American Spirit

by Taya Kyle

  People sometimes think that her job heading a grief program must be depressing. It’s not.

  “It’s a lot of fun. I think to know that you’re making a difference in these kids’ life is just . . .”

  Meyers pauses.

  Just rewarding?

  Just fulfilling?

  Just something you feel you need to do?

  The way she laughs, it’s clear it’s all of the above.

  “Riding around in a corporate jet was cool,” she finally answers. “But oh my gosh, this is important work. It takes a whole team and a whole community to bring it all together.”

  As she says, everyone is going to have grief at some point in their life. Helping one another work through it is an important and very human thing to do.

  Five

  A Roof Over Their Heads

  Giving Shelter

  We live in the most advanced country the world has ever seen, one with an abundance of food, open land, and opportunity. Historically, there has never been a society as well off for as long as ours.

  Yet every night more than a half million of our fellow citizens go to bed on park benches, under bridge trestles, behind a garbage dumpster.

  It’s a sin, certainly.

  And yet, curing homelessness is not an easy thing. We’ve put men on the moon, taught silicon chips to make music selections for us, built robots that can build robots. But putting a roof over someone’s head is a far more complex task.

  How big a problem is homelessness in the U.S.? Here are some statistics from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, as of January 2017:

  Total nightly homelessness: estimated at 553,742

  Ratio of homeless to total population: 17:10,000

  Of the total homeless population, 360,867 live in shelters; the rest live on the streets or in buildings that were not meant as homes

  Veterans account for about 7.2 percent of the homeless

  About a third of the homeless are family units, often just a single parent with one or more children

  While homelessness overall has declined on a percentage basis since the 1970s, it increased by just under 1 percent in the last year statistics were available, from 2016 to 2017.

  The causes of homelessness are myriad, which is one reason that the problem remains so persistent. While drug and alcohol abuse, as well as mental illness—often together—are major factors, families often become homeless because of financial catastrophes that have nothing to do with their behavior. The bad luck of a car accident or cancer can easily wipe out a young family’s life savings, even if they have insurance; miss a rent or mortgage payment, and a sad cycle begins.

  There is help, both through government and nongovernment programs that pay all or part of a month’s rent. But real solutions have to attack the actual problem that led to homelessness; otherwise a person can’t escape the spiral that led him or her downward.

  But there are groups and individuals taking a shot at doing just that. And I’ve been privileged to meet and speak with a few.

  What impresses me most of all is their humility. Not one person working on the problem ever told me, “This is the only solution; my idea is the best.” What they say instead is something along the lines of “This is one possibility.”

  This might help some people.

  We want to try this and see if it works for others.

  They’re also amazingly optimistic—you have to be to work on the problem.

  Little Houses, Big Hearts

  Safe Haven

  If you’ve spent a few hours watching shows on home decorating and improvement channels like HGTV, you undoubtedly know that among the hottest trends in American homebuilding are tiny houses.

  Also known as micro-houses and mini-houses, the category is so new that definitions are up in the air. Generally, a tiny house is small—“tiny”—compared to most American suburban homes. Something in the area of three hundred square feet would be considered the ideal tiny size. (Tiny houses are definitely bucking a trend. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average home built in America in 2017 was 2,496 square feet. If you were to go back to 1973, the average size was 1,660.)

  Tiny doesn’t mean rustic or plain, let alone deprived. Most of these houses are well-appointed, albeit with an extremely clever use of space. High-end appliances, granite countertops, elaborate lighting and sound systems, decks—the square footage is small, not the amenities. They come in a number of shapes, from A-frames to saltboxes; some are even on wheels. The models featured on some of the TV shows are truly phenomenal.

  One of those TV shows was playing in the background one day when Pastor Donnie Davis sat down at his New Jersey home to have coffee with a friend of his. Donnie is a former Air Force veteran and law enforcement officer who found himself overwhelmed by post-traumatic stress back around 2000. The stress had accumulated over the five years he worked as a cop in the Washington, D.C., area. It pushed him from a job and into some addictions; he took two years off to recover.

  He did more than recover. Working past his difficulties, he set his life on a new direction as a minister, with a mission to help other cops and military veterans, especially those with PTSD. His quest took him back to the southern stretches of New Jersey, where he’d grown up.

  “Everybody I served with in the police department thinks it’s crazy that I’m a pastor now,” he confesses. “I was the guy everybody wanted to be on a call with. I was crazy. But you just hit rock bottom, and you look in the mirror, and you realize there’s more to life than this.”

  You can take the pastor out of the police car, but you can’t take the policeman out of the pastor, at least not this one. He jokes that he’s more comfortable patting someone down than praying for them. And many of his close friends are still law enforcement officers and veterans.

  “I’m still in that mind-set, serve and protect,” says Donnie. “Now I can do it in a different aspect but still take care of my brothers and sisters. . . . All of a sudden you find yourself helping others, and it’s not a choice. You just have to do it.”

