Episode 123 Transcription
Welcome to episode 123 of Behind The Mission, a show that sparks conversations with psychomotor trusted partners and educational experts. My name is Duane France and each week I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, veterans, and their families. You can find the show on all of the podcast players or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast.
Thanks again for joining us and behind the mission. Our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors who also believe that education changes lives. Our sponsor this week is PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem, specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations.
On today's episode, I'm featuring a conversation with Bruce Buckley, chief executive officer of Soldier On, a 5 0 1 C3 nonprofit that provides veterans with shelter and support in an environment that offers dignity, integrity, and hope. Bruce's a leading subject matter expert on the challenges impacting veterans, experiencing homelessness and has dedicated his career to finding solutions to assist veterans and their families who find themselves in that situation. You can find out more about Bruce by checking out his bio in our show notes. Let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some key points.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: Bruce. I'm so pleased to be able to share the work that you and your team are doing to support veteran homelessness prevention.
Before we get into talking about, sold on, I'd like to hear a bit about your background and why this work has become such a passion for
you. my background personally is not from I, I have no military service. I did not grow up in a particularly military family other than, uncles and some relatives served at various times. But I'm an accountant, which that's my former life, and. A gentleman who really started Soldier on, Jack Downing, who's still active.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: He's just retired or semi-retired, and I took over about seven or eight years ago, he brought me on when he took over this agency in Western Massachusetts to do the accounting. And it was very small and I had other clients and I really got the passion. To serve the men and women that we served. It took a little time because I wasn't directly interacting with them, but when I did, I really, it really gave me a sense of purpose, fulfillment and taking whatever skills and talents I had and putting them to a very specific, and I think critical use in serving the veteran community who, as we all know, and you can't say it enough, Put their lives on the lines for the last 250 years. And the life we get to live today is that life that's been fought for. And I think I can't do enough to serve the men and women in that population. And really, that's how I got involved. And as the agency grew, I grew with it. And. Here we are today. We build housing, we support housing, we do a lot of outreach grants and, serve thousands of veterans a year with,what we've been able to turn into here.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: I always find it compelling when I speak to individuals who are. In the military and veterans support community like yourself, who really didn't have a military background. and you grew into this at a time when, post nine 11, combat, veterans are coming back, especially 2000 8, 9, 10, that economic challenge.
What was it like for you engaging in the military culture that you hadn't previously been familiar with?
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: I think what I found was. there's a military element to, to certainly what we do and a veteran component, which is a big piece of it, but there's also a very human component. And I think the human component is what I connected to and was able to really relate individually to the men and women that we serve.
And, we've got bigger numbers and bigger programs, but. I know just not every single veteran that's in our program, but I know many of them and I know many of them very well. And at the end of the day, that's where I start and end my service is with the individuals, I think that's where I made the connection.
And then I could see where I could help serve large numbers of people. One veteran at a time, and I think that's still what we do today as the numbers grow. But the, the service is very human and that's what we're about.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: Yeah, that's what I really appreciate, about, your online presence and even looking at Soldier On's website, you talk about the thousands of veterans you support, but you have individual stories, like each one of those thousands are individuals and individuals who also have families who can then regain their lives.
And so I, I really got that sense just from, getting to know about Soldier on. and I think a lot of people who are. Listening or thinking about housing difficulties in the veteran populations. They may be familiar with the concept of veteran homelessness, but also in my experience, have a certain image of a homeless veteran that isn't entirely accurate.
there's a lot of resources now to support veterans experiencing housing difficulties, but I'd like to hear your thoughts on maybe some of the unique challenges with, veteran
homelessness.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: the challenge, first of all, I like, to expand on what you said on why would someone be homeless? And I think if you ask the general public why is someone homeless, why would you become homeless? You hear, I think generally, Drugs, drug addiction, substance abuse, alcohol, mental health, financial difficulties, and.
All of those are certainly part of the equation that we have to interact with, but none of those are why someone's homeless. Lots of people. There's many alcoholics that aren't homeless. There's many individuals with mental illness that aren't homeless. So that alone isn't what it's about. It's really about a loss of community.
