Glenn Wilcoxson Veteran Center

The photo above is a picture of an old school that was donated to our organization. This building will be renovated to house homeless veterans and house our PTSD/Substance Abuse residential program.

We are trying to raise funds to completely renovate this, bring it to ADA standards, meet all city codes, and we also intend to build several small houses on the land to house veterans that have families.

How did we start and what are we trying to accomplish?

I'm a Marine Corps OIF Veteran and when I came home from Iraq, I became a Police Officer. I worked nights the whole time and I would be waived down by people asking where they could go because they were homeless. Well, I couldn't tell them anywhere, because there wasn't. So, I would have to let them know that the Salvation Army opens around 6-7 and until then, go to the PD and try to get warm for a little while and then go on so they didn't get in trouble.

In 2014, a couple of years after quitting the PD,  I began working on ideas of how to help struggling and homeless veterans. I came up with my plan, got people on board that I know have the heart for it like I do and we began bringing our vision together. This is where we came up with the Glenn Wilcoxson Veteran Center, named after my grandpa, who was a WW2 veteran and POW in the Battle of the Bulge.www.gwveterancenter.org 

Our Center isn't going to be just a homeless shelter, it's going to be several facilities. There will be two types of shelters, a short term and long term shelter. The long term will be a program for those who need rehabilitation and job training to become products of society again. We will also have an apartment complex. Once they graduate the program, we will have a job lined up for them and they can choose to go out on their own or to stay in our low income veteran apartments.

Our facilities will provide services to include: drug and alcohol rehabilitation, mental counseling- one on one and groups sessions, physical therapy, VA claims, etc.!

We will also have a common area and recreational area for veterans who do not stay at our facilities and just want to come hang out with other veterans.

Later on down the road our goal is to build an assisted living/nursing home for the veterans so that they do not have to pay. The VA pays for this type of care, but they only allow you to go to certain ones, so we want to give them another place without having them give up all of their assets and be able to still be near their familes.

Please help us serve those who have given so much to this great nation!