  Skip forward to 2016, when Donnie and his friend Ron Koller sat down for coffee. By that time, Ron was senior pastor of Amazing Grace Ministries, a nontraditional Christian church based in New Jersey about eighteen miles southeast of Philadelphia. By nontraditional, we mean that while the church did not have its own church building, it catered to congregants and believers in a variety of ways, with services at a local high school, for example.

  An immense offer had suddenly come the pastor’s way—a 277-acre camp complete with a lake was available to purchase at a relatively low price.

  What would you do with it? his friend asked.

  House the homeless.

  Build houses? Too expensive.

  Then a television show playing in the background caught their attention. It featured tiny houses.

  Small houses? Just the thing!

  And so, Operation Safe Haven was born.

  The church purchased the property for $1.3 million, with Donnie and his wife cosigning and guaranteeing the loan. Unused for a decade, the camp property was beautiful but overgrown, with buildings in need of repair or removal and a dam that had to be fixed. And there was the matter of building the houses. Donnie started a GoFundMe campaign, asking for donations to purchase pre-built homes.

  The public responded. One of the largest pledges, given anonymously through the website, was for $50,000; there were several other five-figure contributions. But nearly 1,200 donations that had been given when we were working on this book were $100 or less; often much less.

  Among the most poignant donations was one from Pedro and Ida Gonzalez, who lost their son Michael to an IED in Iraq in 2008. The family and a nonprofit started in his honor provided enough money to purchase a house in Michael’s name.

  A total of $259,000 had been raised when we spoke to Donnie recently, putting the project past its halfway point. As the money came in, so did volunteers. Besides church and other ar
ea community members, companies like Home Depot and Comcast sponsored daylong work sessions for employees at the site. Contractors donated work and supplies. Local television stations and newspapers helped out by doing stories on the project, encouraging more volunteers to join the effort.

  The property was bought in June 2016; the first micro-house arrived shortly thereafter. There are now four homes; the group adds them as money is raised, avoiding debt. The homes are built by a modular builder and delivered to the site; sometimes they include donated items, like granite countertops in the case of the first batch. The homes are then furnished by Operation Safe Haven, with everything from beds to spoons, all new.

  The floor plans are fairly simple, with a kitchen, bathroom, and sleeping area in a twenty-by-fifteen-foot space. The door to each home opens toward a common area centered around a fire pit; the back of each house is private and looks onto the woods or the lake. Plans call for modest porches at the front of each home, large enough for two rocking chairs.

  “Because we’re volunteers and rely on donations, it moves slow,” admits Donnie. “Our goal is to be self-sustaining.”

  Along those lines, there are plans to install solar panels, eventually supplying enough electricity for all the homes’ needs.

  The first resident arrived with addiction problems; whether they were a contributing problem or not, he had lost his house and was without shelter. He is now clean, working with a local company. The second occupant was a Korean War veteran whose original home had slowly deteriorated until it was uninhabitable. And so it goes. The first residents have all been men, though there is no gender or other restrictions, aside from them being veterans and homeless.

  How many homes will they have eventually?

  As much as they can pay for, says Donnie. “They’re all lakefront homes, and we have a big lake.”

  Besides the GoFundMe page, the church has benefited from fund-raisers, including a concert featuring the ’60s group the Temptations. The ultimate goal is to do more than just create housing; Donnie, the congregation, and his friends want to help the people who move in recover from the circumstances that made them homeless in the first place. Peer counseling, job help, and other services are available as part of the project, whether directly or through referral.

  Donnie points out that while there is a government program to help low-income veterans get housing, the income level is so low that it makes it almost impossible for a veteran to hold a job and get the help. It’s a perverse catch-22—which do you want: a job or a place to live? If you take the job, you lose government help . . . and can’t afford your home.

  At Operation Safe Haven, there are no income limitations. In fact, the aim is to encourage veterans to work and advance in their job or career so they can move on.

  “It doesn’t matter if you make zero dollars or a million dollars; you can stay,” he promises. With the help of on-site counselors and referrals, “We’ll get you squared away.”

  Aside from the problem of homelessness, one of the motivations for the pastor was the number 22—reputed to be the number of veterans who take their lives by suicide every day. The cause in many instances is untreated or poorly treated PTSD.

  Post-traumatic stress is said to affect as many as 15 percent of all Vietnam War veterans, some 12 percent of those who fought in the first Gulf War (1990–91), and between 11 and 20 percent of those who fought in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan).

  The suicide rate among policemen is also high, though not as well-known. Being at the intersection of those two communities was a powerful motivator for the New Jersey man. “Most law enforcement members know what the barrel of their gun tastes like,” says Donnie woefully. Operation Safe Haven aims at reducing the numbers, one at a time.

