Quiet shelter helps ‘reboot’ homeless vets

The Institute for Human Services is holding a private blessing Thursday for a house serving as a small emergency shelter for homeless veterans in Kalihi Valley.

Since opening in August, VET house, short for Veterans Engaged in Transition, has functioned, for eight tenants, as a refuge from the crowded IHS men’s shelter in Iwilei.

The eight-bedroom home has a full kitchen and a dining room where tenants can eat and hang out together. It’s adorned with a garden along the stairs that leads to the front door.

The exact location of the home in a residential neighborhood remains undisclosed to protect the tenants, at the request of the shelter. Before the blessing event, its operation had not been publicly announced.

When former tenant Guillermo Fabela, 39, arrived at the house in November, he had only the clothes he was wearing, toiletries and his last $16. His ankles were swollen and he suffered from bed-bug bites.

The resident manager gave him a robe, allowed him to wash his clothes, and offered him a chance to sleep in his own room.

"Coming here I was scared," said Fabela, while sitting at the home’s dining room table earlier this month. "It was very emotional. You don’t trust people already because you got (post-traumatic stress disorder) up the yin-yang."

IHS, which created VET house, is operating the project this year with a $233,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Andy Dahlburg, manager of the VA’s Pacific Islands Healthcare System, said the VET house is part of a series of VA-funded initiatives to combat homelessness and achieve President Barack Obama’s goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.

Other Hawaii initiatives are a call center, a 98-bed program at Barbers Point, and a 20-bed program at the YWCA of Oahu.

Connie Mitchell, executive director of IHS, said the idea for VET house came after managers noticed an increase in male homeless veterans staying at the Iwilei shelter two years ago. Last year, the shelter’s veteran population increased 16 percent, reaching a five-year high with 153 veterans.

Mitchell suspects the number grew because people are leaving the military and the shelter’s focus on services for veterans attracted more people.

The community’s response to the program has been compassionate, from Home Depot awarding a grant for the house’s landscaping and interior design, to the landlord renovating the house for the program, to volunteers preparing meals for the tenants, Mitchell said.

"There’s just been a lot of people who have cared about the people in the house and the house itself," she said. "It makes a big impact on people’s healing.

Tenants of VET house come from the Iwilei shelter and can stay up to about three months, but their stay can be extended if they are awaiting housing.

Jay King, the project’s manager, said the house has been able to accept clients with a range of conditions, including HIV, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, depression, mental disability and a history of domestic violence.

He said on weekends tenants clean up the neighborhood streets, which teaches them to be good neighbors.

"We are reinforcers of positive action and that really keeps people on the path," King said. "It keeps them engaged."

Fabela, a former Army sergeant and military police officer, said before he arrived, he was suffering from anxiety attacks brought about by PTSD, but they subsided at the house. He appreciated the home’s quiet and regained his confidence there, becoming an unofficial guide for new tenants.

"It’s like rebooting yourself," he said. "At the same time, they bring to you here at the house all the different things you need for treatment — counselors, therapists."

Officials said Fabela left the home on Saturday to see family in the Philippines.

"Here, it’s not just walls," Fabela said before he left. "It’s like a home. They’re not building houses; they’re building people."