNS General E. T. Collins packed with 2,000 Soldiers for his voyage to Korea.
“We got out to the middle of the sea and found out a hurricane was coming,” he recalled as he described the 500-mile detour the bad weather required.
“We got shelled a lot, but we survived.”
~ Raymond Dyson
Dyson spent 13 months in Korea monitoring troop and train movements as part of the 95th Armored Field Artillery Battalion in advance of the 1st Marine Division.
“I liked the Army,” he said, “We got shelled a lot, but we survived.”
“Once a month we got a shower and new clothes,” he added.
“The mountains were frozen on both sides,” he remembered of Korea during the winter months, when temperatures would average lows of 14 degrees.
For his bravery, Dyson earned three Bronze Stars.
“I was there the day we ceased fire,” he said. “We were still being shelled, but by dummies with no warheads.”
“I got promoted from Private to Corporal one day and the next day it was taken back.”
~ Raymond Dyson
One of his happiest memories, and also one of his saddest, was being promoted.
“I was promoted from Private to Corporal one day and the next day it was taken back because I’d gone to the clinic. All of those who got medical attention were denied promotions,” he recalled with the sting of an injustice that has survived the years. Losing the promotion, he said, meant losing greater responsibility, which he wanted, and more money that he needed.
He left active duty shortly after his return, although his reserve commitment lasted for another six years.
“I wanted to stay in, but got teased,” he explained about his decision to separate.
Despite his valor, sacrifices, and three Bronze Stars, Dyson said coming home had its own painful and dangerous challenges.
“I had to be careful,” he said about his 1953 homecoming to Memphis.
“There was no love between people,” he remembers. “I had to step off the sidewalk not to be too close to white ladies.”
At 91, Watson Plummer’s memories of his service in Korea haven’t faded.
“My parents didn’t want me to go,” Plummer recalls of his decision to enlist on November 14, 1950.
“I wanted to see the world.”
~ Watson Plummer
“I had other ideas, even though I didn’t show it,” he said. “I wanted to see the world.”
One particular day stands out.
Plummer was on patrol with the Company A 773 Tank Destroyer Battalion.
“I jumped off the tank into incoming fire” that he believed came from Bazookas, he recalled. His commander yelled, “Dodge!” Plummer squatted low to the ground and was saved.
“My life would have been cut short if I hadn’t,” he said.
That night, he said, he was again on tank patrol. His commander ordered him up top to navigate the Korean hills. “Watson, stand here,” are the words that still ring in his head decades later.
“My daddy taught me to watch the hills so if you got lost, you could always find your way home.”
~ Watson Plummer
Navigating hills was something Plummer learned as a youngster growing up not far from Savannah, Georgia, where the marshland and hills could be fatal for anyone who got lost. It was a skill that may have helped save Plummer’s life and his fellow Soldiers in the fight for Korea.
“My daddy taught me to watch the hills so if you got lost, you could always find your way home,” Plummer said.
As he reached the top of the tank, suddenly he felt a blast. The left rear track went over a landmine.
“It blowed it completely out,” Plummer recalled, thankful once more that his life had been saved.
Plummer’s service and valor in the Korean theatre was recognized by the Army with the Korean Service Medal with three Bronze Stars.
Looking back, he’d encourage today’s young people to make the same decision.
“Serving teaches you how to be clean, dependable, and lots of new things you didn’t know, like working with others … there’s so much to learn,” he said. “It’s one of the most certified experiences you could ever have.”
Pablo Ithier, 86, remembers what it was like to serve during the Korean War from a different perspective.
“There were two ships in the harbor,” he recalled of the day in 1952 when he expected to sail from Puerto Rico to Korea.
“They put me on the ship to Panama,” he said.
“My father and family thought I was crazy,” Ithier remembers from August 4, 1952 when he enlisted in the Army.
At 18, Ithier had been helping support his family as a musician for three years already.
He began studying music at the age of ten and became “the youngest member of the symphony orchestra in Puerto Rico at the age of 15,” he remembers with pride.
The mechanically inclined soldier was sent to vehicle school. Before long, he was working in Panama as an Army interpreter in high level meetings with weapons and parts buyers from Spanish-speaking countries.
Ithier was grateful for the chance to earn money that he could send home to help his family in Puerto Rico.
Growing up, “we lived in a nice house made of wood,” he said. “With the money I sent, my father was able to build the house out of cinderblock.”
“It raised our level of class,” he recalled.
“I remember everything,” Ithier said of his 86 years.
“I was not prepared to be a father. I was a professional, but in one way and not in another.”
~ Pablo Ithier
“I go back to my life. I remember the good and the bad. I’ve got plenty of time to think of my past like it all happened yesterday,” he said.
Especially meaningful are his memories as a musician and as a father.
“I was not prepared to be a father,” he said. “I was a professional, but in one way and not in another,” Ithier confided. Nights that began with an evening performance regularly ended with him returning home the next afternoon, he remembered.
“I was young. I didn’t really care,” he recalled with regret about how he wished things could have been for a daughter he dearly loves.
Given the chance, there are things he’d do differently.
“If I could go back, I would never leave the Army. I’d stay 40 or 50 years.”
~ Pablo Ithier
“If I could go back, I would never leave the Army,” he said. “I’d stay 40 or 50 years.”
