The Mission
Our mission is to initially furnish homes for veterans and their families who are transitioning into permanent housing from homelessness, and then work to re-educate those we serve about the basics of self-sufficient living.
The Objective
Our overall objective through the Foundation’s “Beyond the Streets Program” is to end veteran and other secondary population homelessness by expanding our program into cities all across the country.
The Program
During the course of a year, our volunteers follow up with each of our clients several times to ensure they are developing the necessary life skills to maintain their personal hygiene, their homes and social skills needed to reenter their communities as productive citizens.
Our volunteers spend time to re-teach many of life’s basic tasks – cleaning a house, taking a shower, or going to buy groceries to help ensure a complete transition from homelessness.
The Issue
Organizations working with the homeless are doing great work in getting these heroes off the streets, but particular attention must be made once the housing is secured. Veterans, first responders and others are being placed into permanent housing without the basic comforts of home – like a bed or sofa, dishes, or cooking essentials. If someone has to come home to an empty house, it ultimately affects their moral, self-esteem and translates into a lack of motivation to get their lives back on track. Our Foundation ensures these individuals have the necessary household goods to transform an empty house into a warm inviting home. A successful local campaign to end and prevent homelessness depends on community partnerships and compassionate citizen involvement.
The Answer
Our Beyond the Streets program steps in where local, state, and federal support for our homeless veteran’s end. There are many programs that support veterans in gaining housing, but there is no support once that housing is secured.
Additionally, most homeless agencies don’t have the resources to not only furnish homes, but to also provide follow-up care to ensure that the veteran and his family are making a full and smooth transition that will help keep them in their new home.
What we put into every home:
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· Sofas · Love Seats · Chairs · End Tables · Lamps · Dining Sets · Curtains |
· Bedding · Kitchen Supplies · Cookware · Dishes · Utensils · Lawn Mowers/Yard Supplies · Artwork, etc. |
We are NOT looking for your discarded broken pieces of furniture, torn drapes, or tarnished cutlery. Please remember the items we give out will be going into someone’s home.
For reference, all donated items are tax deductible, and are given to veterans and other families in need FREE of charge! It’s the support of the American people that make this program possible!
LIFE SKILLS TRAINING
Life skills are the skills that many people take for granted, like personal hygiene, managing money, shopping, cooking, running a home and maintaining social networks. They are essential for living independently. Many veterans who have experienced homelessness, especially chronic homelessness, lack these skills either because they never acquired them or because they lost them through extended periods of homelessness. Helping those experiencing homelessness acquire life skills can help them move on from homelessness and resettle into the community. Life skills training is different from support, help or assistance in that the aim is to promote self-sufficiency.
A HOMELESS AMERICA
About 46 million America’s are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing.
Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be dropped. If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, or a paycheck away from homelessness.
Homeless veterans are younger on average than the total veteran population. Approximately 9% are between the ages of 18 and 30, and 41% are between the ages of 31 and 50. Conversely, only 5% of all veterans are between the ages of 18 and 30, and less than 23% are between 31 and 50.
America’ s homeless veterans have served in World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Iraq (OEF/OIF), and the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Nearly half of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam era. Two-thirds served our country for at least three years, and one-third were stationed in a war zone.
Though research indicates that veterans who served in the late Vietnam and post-Vietnam era are at greatest risk of homelessness, veterans returning from the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq often have severe disabilities, including traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that are known to be correlated with homelessness. And as the military evolves, so too do the challenges. Homeless women veterans, for instance, are far more common now than in any other time in the past.
