GIVING HOMELESS VETS HELP, SHELTER

New Wheaton Facility Serves Ex-Military Men Who Have Fallen on Hard
Times

There are any number of ruts in the road when you are homeless and
addicted to cocaine. But if Robert Mills were to pick out one low
point, it would be the late November day he was released from Kendall
County Jail dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.

After a friend put him on a train to Chicago, he discovered his Chevy
pickup had been stolen. So, having been arrested in warmer weather, he
found himself wandering the downtown streets in the chilly fall
dressed for the beach. Lucky for him, a man in a passing vehicle
stopped and gave Mills his coat.

On Monday, Mills was the first resident to check into the Midwest
Shelter for Homeless Veterans' Nicholas Larson Home, a new five-bed
transitional facility for down-and-out vets. Mills was among three
residents to arrive at the comfortable four-bedroom in Wheaton. Two
more men are expected soon.

The home for men is among few community-based shelters exclusively for
veterans in the Midwest, according to a shelter official.

Mills, an Army veteran who served in Germany and the United States,
said he found himself going downhill a few years ago because of
alcohol and drug abuse. Eventually, he said, he was arrested on
forgery and drug-related charges. But he says he has been trying to
turn his life around, and the discovery of the shelter on North West
Street was a godsend.

"I turned down this road on accident and seen the sign out in front ..
and I said, 'Why didn't anybody tell me about this place?'" said Mills, 45.

He learned that the shelter wasn't yet open and began asking about how
to enter.

With an operating budget of about $400,000 a year, the home runs with
the help of Veterans Affairs funds, a DuPage County grant and money
from charitable foundations and private individuals.

The organization formed in 2000 to offer outpatient therapy such as
post-traumatic stress counseling and group sessions for vets through
its office in Lombard. It began planning to buy a home for the shelter
two years ago and hopes to expand the facility. The shelter is working
with Hines VA Hospital, which will be referring men to the center,
said Executive Director Robert Frank.

The shelter draws from the experience of a staff that includes a
number of veterans, among them co-chairman Bob Adams, a Vietnam
veteran. One staff member returned from Iraq last year, and a board
member who is in the Navy Reserve was just called up to active duty,
Frank said.

"We wanted to be very deliberate, start small and do very well," Frank
said. "My goal is to be the model community-based program for veterans
housing."

The shelter is named for a 19-year-old Marine lance corporal and
Wheaton resident who was killed in Iraq. Nick Larson's mother, Ann,
said she and her husband, Dave, were moved by the recognition.

"You don't want other people to forget your child," she said Monday.
"But it just naturally happens as time goes on--the memory fades. I
would say to his friends, 'Don't forget him, don't forget him.' Now
there's a place in Wheaton that will always bear his name."

In the six counties that make up the Chicago area, there are 18,000
homeless veterans, Frank said.

He said Adams had long dreamed of providing services for homeless
vets. But it took several years to come up with the funding that
allowed the shelter last summer to buy a $600,000 house a block off
Front Street, with its restaurants, coffeehouses and shops. They also
had to fund a staff of eight, with people located in the house
around-the-clock.

After buying the house, organizers reached out to neighbors, hoping to
allay any fears they might have about a shelter opening nearby, Frank
said.

"Last summer we did a coffee for our neighbors and businesses so they
have an understanding of what we're doing," he said. "And not only did
they support us, they volunteered to come and work with us. We thought
we'd meet some opposition, and we really haven't had that."

One board member, Kevin Murray, is a captain in the Merchant Marine
who was recently called up to active duty and is now stationed on a
patrol boat in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf.
His wife, Pat, who is serving on the board in his place, said he
celebrated his 20th year in the Navy recently and had been expecting
to retire.

Murray did a lot of repair work in the shelter before going abroad,
and he knows the issues returning vets go through. But his experience
with homeless veterans goes much deeper than that.

"Kevin had an uncle who was in a shelter, and Kevin was close to that
uncle and helped him out," Pat Murray said. He and his brothers used
to take Christmas dinner to the shelter, she said.

The residents will make their own meals and dine together. They can
participate in counseling services, substance-abuse assessments and
job training. The board and staff include social workers,
psychologists and attorneys.