After living nearly all his life in Puerto Rico, Ithier moved to Florida seven years ago.
“One day in Puerto Rico, I went for groceries and a 14 or 15-year-old punk said, ‘I’d like to see that old man jump when I shoot him.’ I called the lawyer to sell the house and I left,” he said.
Beginning anew in South Florida meant overcoming poverty and homelessness, eventually leading the former musical star to entertaining the elderly with his saxophone and clarinet by the pool near his home in Pembroke Pines.
Not everyone was happy.
A powerful municipal official, he said, “picked on me because of my playing for people by the pool.”
“What music does for people is amazing!” he shared with youthful excitement.
“When I played the standards of my time, you should see how they react,” he said. “People in wheelchairs with their minds gone, they responded!”
As his arthritis worsened, Ithier had to put down his beloved instruments for good. “I can’t even hold it,” he said.
“It hurts.”
“I was praying for the country this morning.”
~ Watson Plummer
Each of these four Veterans expressed concern for how things are going in the country they offered their lives to protect.
John McGuire was shocked by the video of George Floyd’s death. “It was a mean, mean, mean thing to do. It was bullshit,” he said.
But McGuire also believes the majority of police are good, and hopes more people will speak out in support of the courage and sacrifices of America’s law enforcement community.
He’s hopeful “a silent majority” will help America return to a time when “we took care of our families, neighborhoods, and country.”
Watson Plummer is praying for America.
“I was praying for the country this morning,” Plummer said. “Praying for peace, pleasantry, tranquility, and caring for one another.”
“And most of all,” he added after a thoughtful pause, “fellowship among people.”
—
Seth Eisenberg is President/CEO of Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nationally accredited nonprofit in Pembroke Pines, Florida, and co-founder of Operation Sacred Trust. You can reach Seth via LinkedIn.
Very low income veterans facing housing crises as a result of coronavirus don’t have to leave home to get help paying back rent, utilities, and other emergency expenses.
CARES Funds Help Nonprofit Reach Veterans Most At-Risk for Homelessness
PEMBROKE PINES, FL — Very low-income veterans facing housing crises as a result of coronavirus don’t have to leave home to get help. With $1.52 million in emergency funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, Purpose Built Families Foundation’s Operation Sacred Trust collaboration is bringing rapid assistance directly to veterans’ driveways, parking lots, and local front doors.
The Broward County nonprofit has helped prevent and end homelessness for thousands of local veterans since 2011 through its Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. CARES funds are helping the agency expand services to proactively target South Florida’s hardest hit neighborhoods to prevent increased veteran homelessness.
Using an integration of Census data, 211 reports, and COVID-19 updates, the agency identifies neighborhoods with the highest needs each week to deliver services through a mobile rapid response team. Next week, Operation Sacred Trust’s rapid response team will focus on veterans throughout the Lauderhill community.
“There are unique challenges serving veterans,” said Purpose Built Families Foundation CEO Seth Eisenberg.
“Veterans want to be the ones giving,” Eisenberg said. “They are often the last to reach out for assistance, despite consequences that can last a lifetime. That’s an important consideration in making services most accessible in the neighborhoods where veterans face the highest risk of homelessness.”
“We help veterans recognize VA help is part of benefits they earned through their prior service and sacrifices,” Eisenberg added.
The agency is using CARES funds to help very low income veterans pay back rents, utilities, access benefits, receive care management, legal aid, prevent evictions, and quickly access other assistance vital to sustaining housing.
“The needs in our community are enormous. These funds will help many of those who are most vulnerable. The sad reality is we don’t have the resources to help every veteran in need.”
Seth Eisenberg, Purpose Built Families Foundation
Engagement Director Juan Flores said Operation Sacred Trust has not paused veteran services during the COVID-19 outbreak and related closings.
“Even when we had to close our Broward and Miami-Dade County offices to ensure the safety of staff and veterans, we continued to serve veterans 24/7,” Flores said.
Flores praised the agency’s technology team for making sure the 25-person staff has the support needed to continue assisting local veterans, and GEICO for contributing a mobile response vehicle to help the team expand services.
Reza Kavoosi directs the Information Technology department that supports services to veterans across South Florida. Kavoosi said tools such as Salesforce, Zoom, and a robust VOIP phone system made the transition possible without interruptions. Kavoosi credits a decade of military service, including training and experience as an intelligence officer, with preparing him to help lead the battle to serve fellow veterans impacted by COVID-19.
“A Veteran is never alone.”
Dr. Juan Flores
Flores supervises intake activities from a mobile operations center originally created to rapidly help at-risk veterans through weather disasters. Dr. Flores said his commitment as a Marine didn’t end when he completed active duty.
“We are all responsible for each other,” Flores said. “That responsibility means showing up where we’re needed, when we’re needed, no matter the circumstances.”
“A veteran is never alone,” he said.
Although funds are limited, Operation Sacred Trust is able to help many veterans who have served at least one day of active military service, have a discharge other than dishonorable, and have annual household income below the very-low income threshold set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For example, in Broward County the maximum income for a single household is $31,200, $35,640 for a two-person household, and $40,100 for a three-person household.
For assistance, enrollment, or further information, contact Operation Sacred Trust online at www.411Veterans.com, by texting VETERAN to 67076, through Facebook at facebook.com/OperationSacredTrust, or calling (855) SSVF-411 (855-778-3411).