It's a loss of a support system. Most of us. Are fortunate that we have husbands and wives and parents and children and friends and coworkers, and on and on, that if we hit a difficult time, someone would step up to help us and we would step up to help someone else. And why would these. Many individuals lose that, I don't know particularly, and I don't care other than I wanna help fix whatever.
We can help in that circumstance. But the fact is it's the loss of community and that's what we really build. We build buildings, but we really build relationships, communities. And one of the best ways I can illustrate that is we have on many of our permanent housing sites, columbariums, a columbarium is to enter the ashes of someone who passes away.
And that's not some great vision that we had. It was seeing a need as the men and women who lived with us for the rest of their lives passed away. We started to say, what can we do? Where are they going? What's, they may be from halfway across the country. What are we doing? And we really started interacting with, first of all, we have attorneys that we do a will of power of attorney and a healthcare proxy at no cost.
And part of that is to ask someone, what do you want to happen if you pass away? And we have Colu Bariums with eternal flames on most of our permanent housing sites. And I think that just illustrates what we become. It's not a house, it's not a apartment, it's a community and it's as much the veterans supporting each other as the staff and the communities that we work in all step up to be a support system to help these men and women.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: You know, I appreciate. That you pointed that out is, as we mentioned before, we started talking, immediately after my retirement, I served as a program manager, for, a housing program. And there was a resident there in our program who was the same rank as me, was deployed Iraq the same time as me, had the same moss as me. Only he was in the program as a veteran who was experiencing homelessness and I was running the program. The difference was, as you mentioned, I came home to a supportive family.
He came home to an empty house and he lost his connection to his spouse and his children. Exactly what you're talking about is there's a lot of challenges. But the interpersonal connection can help people overcome a lot of the challenges. Whereas when you lose those connections is when you don't have a lot of the social support that many people are familiar with.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: that's exactly, I hate to oversimplify it, but. I think that's the foundation of what works and everything else grows from that foundation. it is the support system and loneliness. And being alone is fatal to the human spirit over time. And I think, it's not what humans are and it's not how we live.
And I think that's what we do is just make it a human experience for these men and women.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: And I think the way that you do it, is somewhat unique in my experience in that you support a range of different initiatives related to, helping veterans,who are unhoused,Is some organizations only do one thing, and when people thinking about veterans homelessness, they're thinking about the homeless shelter.
Or maybe they're thinking about like a VA's grant per diem program, but you support transitional housing for a short period of time, permanent supported housing through like hud, vash vouchers, community and permanent. Like you, you create solutions for a whole gamut of different types of solutions for veteran
homelessness.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: Yeah, I think, you know, we do a lot of programs. We have a wellness director, we do transportation. We have legal support. We have a financial literacy program. We do a meal a day for every veteran in our permanent housing at no cost to the veteran. We run a couple of kitchens. Most of those the, the the food, the transportation are primarily formerly homeless veterans.
We have a call center it's becoming part of the community. All that we've built, all that we've grown into has really been in a response to needs that we see. And we keep adding and finding ways to add to these needs. And I think one of you know, one of the pieces that we are able to do is we're able to figure out a way, I think sometimes, Agencies maybe look for a funding source and then they build the program.
We build a program and come hell or high water, we're gonna figure out a way to fund it. And you know, we do that in our transportation, for example, we do all of our rides for free. Throughout the Northeast, we do all of our transportation in our communities. We do a lot of free rides to veterans that just live in the community for medical appointments and other appointments.
And then we are also a Medicaid provider in many areas, and we get some revenue. That allows us to offset the cost of our other rides. So, you know, we do have some funding for transportation, but we've expanded on it by finding a way, and it also employs more and more veterans. and most of the veterans that work for us that came through our doors in one door and now they're part of the solution, stay with us there's not a lot of turnover in those positions.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: and hearing that idea of, see a need, develop a program to fill that need, but a lot of it is still, centered around the core aspect of housing. You've mentioned you have a wellness director, and I imagine there is a component of psychological health and perhaps even substance use, again, coming out of that core element.
but really, you're not trying to be all things to everyone. soldier Ron really just focuses on the housing and the ancillary needs that come out of keeping that person connected to their community or helping them overcome challenges in some
way.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: Correct. And we, you know, again, we partner, the VA is a great partner. You know, there's certainly, the VA is controversial and there's a lot of bad stories and difficulties, but I think we work with the local VAs, we work with the staff directly. you mentioned, HUD vash, we have several buildings that are the rents are funded by HUD vash and they have a a va.