  Donnie handled his PTSD through therapy as well as a service dog. He also credits his work with veterans, especially those with PTSD, with helping him cope with his own demons. Peer-to-peer counseling—or just talking to others who have been there, done that—seems to help many people.

  But it can be hard, especially taking that first step and admitting that you need help.

  “You’ve been trained to be this invincible warrior,” says Donnie, “and now all of a sudden there’s a chink in your armor and you can’t figure out why.”

  As Donnie’s story shows, though, PTSD is not a life sentence. It is an obstacle. Getting a hand up and not a handout helps veterans and other PTSD sufferers feel empowered and hopeful about the future.

  Just over forty thousand veterans are considered homeless across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Forty thousand is too many for Operation Safe Haven, even in Donnie’s relentlessly optimistic assessments of what the program can do. But others can fill the gap—inspiring others is nearly as important as getting more homes on the ground there.

  “We’d love to inspire others to do what we’re doing,” agrees Donnie. “I can’t help every homeless vet. But if I can inspire others, I’ll be happy.”

  “It’s not that hard to get the vets off the street, the ones who want help,” he adds, noting that the actual outlay of money is far less than some might think. “If we can do this at no cost to the vets in New Jersey, one of the most expensive states, we can do it anywhere.”

  Interested groups and individuals from Missouri, Florida, and Delaware have already looked at Operation Safe Haven’s operation. With their own local modifications and inspirations, I’m sure there’ll be a ripple effect across the country.

  “In this day and age when you have, left and right, so many divisions, this is really something that brings everyone together,” notes Donnie. “Everyone can get behind taking care of our veterans.”

  Amen to that.

  Get Up, Suit Up, Show Up

  Solutions for Change

  Because Chris Megison couldn’t finish a few more push-ups, hundreds of homeless families now have shelter, jobs, and a path toward a better future.

  What do push-ups and helping the homeless have to do with each other?

  Let me explain. . . .

  It was in Southern California, shortly after the end of the first Gulf War. By his own admission, Chris and a bunch of his fellow Marines were goofing around and doing some “stupid stuff.” Their commanding officer decided that some changes were in order, and being a creative leader, he wanted his Marines to undergo a little more than physical discipline as part of his correction for their misbehavior.

  It happened that he wanted some volunteers to go into the community and help with things that needed to be done. Specifically, the CO needed a volunteer to work in a soup kitchen. His motivation may have been part humanitarian and part public relations; in any event, it was a good cause and something he expected his Marines to jump on.

  In fact, they were so eager to volunteer that they made it into a contest: the least number of push-ups wins . . . the job of volunteering.

  Not particularly auspicious, maybe.

  Now, Marines can do a lot of push-ups. So the fact that Chris Megison lost that contest doesn’t mean that he had poor chest or arm strength. On the contrary. Compared to the rest of us, I’m sure he was a beast when it came to push-ups. But he was in with a pack of beasts. Or, I should say, Marines.

  After losing the contest, he did his duty, reporting as a “volunteer” at the soup kitchen in town. While he was there, he spooned some soup into a bowl of a local known to the volunteers as Wolfman.

  The name wasn’t necessarily a compliment or only a description of his beard-covered face and unkempt manner.

  “What’s your name?” asked Chris as he served the man.

  Wolfman stared at him, his lips clamped together.

  Chris chattered a bit, trying to get a smile out of him, or at least some sort of acknowledgment. What he got instead was something halfway between a sneer and a snarl.

  Undeterred, the Marine finished giving out food to the line, then went over with his
own bowl of soup and sat down next to Wolfman, who had plenty of empty seats around him.

  Twenty minutes later, Wolfman revealed his actual name: Steve.

  Then came a bit more of his history.

  “He had jumped into a bottle of Jack Daniel’s about fifteen years before I met him,” remembers Chris. It was a tragic situation—Steve had lost his mom and dad when he was young and had drifted through life and into addiction and homelessness.

  As they ate their soup, Steve began talking about how society was reacting to him. Feeding him, sheltering him, giving him money—but in truth, admitted Steve, none of these things were specifically helping Steve, the person. Kindhearted though these gestures may have been, they did nothing to touch the core of his being. Or his problems.

  Intrigued, maybe a little troubled, Chris went back to the base, thinking about everything the homeless man had told him.

  What is it really like to be homeless?

  What would I need if I was in that situation—beyond the obvious things like food and a place out of the rain? What would really improve my life?

  He decided to find out.

  “I had a 96,” says Chris, referring to a four-day pass that gave him time off from his duties. Normally, Marines use those to visit family or friends or just take a little vacation from the rigors of military life and discipline. Instead, Chris used the time to find out what it was like to be homeless, wandering the streets. The American Spirit was nudging him to do some good. “I went out to see for myself what Steve was telling me. It really made me mad. Society was just responding in a way that hurt people.”