As the nation locked down, a former Marine was homeless on the streets of Miami, wondering if his luck had run out.
As the nation locked down, TC was alone with his broken wheelchair on the streets of Miami, wondering if his luck had run out.
From birth, his name was a prayer for God’s protection.
In 1973, that benediction would be especially important as 21-year-old Theodius Stanley, a proud son of Georgia, swore his oath as a United States Marine and soon found himself on the frontlines of what was then America’s longest war.
Despite a 1973 peace agreement, the young Marine from the small town of Dublin knew the reality of violence that raged on against an often-invisible enemy in jungles far from the familiar lands of the Oconee River.
Stanley’s tour of duty ended a year after the last American troops came home in 1975. No longer in uniform, Stanley returned to civilian life in a traumatized America where those who served with dignity and valor were often ostracized and despised.
By the turn of the century, Stanley had joined legions of fellow veterans struggling on the edge of life.
Often with nothing but the plea within his name as protection, Stanley survived much of the next 20 years fighting homelessness in an urban Miami jungle that had replaced the broken promise of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
As a novel coronavirus swept into the roads and alleyways of South Florida, a place he’d long ago made his home, Stanley found himself facing a new enemy. The amputee routinely navigated through the sun-soaked pavement and littered dirt fields in his fractured wheelchair. He had no defense against this invisible assassin.
Stanley knew he was not alone. On March 18, he called the Miami VA, pleading for help.
It was a day workers were urged to remain at home to protect their lives; the White House and Congress were debating how to get a multi-trillion dollar stimulus into depleted bank accounts across every community.
Mary McVeigh-Camilo, a homeless assistance coordinator at the Miami U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, got the call. Her facility had shifted into emergency mode, redirecting nearly all to virtual and telehealth services, implementing “enhanced screening” for the limited traffic allowed urgent access to the hospital. Stanley’s call let McVeigh-Camilo know that a warrior needed help and that there was no chance he’d be able to connect virtually to life-sustaining VA supports. Finding him on the streets of Miami’s Overtown neighborhood could be a matter of life and death.
Overtown is less than two miles from the Miami VA. On that day, it felt a world apart.
McVeigh-Camilo went into action, calling Dr. Juan Flores to mobilize the Operation Sacred Trust (“OST”) Supportive Services for Veteran Families team to find Stanley.
OST Engagement Director Flores loaded up their brightly painted Ford Expedition known as “Serenity,” fully adorned in America’s red, white, and blue, and headed to Overtown.
A few “Towners” were on the streets when Flores arrived with Stanley’s description and pleaded for help locating the former Marine.
Within an hour of Stanley’s call to the Miami VA, he was seated in Serenity, his wheelchair and scant belongings loaded in back, sharing stories of bygone years with Flores, a fellow Marine.
A month later, Stanley remains safely housed at the Miami Shores hotel where Operation Sacred Trust checked him in that day. Team members stay in touch daily, making sure his necessities are taken care of, that his spirits are high.
“Every opportunity I get to speak with TC, he always starts our conversations with a brief laugh of excitement,” agency CEO Seth Eisenberg said. “He says he does this to let me know that he’s happy. It’s also a constant reminder of the mutual gratitude we share for each other and the opportunity we have to serve him.”
On Monday, OST Lead Care Manager Verenith Rosario, who works with Stanley daily, was able to to coordinate for an electric wheelchair to be issued to him from the VA Medical Center. In a truck contributed by GEICO, Flores and Torner ventured out in the midst of the pandemic to pick up the scooter from the local VA’s Emergency Department.
As his new ride was lowered to the ground, Stanley’s sense of gratitude lit up the hotel parking lot, touching each of those privileged to serve.
[This story was originally published on Medium.]
The way you handle stress can make a bad situation better or worse. Find out if you have a coronastress style that’s helping or hurting.
The way you handle stress can make a bad situation better or worse. Find out if you have a coronastress style that’s helping or hurting.
Originally published on Medium.
There’s a good chance you have a Coronavirus Stress Style. “Coronastress,” for short. If you’re not sure of your style, ask anyone who is spending time with you.
I’m lucky to have space at home where I can separate from others during the toughest moments of coronastress, but even that doesn’t keep me from taking on one or more of these four stress styles in the face of the most distressing stories, briefings, or longest nights.
Once you identify your coronastress style, you can decide if it’s working for you or anyone else. Keep in mind, you might have more than one and you could have a different style with different people.
Placater: You’re taking care of everyone and everything, always eager to please. No matter the issue, challenge, or problem, your needs don’t matter. “Don’t worry about me, never mind about me.” While smiling on the outside, there’s a good chance you’re not feeling that way inside. Despite what Placaters say and how they act, sadness, anger, and resentment builds up — feelings that make us sick. When a Placater can’t take it anymore, they may just leave — emotionally, mentally, physically. Still with that smile, and leaving everyone else surprised. “I had no idea!”