Part of the HUD VASH program is they would have a VA case manager from the va. And we also have a case management team with a lot of our services. So together we can find a way to meet the needs. mental health, for example, the VA provides, we have a mental health clinician that works with.
Some veterans who aren't VA eligible for medical services but are eligible for housing services. And then we use other community providers. that's what we're doing. We're focused not on us or the agency, but what do the veterans need and whether we offer it or we find someone who does, it's out there somewhere and we make sure we find it.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: And I think that seems to be what has, as you were talking about, as the numbers have increased in how your programs have increased. yours is a program that's been supporting veterans for nearly 30 years, since the mid nineties, I think. Um, and, and so, you've talked generally about some of the programs, but what can you tell us specifically about some of the different things that, sold Jerron does.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: Well, I think, you know, specifically we, build and develop housing, which again, it's physical buildings. We build beautiful buildings. We're building more and we're partnering it with more. And I think that's just the first step. Then we provide a lot of services. So for example, if you're in our permanent housing, you do get a meal a day.
You'll have a case manager. They'll help you look at what you need, find out if you you know, medications you need, medical services you need. We'll find the transportation, we'll get you to appointments. We provide a lot of. Ancillary services like financial literacy. We've helped many veterans work their credit scores up through this program.
It's funded by Freddie Mac and, through that program we have a full-time employee and then a, contractor provider. We've helped many veterans buy houses. We've got a lot of stories where someone's come in and we help them buy a house. We furnish all the buildings that we build and we provide all of the necessities towels and silverware and all that.
If someone doesn't have it. the biggest thing we do is honestly S S V F, which, if you're familiar with the acronym, but it's supportive services for veteran families. We're in. Much of west of Massachusetts. We're in nine counties in New Jersey. We're in all of New York state, north of Kingston, out past Buffalo, and then all of Western Pennsylvania.
And what S S V F does, it's funded by the VA and it gives us. Funding. We have staff. We have a mobile service model. So one of the things we do do, we have like 130 Rav four s that we lease as part of these grants, and we go to the veteran. So we don't have offices. as you can see here, I'm in the basement of our admin building and.
You know, I'm the c e O, but I really don't have an office. That's my special room. and I think that concept is what we do. We serve veterans where they are. It's not your job to get to us, it's our job to get to you. So if someone calls, we'll meet 'em in the woods. We'll meet 'em at a coffee shop. We'll meet 'em at their sister's couch.
We'll meet 'em in jails. A lot of veterans we work with in the the veteran's courts to divert going to jail in certain cases and come into our program or as they're getting out of jails. Come into our program as a way to get yourself integrated back into life in whichever way you wanna go. again, I mentioned transportation.
I mentioned the meals. we have a telehealth system that we purchased, luckily just before covid hit. that allows us to do a lot of mental health. Remotely that was key, obviously during Covid. but we still continue to reach out. So I think we find the veterans, we go to the veteran and then we figure out what they need.
And there's really no limit, uh, whether we offer it, or, again, as I mentioned earlier, the community offers it or the VA or state agencies offer it.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: Again, the idea of, not just doing one thing, as in I'm, you're not just providing housing or in much of what I've seen in the homeless veteran support and in really a lot of veterans support is everybody is doing a slice of the pie. Maybe they're doing transitional housing or maybe they're just doing S S V F, case management, or maybe they're just.
Providing permanent supportive housing, like they're only doing a portion of that. but being able to support that long-term continuum as well as those wraparound services sounds like is what's become a, really successful model. I, if people wanted to find out more about soldier on maybe support you if, if they're in your catchment area, or engage with you, if they know a veteran's in need, how can
they do that?
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: the easiest way is actually, our agency is a little confusing, is Soldier on our website and our address is we soldier on. And that's because Soldier On was taken. but we. R W e s O l D I E R O n.org. So if you go to we soldier ron.org, there's a way you can donate. There's a way to contact us.
