Dear Friends,
Memorial Day is a day to recognize, to pay tribute, and to celebrate the sacrifices made by our service men and women who have dedicated their lives to defending the values our country was founded upon.
We are proud to be on the front lines serving the needs of Chicago’s most vulnerable citizens, particularly when it comes to homeless veterans. With the significant rate of homeless veterans living on our streets in America, we know that we have fallen short in our commitment as a Nation and as a society to ensure all military veterans have a clear path to come home and to follow their own dreams of independence for themselves, and for their families.
I know that it is not lost on any of us that it is because of the men and women who served that we and our children get to enjoy the freedom to live in a Country where we can build our businesses, to go college, live in our own homes, raise and enjoy our families in peace, and pursue our God given potential.
Beyond the absolutely deserving pomp and circumstance of ceremonies and parades to show and eloquently express our appreciation, I encourage you to consider how we may match our expressions of gratitude with actions that can contribute to helping our veterans participate fully in the society they fought to protect.
In order to do better it is essential that we acknowledge and consider the boundless empirical data which indicate that the growing rate of poverty and homelessness is due to the many challenges military veterans face coming home. As a government and as a society we have yet to prioritize and provide our returning military veterans with adequate access to information and a public/private community based system and infrastructure designed to make their transition back home easier.
We at A Safe Haven and all of our employees, partners and supporters have been keenly and intimately aware of the fragmented system for over two decades. We have dedicated our lives to help build and design a public/partnership model that is always ready to help a returning veteran immediately upon their return ‘stateside’.
Early on we identified a huge disconnect with returning veterans and community based services. We credit our growth to the word of mouth by Military Veterans who have benefited from our services. We have noticed it is our veterans who introduce their fellow ‘at risk’ Veterans to us and encourage them to come to A Safe Haven, preferably even before he/she becomes chronically homeless and experiences catastrophic or irreversible collateral damage in their lives. Although awareness and momentum is finally building, more resources are needed.
A Safe Haven is happy to recently host the City-wide initiative sponsored by the Chicago Community Trust “Open Table Event’ that allowed us to bring together military, retired military, and top veteran stakeholders from throughout the State to discuss how to make our city better. For us the chosen topic was of not only about working together to end homelessness for veterans but to help influence mechanisms that can help to transition and prevent veterans from becoming homeless. Over the years, we have submitted white papers to the US Veterans Committee on this topic. It was great to hear and share lots of ideas from veteran leaders in the community that attended. We are in the process of distilling the ideas to share with CCT and to present to our policy leadership at all levels.
We are also in support and agreement with the recent McCormick Foundation, USC, and Loyola University school of Social Work Report that was released recently. It was interesting to see more data to further validate what we witness every day, including the alarming trends that the vast majority of Military Veterans are not prepared to re-enter society and that there is an utterly unacceptable rate of 33% of returning military veterans are at risk of suicide, often due to their lack of access to physical, behavioral health services, housing, and jobs.
As a grassroots organization whose origin was based on our own military family member’s experience, we identified the need for Veteran services early on. Since 1994, our entire team at A Safe Haven has taken action, and because of our collective hard work and dedication, today we are grateful that ASHF has emerged as a top provider of housing and services for military veterans in the State of Illinois.
A Safe Haven is strategically located between the two top military hospitals in Illinois namely, Jesse Brown Veterans Hospital and Hines Veterans Hospital. Our headquarters also serve as the host site to the Veterans Administration Community Resource Center for military Veterans in need. It serves as the hub for veterans and as a facility that offers on site access to referrals for appropriate housing, benefits, medical appointments and more. Our respective teams, work together to ensure maximum accountability, progress and results on behalf of our military veterans.
It was our deep concern, along with our foresight and focus on military veterans almost two dozen years ago and our vast network of public and private partners that has allowed A Safe Haven to become an anchor in the community and to become considered as one of the most innovative, comprehensive, turnkey community based organizations in the Country. Last year we served and housed over 676 military veterans, many of whom are parents and came to A Safe Haven with their children.
Thankfully because of all of you, we get an opportunity to truly honor our fallen heroes every day by taking care of those who made it back and in many cases we also take care of the families that they left behind –Most of whom live with the invisible scars of having served.
To all of our Military Veterans, including A Safe Haven Co-founder and my husband, Brian Rowland, Thank You for your service.
God Bless America!
Neli Vazquez Rowland, President