Blamer: “You, you, you!” Blamers are always on the offense, and the crisis of a novel coronavirus pandemic is no exception. They’ll find a target for their accusations, real or imagined. Nit-picking, criticizing, accusing, talking in sweeping generalizations. “You never do anything right!” “If it wasn’t for you …” “You’re so stupid, sick, bad, crazy, evil … just like …” No one likes to be around a Blamer, which means the Blamer becomes lonely and feels unloved. Eventually anyone who doesn’t have to stay around, doesn’t stay around — proving the Blamer right in their self-fulfilling prophecy.
Computer: Calm, cool, collected, the Computer is super-reasonable and knows everything. Yes, everything. For the Computer, it’s all logic and reason. “Upset? I’m not upset. Why would you think I’m upset?” “Everybody knows …” “Obviously …” When it comes to feelings, the Computer might as well be deaf and dumb. The Computer doesn’t want to feel anything, and doesn’t want to know what anyone else feels either. If you’re looking for a shoulder to cry on, the Computer is not an option, whether you’re a spouse or a child. That hard turtle-like shell of reason and logic can feel like the Computer’s best protection. Eventually, that castle of protection can be as lonely as the most isolated prison cell.
Distractor: “Problem? What problem? Awful things are happening? Well, let’s watch a movie, have a drink, light up …” whatever it takes to forget about it. All of it. Talkative, irrelevant, often frantically active and unfocused, don’t expect much eye contact or anything else from a Distractor. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, the Distractor isn’t available for anything that could be upsetting or frightening. Distractors approach the world with the belief they can just ignore anything uncomfortable or confusing and it will go away by itself. Underneath it all, the Distractor may be feeling: “Nobody really cares,” “I don’t belong,” “There’s no place for me.”
Imagine being a youngster watching parents act out these styles through weeks, even months of quarantine? Or a lifetime?
There are positives hidden in each of these styles. Combined, those positives can be brought together into a fifth style that brings us closer. That style is called the Leveler.
The Leveler incorporates the Placater’s concern for others as empathy and compassion, without ignoring their own needs and feelings. The Leveler also takes on the Blamer’s ability to speak for themselves, but with regard for how it is for others. The Leveler has the Computer’s ability to be logical, rational, and find solutions — with awareness and appreciation for feelings in themselves and others. And the Leveler embraces the Distractor’s playfulness and spontaneity because life, even in the toughest of times, can be joyful — as long as that doesn’t become a way of hiding or avoiding difficult circumstances.
Imagine being the child getting through the challenges of COVID-19 with those parents?
[Adapted with permission from PAIRS Essentials with appreciation to Virginia Satir.]
Marriage education skills are reaching new audiences in the age of coronavirus. Virginia Satir’s Daily Temperature Reading helps teams stay connected through social distancing.
Marriage education skills are reaching new audiences in the age of coronavirus. One exercise is helping healthcare teams, couples, and families stay connected through social distancing.
In PAIRS classes, it’s called the “Daily Temperature Reading” or the “DTR”. Originally developed by Virginia Satir, the DTR is often the skill couples point to years later as having been the most useful. As the world adjusts to COVID-19 measures, Virginia Satir’s influence continues to make a difference.
Originally published on Medium.
Lifting each other up, heading off problems, encouraging open, accurate communication — that’s always important. Important becomes urgent when cooperation keeps people alive. In the Coronavirus Era of social distancing, Hope Huddles will improve productivity and strengthen collaboration. One version is based on an exercise developed decades ago by Virginia Satir, and it’s helped many couples, families, and teams bring out the best in each other.
Whether you’re in person, texting, or zooming, follow these five steps, in order, with the people who are important in your life. Because it’s valuable to do this regularly — ideally every day — keep your Hope Huddles to five to 20 minutes. Take turns in each area, giving each person in the huddle a chance to say something before you go on to the next step. When you can’t get together at the same time, write out your Hope Huddle, and share it.
Always start with Appreciations. Always finish with Wishes, Hopes, and Dreams. Sometimes there won’t be anything for the other areas of your Hope Huddle. That’s okay.
STEP 1 — Appreciations. Generous, sincere, and specific. Look for what’s right about a family member, friend, colleague, patient, student, or anyone else in your huddle — something they did that’s worthy of acknowledgment. Put it into words, and say it.
STEP 2 — New Information. Keep each other up-to-date. What happened last night, today, or in between? What’s coming up later? Pass on helpful and important information to stay informed and connected.
STEP 3 — Puzzles. Ask your questions. Don’t assume (“ass-u-me”). Check out anything you’re wondering about with the person or people who may have answers. Give others a chance to answer if they have an answer and are ready to share it. If answering takes a longer conversation, set a time for that to happen outside the time set aside for your Hope Huddle.
STEP 4 — Concerns with Recommendations. Head off issues before they become problems. Focus on one specific behavior or action. Include details of what you want instead. It’s about an action or behavior, not a person — we’re on the same team.
STEP 5 — Wishes, Hopes & Dreams. For ourselves or others; for today, this week, or this lifetime. Sharing goals and aspirations helps us know, support, and inspire each other.
As Coronavirus brings the fear of death out of the shadows, couples are having important conversations to become more connected and loving. “The 14-Day Class Couples Playbook” is guiding some through the crisis. The results can make a difference long into the future.
What I will miss about you…
The good times I’ll remember…
What I wish I had told you…
~ The 14-Day Class Couples Playbook
Those are just a few of the conversations couples are having in response to COVID-19. Talking with loved ones about topics from health to work, money, family, and more is helping strengthen relationships in the face of the global pandemic.