I'll give you my phone number cuz I take a lot of calls. It's 4 1 3 3 5 8. Three, six, four zero. You can call me directly sometimes agencies that are interested in doing what we do or wanna partner with us, we partner a lot in the communities that we're in. I think that's how we need to grow.
As a, you know, as a nation really, I think we need to partner, not get stuck in our little world because we never lose sight of, it's not about soldier on, it's about the veterans that we serve. I think, you know, sometimes we get caught up in our own little world of what we're trying to accomplish. And I think if you simplify it, Let's end veteran homelessness, I know we've done it by building permanent housing and supporting the housing.
I think it's 92 or 94% of the veterans that move into our permanent housing, and this can be up to 12 years ago, have been successful. In our permanent housing. It doesn't mean they haven't had struggles, they haven't had a relapse or they haven't had other issues. But we work with them through it. And that's really, you know, I think what works or what's one way to really help a national problem of veteran homelessness.
duane--_40_05-16-2023_161102: Yeah, I absolutely agree. and I'm so glad that I was able to bring, the story of Soldier on to the audience and wish you luck in everything that you do in the future. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
squadcaster-5icf_1_05-16-2023_181103: Thank you, Duane.
Once again, we'd like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. Sacrum or offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom trading options for organizations.
As you can tell this topic is a passion of mine having been involved in supporting homeless veterans at various times in my post-military career. And I appreciated Bruce's time and sharing the efforts of soldier on while they're located in the Northeast. As Bruce mentioned, I think it's a great example of an organization that's making a difference in their part of the country.
One of the things I appreciated about our conversation is Bruce's insight about how a key element of homelessness is a loss of connection to a support group or a community. Like him, I don't want to oversimplify the problem, but I agree.
Longtime listeners to the show will have heard me mentioned my father who served in Vietnam and some of the struggles that he had among them at various times were periods of financial instability And a lack of access to affordable housing. So much so that he often found himself in situations like renting a room in his sister's house, essentially renting the room that he grew up in, or at other times, living for a period of time with my sister, my brother, my wife and I, and even his ex wife. if it weren't for the support network he had, he would have been literally homeless, a number of different times.
That's not to say that this is broadly applicable to all veterans experiencing homelessness, but with all of the other complicating factors, a lack of connection to a community or a support network is often the straw that breaks the camel's back.
For veterans, especially however that loss of community is even more significant for most veterans. They miss the comradery and connection that they had with those they served with Along with, let's be honest, the structure of the institution that supported them.
It's that breakdown the connection that exacerbates the rest of the things. And it's the reestablishment of that connection. That can be the one thing that helps turn the corner in their lives.
The other thing that I'd like to point out is the comprehensive nature of the programs that soldier on provides. I talked about it in the conversation, but it bears mentioning again. Bruce and his team are focused on one aspect of support and post-military life housing veterans, the other things they do, the transportation, the meals, the financial literacy, even the columbariums are all connected to that primary purpose of supporting veterans who are experiencing homelessness.
None of it happens in a vacuum. Bruce mentioned veteran's courts and their support for justice involved veterans. They're not providing peer mentorship through the court process or supporting them in their requirements for the court, other than helping them with one aspect of their lives housing.
That's what it's going to take to address some of the significant needs for veterans who are struggling in post-military life, everyone working together to address one aspect of their needs, not one organization, providing everything it's simply not possible for a single organization to meet all of the needs of all veterans.
But what is possible is coordination between organizations to be able to address those needs.
So I hope you appreciated my conversation with Bruce. If you did, we'd appreciate hearing from you. So if you do have some feedback, let us know, drop a review in your podcast, or player of choice, or send us an email at infoa@psycharmor.org. We're always glad to hear from listeners, both feedback on the show and suggestions for future guests.
For this week, PsychArmor Resource of the Week, I'd like to share the PsychArmor course Why Financial Wellness Matters. Financial wellness is the peace of mind that you have when you balance saving and spending. This course will illustrate some of the challenges that military and veteran families face and things to consider when on the path to achieving financial wellness.