hVET

The goal of this campaign is to fund the presentation of the homeless Veterans Empowerment Tent, and the followup the homeless Veterans Empowerment Town. This is a new concept in helping homeless people. My focus is on homeless veterans since I was a homeless veteran for over a decade. 

I found by living among many homeless people over that decade, and seeing it in myself, that one of the barriers to getting help to a homeless person is to get them to feel they deserve it. 

Once a person finds themselves on the street it begins a process that erodes the person's self-respect.  When their self-respect is challenged, or compromised they shy away when outreach workers come along and miss the opportunity. If they get help, many times they will flake out if put in a program with a case worker. They could even get as far as housing and flake out and lose that. 

So, my feeling is to start helping them by giving them a boost to their self confidence. The focus of the homeless Veterans Empowerment Tent will be to provide an event that will approach the homeless issue on many fronts. 

First -  there will be many motivational speakers. These speakers have agreed to tailor their speeches toward building up the self-image of the audience.  I currently have two volunteer professional motivational speakers committed to the project. I have emails from a few more that would like to discuss this

Second - I will be inviting many local church homeless outreach teams to participate as attendees. There will be small tables scattered around the grounds that will seat two people to give the homeless outreach teams a private place to have a one on one conversation with someone they plan to help. 

In between the speakers we will have other entertainment. I feel it might be a good place for local bands, or other talent,  just getting started to show what they can do. But I hope to fill that time with many first hand testimonies from those who recovered from homelessness and/or mental health issues.

This will be a COMMUNITY event, designed to raise the awareness of the general population of homeless in San Diego County. I, myself,  spent a decade on the street in major depression, bi-polar issues and three suicide attempts. 

If I can get City permission I would like to set aside a section for homeless people to pitch a tent or roll out a bag and stay on the grounds for the duration. I have already brought up the subject with my City liaison. He is going to see about getting it permitted.

I have had a meeting with two City Council member's aides. Both are very enthusiastic. I believe I have a good representative in the City government for this project.

I have met with the supplier of items I will need. The tent, tables, chairs, sound system, stage and everything. They even have a shower trailer that has three full bathrooms in it. That, maybe two, will be parked on the property near the encampment area.

There will be food trucks. I would like to be able to issue coupons for free food from the trucks. There will be a dining area with tables and chairs. 

The main idea is to address the self-image of so many homeless people. Build up their self respect and connect them with those who have the means and heart to help. It will be a networking event designed to not only connect homeless, focusing in homeless veterans,  with those who can help them., but ... 

The secondary, and inevitable, result will be the connections made between the local homeless outreach teams with each other. I am hoping that after this event the homeless support community will be stronger and more efficient. 

As hVET succeeds in getting many homeless veterans and others off the street, and raises awareness of the homeless veteran issue in the San Diego area, it will be time to begin parlaying that success and attention into raising funds for hVET2, the homeless Veterans Empowerment Town. This will be a multi acre facility where we will be able to house up to 200 veterans at a time. 

The reason for 200 capacity is that there are about 1,400 homeless veterans in the San Diego area. There are a limited number of veterans service organizations that can actually take a veteran off the street and support him/her until self-supporting.

If we start with a capacity of 200, within a few months some of those will be graduating into their own self-support system. As some graduate it will create openings for others. We will be having continual openings to take more off the street. If we can take them off the streets faster than they go on the street, we will have a handle on the issue. At that point we will turn our focus to homeless prevention or intercession. 

On "campus" there will be male and female dorms. I would like to have these constructed on mobile, modular, platforms so as the ratio of male to female changes we can re-arrange the dorm capacities. 

There will be a media building. Inside there will be training rooms. For some subjects, like how to write a resume, or how to interview as well as office skills like Microsoft Office and others, there will be live instructors. 

Other subjects will have supporting materials, like books, online learning portals and more for self study. It is possible to work a deal with one of out fine local learning institutions to offer free training, either on-their campus or on our campus. 

We can make partnerships with many local businesses to contact us first when they have positions open. Maybe one or more of those businesses can provide training to our clients with the eye on hiring them.

There are many other things that can be done. The dining area will be used for training in two ways, both culinary training and hospitality training with servers and wait staff like a real restaurant environment. 

The atmosphere of dining as if in a real restaurant an be a contributor to the self-esteem of the homeless veteran. I would like a community garden that can serve multiple purposes. One is to offer a therapy to PTSD sufferers. A garden can be very therapeutic. Second it will supply food to the community,, helping keep the costs of feeding the community down. Third - we may have enough surplus produce to sell to local restaurants and to offer at Farmer's Markets. 

There are two veterans groups in the area that use animal therapy. I would like to have regular visits from them. One is horse therapy and the other is canine therapy. Maybe even have some community dogs and cats that roam around freely. The vets can help take care of them, giving them a way to express and feel love.

Around the campus there will be signs with positive affirmations. Neural linguistic programming will be taught as well as other techniques to overcome depression and become more clear in how to take back their lives.

I personally have overcome a decade of major depression and other severe mental health issues after I figured out how to re-program myself to be a more positive thinker. I had to figure it out over time by trial and error. I actually figured out what is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, as I learned after the fact.

As this project unfolds, and we have a board of directors we will be able to plan much more. I believe this can be a game changer in homeless veteran, and general homeless, support.

The theme of the homeless Veterans Empowerment Town is Empowerment. In my time on the streets and in shelters I found that many times homeless shelters or other accommodations treat the clients with little respect. Many times it is just a job and the compassion is missing from their dealings with clients. 

Homeless people who are already in a depressive situation need positive and cheerful interactions. In my time in shelters, as well as hospitalization, I found my feelings of suicide amplified. 

This will not happen at the homeless Veterans Empowerment Town. 

I believe Empowerment is the key to helping homeless. Help me form a network to take a BIG bite out of the homeless issue, especially the homeless veteran issue.

Consider that if this new paradigm becomes popular it could spread across the nation. This model can significantly change the game. 

The timetable I am working toward is to have the event as early in the summer as possible. I would ideally like to produce it around the Fourth of July for the symbology. (Symbology is very helpful in working with mental health issues). 

The goal is set high. I expect to be able to do a very nice job of hVET, with many services for the homeless population, for about $50,000. I set the goal way high to raise funds to begin hVET2. 

All unused donations for hVET will rollover to hVET2. When ready there will be a GoFundMe for hVET2 as well.

I am a spiritual man, I was an ordained minister before I had my crash. I have reactivated my ministerial credentials. I managed to not only find my way out of deep depression, with NO medication, but have also survived three suicide attempts. All three show signs of Spiritual intervention. (For instance, I was blown off the tracks by an oncoming train instead of being hit).

What hVET means to me is an opportunity to help alleviate the suffering and despair of having your life radically changed to living on the streets. I went through a decade of darkness. It still brings tears to my eyes to think how close I came to ending my life. I do not like the idea of others going through that darkness. I am truly blessed to be able to do this. I am humbled by what Spirit can do. This event is a product of ideas that have been coming to me. I believe Spirit is involved in this project.

With that said, I do not want this to be a religious event. The calling here is to minister to the immediate needs of support. There will be many spiritual councilors from many faiths that will be invited as attendees. They will help with spiritual issues one on one.

I am very grateful to not only still be here, but to have been given the idea and the plan to help hundreds of other homeless veterans and other homeless people. I feel that if this project is a success it is because I just followed the lead from Spirit.