In their segments together, brothers Chris Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo, the CNN anchor and New York Governor, are modeling conversations families are having throughout the world as the novel coronavirus takes hold and impacts every community.
“Embracing that potential [of conversations that matter], even while social distancing keeps us from embracing each other, will make a difference for generations.”
~ Seth Eisenberg
For many, it takes a crisis to bring life’s fragile nature to light. That’s a gift that shows up in more love, joy, and connection to who and what we value most. The opportunity of these conversations that matter is having them when we can — not putting them off and missing the experiences of deeper closeness, understanding, and intimacy. Embracing that potential, even while social distancing keeps us from embracing each other, will make a difference for generations.
The 14-Day Class Couples Playbook is part of Purpose Built Families Foundation’s response to the pressures crisis puts on couples and marriages. Purpose Built Families is a nationally-accredited nonprofit with unique expertise serving veteran and military families. We’re putting that experience to work as widely as we can to help families and the children who count on them to weather the new normal we’re all grappling to find.
A free Kindle version is available this weekend from Amazon.
Look at what happens in the months after a crisis passes. The most lasting impact is often measured through spikes in divorce, domestic violence, incarceration, poverty, homelessness, and suicide. Much of that can be prevented by strengthening families throughout a crisis that puts enormous stress on relationships.
Beyond immediate actions to protect our physical health, few things are more important than strengthening our closest relationships.
It’s a good time to get started discovering what’s possible in the days, years, or decades we’re given. The 14-Day Class can help.
Seth Eisenberg is President/CEO of Purpose Built Families Foundation in Pembroke Pines, Florida. He is a national trainer and author of PAIRS Essentials, Warrior to Soul Mate, PAIRS for PEERS, and other educational programs that have helped thousands strengthen relationships. His work has been recognized as best practices for improving connections between family, friends, and social supports, and for their contributions to marriage enrichment for veteran families impacted by trauma.
Three words for parents to help children cope with increased stress from Coronavirus changes: “Tell me more.”
Three words for parents to help children cope with increased stress from coronavirus changes: “Tell me more.”
Upsetting feelings are making kids sick. Good listening helps.
Dr. Paul MacLean’s triune brain theory is getting lots of attention in the evolving new normal of the global coronavirus pandemic.
For parents wondering what to tell children about coronavirus, Dr. MacLean’s concepts are a good foundation.
Stress suppresses the body’s immune system
“Sustained emotional stress often produces hormonal imbalances that not only affect bodily functions, but can also suppress the body’s immune system,” marriage and family therapist Lori Heyman Gordon writes. Gordon, creator of the acclaimed Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (“PAIRS”) program, said understanding the ABC’s of the brain is important to helping children, couples and families cope with stress, anxiety, and trauma.
Three words
“Trying to have a logical conversation with someone in sensory overload is like pouring your favorite drink into a covered glass — it just spills everywhere, doesn’t do any good for anyone, and it’s gone,” said Seth Eisenberg, CEO of the nonprofit Purpose Built Families Foundation in Pembroke Pines, Fla. and an author of PAIRS Essentials, Warrior to Soul Mate, PAIRS for PEERS, and The 14-Day Class.
“Once children are old enough to watch television by themselves, surf the web, or talk to friends, parenting through trauma is almost entirely about three words,” he said.
“Tell me more.”
Ask, don’t tell
Although Eisenberg is not a mental health professional, he said MacLean’s concept was key to providing skills training to help elementary, middle, and high school students exposed to trauma.
“A child, especially, is much more likely to find relief from talking than being talked at,” he said.
Emptying the emotional jug
Eisenberg said training parents and partners to empty their emotional jugs helps them get to a place where rational, logical conversations can make a difference.
Nearly half a decade after MacLean’s pioneering research at the National Institute for Mental Health, the concept is catching on. Hundreds of professionals serving veteran and military families have learned to teach the “Emptying the Emotional Jug” exercise — even helping soldiers in the battlefield. The exercise is one of several Eisenberg included in The 14-Day Class to help strengthen couples and families who are staying home during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Find a quiet place
Helping children through Coronavirus changes should include regularly finding a quiet place to sit free from distractions and asking about their feelings, with questions like: “What are you mad about?” “What are you sad about?” “What are you scared or worried about?”
“When you really give a child a chance to express their feelings without interrupting, explaining, interjecting, or trying to fix something, they often feel better,” Eisenberg said. “With everything happening today, that’s something we can do every day.”
MacLean’s triune brain concept explains why the exercise is so helpful, as does Psychiatrist Daniel Casriel’s approach to “sick and well.”
“Suppressed feelings have enormous energy and keep people stuck in the limbic system,” Eisenberg said. “When expressed, that energy can quickly change, bringing relief, and making room for uplifting emotions such as happiness, tenderness, and joy. Listening with empathy is more important than talking, denying, fixing, or trying to change things that aren’t in our hands.”
“Building trust, strengthening connection, making it safe for our children to confide and be vulnerable, that is in our hands,” he said.
A 14-Day relationship skills class for couples in quarantine is available, helping boost emotional connection, problem-solving, and self-esteem in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
A 14-Day relationship skills class for couples in quarantine is available, helping boost emotional connection and self-esteem in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Published by Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nationally accredited nonprofit based in Pembroke Pines, Florida, the course is designed to be self-taught over three hour daily sessions through the typical two week coronavirus quarantine.
Purpose Built Families CEO Seth Eisenberg said the program is being distributed this week to people in Connecticut, California, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Washington state.
“Emotional health provides important protection for physical health,” Eisenberg said. “Pent up feelings of anger, fear, and sadness have an impact on how we feel,” he said.
“Dealing with coronavirus is also a chance to make life better, beginning with those we love most,” he said.
“Improving how we feel about ourselves,” Eisenberg added, “positively impacts how we treat others. When someone’s mean to another person, it’s a safe bet they’re not happy with themselves.”
CEO Seth Eisenberg
“Improving how we feel about ourselves,” Eisenberg added, “positively impacts how we treat others. When someone’s mean to another person, it’s a safe bet they’re not happy with themselves.”
“One way to look at self-esteem is to think of it as something we do,” Dr. Don Adams, a North Carolina psychologist, writes in the Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills program (“PAIRS”), which provides the foundation for The 14-Day Class.
“Many of us walk around feeling more or less OK until something happens to trigger our doubts about ourselves. Perhaps something we are building does not work, a friend criticizes us, or a lover acts cold. Suddenly we are struck down, much in the same fashion as we are when we are attacked by an overload of germs, biogens that produce illness.
“Suddenly these germs start to grow and multiply in the fertile soil of our doubt about ourselves, turning ‘I made a mistake’ into the self-esteem disease of ‘I am worthless.’ The body, when attacked by physical biogen, must make antibodies to fight off the disease that is growing in our bodies. Similarly our minds must make antibodies to fight off the self-esteem disease which has struck our psyches. Un-countered, our messages to ourselves of self-doubt, self-hate, and self-devaluing can create a self-esteem disease that can last for hour, days, weeks, or even a lifetime.
“How do we produce antibodies, antigens specific to the toxic self-doubt? We have to do something. We have to tell ourselves something different, something affirming, something validating. We must produce antigens that sound like ‘I’m lovable,’ ‘I’m good enough,’ ‘Many people find me a pleasure,’ ‘I have a right to my needs,’ ‘They are my feelings,’ ‘I will decide for myself,’ etc. Each of us must create the specific antibody within the psychological immune system (the mind and heart) to fight the specific doubt that has been triggered and which is now making you ill.
“You can learn to boost your psychological immune systems. People with high self-esteem have learned to ward off events that prick their self esteem within seconds of the event; they almost never become sick with doubt. We all can learn to do this because, in truth and in reality, we are all lovable and we are all good enough. We first have to find this out for ourselves.”
The 14-Day Class™ will be available in April from Amazon Publishing. A limited number will be available Monday from PurposeBuiltFamilies.com. The foundation is offering discounted or free copies to those facing financial hardship.
Being close to mom in a South Florida nursing home meant sleeping in a Walmart parking lot. Fortunately, this Army veteran was able to rapidly get V.A. benefits to get out of his car and into affordable housing.
Being close to mom in a South Florida nursing home meant sleeping in a Walmart parking lot. Fortunately, this Army veteran was able to rapidly get V.A. benefits to get out of his car and into affordable housing.
Ramon Gonzalez doesn’t have to look far for inspiration.
His mother, 84, has overcome cancer, two knee replacements, and struggles daily with chronic diabetes. She was fortunate to find housing in a South Florida nursing home for low income seniors.
Gonzalez, 61, moved from St. Petersburg to be close to his mother, committed to ensuring she has family actively by her side, beats every challenge life throws at her, and has the best opportunity to enjoy her senior years.
Despite years of professional experience in administration, construction, plumbing and even cooking skills, it hasn’t been quick or easy for Gonzalez to find a job that would allow him to pay rent in South Florida.
Being close to mom meant finding a quiet spot in a nearby Walmart parking lot to temporarily call home.
Thirty eight years ago, Gonzalez spent five years serving in the U.S. Army. It’s unlikely he realized at the time that benefits he earned protecting others could help save his own life nearly half a century later.
“Ramon’s sacrifices are a sacred trust America holds dear,” said Camille Eisenmann, director of the Operation Sacred Trust Supportive Services for Veterans Families program in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
Less than an hour after connecting with Gonzalez, Eisenmann’s team provided the linkage to housing to get the former soldier out of his car and into safe, permanent, sustainable housing to be close to a mother in need of family without spending another night sleeping in the Walmart parking lot.
Eisenmann’s team members work 24/7 to help homeless veterans in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Since receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in 2012, Operation Sacred Trust has helped end homelessness for thousands of local veterans and their family members.
Operation Sacred Trust team members, many of whom are veterans, help homeless veterans obtain V.A. and related benefits, secure housing, and access financial resources often needed as a bridge to safe, stable, affordable housing.
“When a homeless veteran reaches out, we have to be there to embrace that veteran no matter what day or time it is,” said Seth Eisenberg, who co-founded the veterans service organization with his wife in 2011 to make sure local veterans returning from deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan received the highest level of care and support.
“Most important is making sure veterans know the help they’ve earned is available and accessible when they’re most in need,” he said.
There’s a potential gift in coronavirus planning and preparations: conversations that deepen connection, understanding, and love.
There’s a potential gift in planning and preparations for the coronavirus epidemic that goes beyond the CDC’s recommendations.
As a cancer survivor, I know the gift of life. I also know that while the CDC’s coronavirus advice may be a good start, health and healing takes more; much more that builds on Steve Jobs’ wisdom some value even more than their iPhones.
Wash your hands.
Often.
If you’re sick, stay home.
That’s the best advice the New York Times shared Tuesday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Americans to prepare for the rapidly escalating coronavirus epidemic.
Despite more than 20 guidance documents on coronavirus, along with warnings for older and at-risk travelers to avoid China, South Korea, Japan, Italy, and Iran, there’s not a lot of guidance from CDC about a threat that’s rocked stock markets and become a focus of hospitals, schools, offices, and households across America.
I read the NYT’s report hours after learning of two unexpected deaths closer to home.
Justin Flippen, 41, was the mayor of nearby Wilton Manors and a dedicated political activist, widely known for his leadership on LGBTQ issues. I’d spent time with Justin recently and he seemed as healthy and vibrant as any active adult in the prime of life and career. Just this month, he’d announced his re-election campaign.
Mayor Flippen reportedly died of a heart attack while hurrying to a City Commission meeting, apparently just minutes after updating his Facebook page.
Moments after hearing of Justin’s death, I learned a classmate from JEB Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia had died.
Until a move to Texas a few years back, my friend had mostly stayed close to northern Virginia over the 41 years since our 1979 graduation. He’d reached out not long ago about our shared commitment to serving veterans. We had plans to connect again. There was no sign that he would die with so much life left to be lived.
One of the most meaningful experiences of my life is something my mother taught me as as a teenager long before Steve Jobs’ famous graduation speech. With every loss, I’m reminded of this guided meditation on death and loss and the hope others can also benefit.
As background, in PAIRS classes I’ve frequently taught, the meditation includes laying down, arms cross over chest, eyes closed, as a loved one (typically a spouse; sometimes an adult child or significant other) kneels beside. The instruction is for that person to imagine their loved one has died as they consider and then speak aloud the answers to these sentences:
The gift of the exercise is that participants are very much alive, able to speak and hear meaningful, often healing, transformative words too often left unsaid. Beyond PAIRS classes, instructors have shared remarkable stories about leading the exercise for families preparing for military deployment, adjusting to hospice, and as part of palliative care programs.
After washing (frequently), along with making sure to stay home if sick, and avoiding risky travel, I can think of few greater gifts through the coronavirus preparations than confiding answers to these sentences now, while we’re very much present in flesh and blood, committed to embracing the greatest gift of all.
Will big tech come to the rescue to save veteran lives and end veteran homelessness? The same passion and technologies that help America explore distant worlds, connect billions through virtual communities, and catalog sextillions of data is key to reaching homeless veterans and saving lives.
Operation Sacred Trust is hoping America’s tech pioneers will make the difference to save veteran lives and end veteran homelessness, saying the same passion and technologies that help America explore distant worlds, connect billions through virtual communities, and catalog sextillions of data is key to reaching homeless veterans and saving lives.
Imagine a homeless veteran in need of life-saving help being told to call a number, check an email, or travel to an office during normal business hours.
For many, that’s exactly what happens.
For many of them – brave men and women who served America in uniform from World War II through Korea, Vietnam, the war on terror, and beyond – it can be a nearly impossible mission without a phone, computer, address, or access to money, let alone energy and will, for public transportation that can take hours after days and nights — often many — surviving without shelter.
For those who do, as often as not, they’re told to go someplace else or turned away altogether when unable to instantly produce verifications of their military service, bank statements, and more.
Last year, with the Department of Veterans Affairs providing the money, Purpose Built Families Foundation was able to lease a technology equipped outreach vehicle so the nonprofit’s Operation Sacred Trust Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) team could hit the streets to reach veterans most in need of critical care and rapidly provide that help.
“The reality of more than 7,000 veterans dying by suicide each year drives every moment and aspect of our work,” Engagement Director Jacob Torner said about the agency’s small, but tireless team of activists who have helped thousands of veterans in Broward and Miami-Dade counties since 2011.
“We’re on a life-saving mission to find veterans where they are, help them know life gets better, and get them access to benefits they’ve earned as veterans with the same dedication with which they served America,” Torner said.
Torner is attending the National Alliance to End Homelessness conference in Oakland, California this week to learn from fellow activists fighting the war against homelessness. Together with Intake Supervisor Dr. Juan Flores, a Marine veteran, Torner is encouraging policy makers to build from OST’s experience rapidly serving homeless veterans in the field and do more to eliminate bureaucratic delays.
“Ending veteran homelessness is not a nine to five job,” said Seth Eisenberg, CEO of Purpose Built Families and co-founder of the nationally accredited Operation Sacred Trust program. Eisenberg said serving homeless veterans comes with unique challenges.
“Veterans are often the last to reach out for help,” Eisenberg said. “Helping veterans know the help they’re receiving is about benefits they earned with their own blood and sacrifice is important,” he added.
While Eisenberg said there’s hope America can end veteran homelessness, he’s deeply troubled that thousands of veterans are dying each year before that happens.
“V.A. has come a long, long way improving services for veterans through public-private partnerships like Operation Sacred Trust,” Eisenberg said, while stressing there’s a long way to go and the urgent need for technology philanthropists to become more involved solving the crisis.
“The same passion and technologies that help America explore distant worlds, connect billions through virtual communities, and catalog sextillions of data is key to making a lasting difference for our veterans when they need us most,” he said. “The beginning is meeting veterans where they are when they need help, but that has to extend to having the technology infrastructures, systems, and resources available to save lives.”
“Government has come a long way, but we need one Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, or Larry Page to help us with the technology of ending veteran homelessness,” he said. “Any one of America’s billionaire technology pioneers, together with the sweat and commitment of our frontline activists, could help us save thousands of lives and actually end veteran homelessness in America,” Eisenberg said.
Bill and Melinda Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page — how about it?
Veteran advocates say veteran lives can be saved if VA national and local leadership urgently improves coordination and utilization of existing resources to prevent veteran suicide.
Recent investigations by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs found VA professionals could have done more to prevent suicides and took disciplinary action. Veteran advocates say veteran lives can be saved if VA national and local leadership urgently improve coordination and utilization of resources.
It was just after Valentine’s Day two years ago that Justin Miller’s girlfriend asked him to move out of the home they’d shared since 2016.
The Marine from Lino Lakes, Minnesota knew his own breaking point. He headed straight to the nearest VA Medical Center to save his own life.
Four days later, on February 24, 2018, VA staff sent him on his way. Justin made it to his car in the parking lot where he had a loaded gun.
Justin Miller, 33, a beloved son, brother, and honored veteran, took his life before ever leaving that VA parking lot.
More than 7,000 American veterans die from suicide each year. That’s more than twice the number of Americans who died on 9/11.
America knows few of their names.
We know Justin Miller’s name because his sister, Alissa Harrington, refused to let her brother die in vain.
Her advocacy on Justin’s behalf led to Congressional hearings, investigations, and, eventually, disciplinary action against VA professionals entrusted to fulfill President Lincoln’s promise: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle … by serving and honoring the men and women who are America’s Veterans.”
Congressman Tim Walz, now Governor of Minnesota, demanded an investigation into Justin’s death.
“It’s absolutely maddening to see on paper the exact places where the system failed,” Harrington said after reading the investigation report.
“It is infuriating to know that there is a possibility that Justin’s death could have been prevented,” Walz said.
“It should outrage us all that an entire health care system failed at something so serious and that it claimed to be their highest clinical priority,” he added.
Justin Miller is not the only veteran to take his life at a VA hospital.
Marine Col. James F. Turner, IV flew F-18s before becoming an infantry officer. He went on to spend a decade working at U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
Turner’s struggles grew worse after he retired from the military, leading to the end of his 27-year marriage in October 2017.
Fourteen months later, on December 10, 2018, Col. Turner, 55, medaled up in his military blues, sat on top of his VA records, and shot himself outside the Bay Pines Department of Veterans Affairs in Florida.
Next to his body, investigators found a note with Col. Turner’s last words.
“I bet if you look at the 22 suicides a day you will see VA screwed up in 90%,” James Turner had written on behalf of his fellow veterans.
Last March, President Trump signed an executive order titled “National Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End Suicide.” In June, VA and the White House launched a Veteran suicide-prevention task force. Three months later, Dr. Richard Stone, VA Undersecretary for Health, reported “the aggregate remains about 20 suicide deaths per day.”
Despite orders, committees, and task forces, veteran advocates in the field are exasperated that hundreds of veterans continue to die each month without VA leadership in every community treating the epidemic with increased urgency.
Seth Eisenberg, President of Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nationally accredited South Florida nonprofit that serves thousands of Florida veterans, said, “Getting potentially life saving preventative resources to veterans goes far beyond the typical responsibilities of a nine to five job; it’s life and death urgent.”
“VA chaplains and social workers in Augusta, Georgia began a grassroots program more than a decade ago that was shown to save lives, yet is available to less than a fraction of a percent of veterans who could benefit despite recognition as a VA Best Practice, VA’s investment of millions of dollars, VA’s decade of experience, VA’s findings that the program reduces suicide flags, and practically no cost of delivery.”
“Improving coordination, leadership, and utilization of existing resources today,” Eisenberg emphasized, “can reduce the number of American veterans who die in the next 24 hours and every other 24 hours.”
As an example, he said, “VA chaplains and social workers in Augusta, Georgia began a grassroots program more than a decade ago that was shown to save lives, yet is available to less than a fraction of a percent of veterans who could benefit despite recognition as a VA Best Practice, VA’s investment of millions of dollars, VA’s decade of experience, VA’s findings that the program reduces suicide flags, and practically no cost of delivery.”
Eisenberg pointed to a recent statement from VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to underline the concern.
“This month, Secretary Wilkie said, ‘Veterans with PTSD are often not able to process the emotions related to a traumatic experience in the field,’ which is something VA has been able to do for a decade,” Eisenberg said.
“That’s both the tragedy and challenge within VA,” Eisenberg said. “VA has a program to accomplish exactly what Secretary Wilkie says is urgently needed, yet VA leadership isn’t able to get it to the field in time to save lives.”
Holding professionals accountable for the lives they’re entrusted to protect is an important step to saving veteran lives, he said.