MECKLENBURG COUNTY, N.C. — The pandemic, a housing crisis, and ongoing economic uncertainty are leaving veterans either experiencing homelessness or on the verge of homelessness and hundreds of them can’t rely on a federal housing program for help.
In response, an area nonprofit is getting creative to meet their needs.
Raising the bar of homelessness
Charley and Rhonda Blissit, both veterans, hold hands on a cool March morning as the husband and wife walk through the gravel over a set of railroad tracks and head into the woods.
They live next to a creek in Concord. The hum of their generator drowns out the birds chirping. The Blissits sleep inside a makeshift tarp-covered home dug into the ground, which Charley and his brother, a fellow veteran, built.
"April 15 of this year will be two straight years here," 42-year-old Charley Blissit said. "We utilize our resources like the military taught us."
Blissit served in the Army National Guard for a decade, including one combat tour in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. He has two sons in New York. Blissit and his wife are trying to "raise the bar of homelessness," but their tent community is not meant to be a permanent solution.
"I know that better days are coming if I just keep believing in it," Blissit said. "Some people just have a harder time getting through a past that takes years to get over."
Charley has a complicated history, which includes physical and mental disabilities, criminal convictions, and a prior eviction. He said those challenges, along with his current credit score, make it difficult to find permanent housing even though he has enough money to afford his own place.
"What did I give 10 years of my life for? For this?" he asked. "If you're actually trying to rise above your mistakes, why keep knocking you down?"
A far cry from 2018
Just five years ago, Blissit and his wife were on a different path. In a 2018 Men's Shelter of Charlotte (now Roof Above) video, they celebrated moving from shelters to an apartment.
"I feel more than blessed to have a roof over my head and a place to call home," a clean-shaven Blissit said at the time.
Charley initially stayed at the shelter after getting injured on the job. He fell off a roof in April 2017, seriously injuring his spine, he told WCNC Charlotte.
Despite their 2018 success, that solution proved only temporary.
"I'm living proof it works"
Alan Winninger, thankfully, has a permanent solution.
"I'm living proof it works," he said from his new home in Arizona. "Thank God I got out of it."
The Air Force veteran and his 13-year-old son with autism spent much of the pandemic moving from one Charlotte hotel to the next after the City of Charlotte condemned their rental home in late 2019. He knows how bad others have it. In fact, it brings him to tears.
"It's hard," he said. "I fell between the cracks like a lot of other veterans did," Winninger said. "To become homeless, it shakes you to the core and there's a time when you think, 'I'm never getting out of this' It needs to get better, so the veterans don't die alone; they don't die homeless."
He can thank the Veterans Affairs' Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program, which paid for transitional housing just long enough for him to get back to work. The helping hand is exactly the kind of support that can rescue a veteran experiencing homelessness or on the verge. But SSVF, with its strict rules, can't help everyone.
"Sometimes, you're just not at-risk enough"
Thomas Jacobs once served his country. Now, he serves his community with Veterans Bridge Home as a community care coordinator. He said of the 672 housing support requests the organization received in 2022, around 75% of veterans on the verge of experiencing homelessness did not qualify for SSVF.
"It's very upsetting," Jacobs, an Army National Guard veteran himself, said. "I just really couldn't believe that there was a legitimate reason as to why anybody would be turned away. Sometimes, you're just not at-risk enough."
On July 1, 2022, the VA directed grant recipients to spend a minimum of 60% of their money to serve homeless veterans. Out of necessity, Veterans Bridge Home started collaborating with community partners to provide wrap-around services for at-risk veterans using more flexible grants.
"What we try to do is scramble to find other programs," Jacobs said. "Our goal is to step in to try to address those issues, so they don't actually lose housing and get evicted."
After piloting the idea for the past two years and helping 75 families in the process, the non-profit recently secured $1 million in American Rescue Plan money from Mecklenburg County to fill in the gaps. Jacobs said that money will help up to 400 veterans and families over the next two years.
"The goal is to reduce the number of homeless individuals, as well as make sure we don't increase the number for those that are at risk of losing housing," Jacobs added.
Built for Zero
The plan builds on Mecklenburg County's participation in "Built for Zero," a national program aimed at eliminating homelessness. The goal is to get to "functional zero," which Community Solutions defines as "a milestone, which must be sustained, that indicates a community has measurably solved homelessness for a population." Although homelessness may still occur, when a community has enough resources and support, "homelessness is rare and brief." The program has met its "functional zero" for veterans in 12 participating communities, but not Mecklenburg County yet.
Mecklenburg County records show the number of active homeless veterans increased by almost a third over the last year, from 183 in January 2022 to 240 in February 2023. The numbers are well below the January 2019 count of 318 but were headed in the wrong direction in recent months.
"We've got quite a ways to go," Jacobs acknowledged.
While Mecklenburg County does not have a specific timeline to reach functional zero for veterans, there is a “community target” to hit the milestone by June 2026.
"Veteran homeless work is under the scope of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Continuum of Care’s Veteran Workgroup, also known as Housing Our Heroes," Mecklenburg County Public Information Officer Alex Burnett said. "This group meets monthly to set aims on reducing the number of veterans in Charlotte-Mecklenburg who are experiencing homelessness."
A problem once solved, now back again
The county's February total of 240 active homeless veterans is a far cry from the declaration former Board of Commissioners Chairman Trevor Fuller made during his State of the County address in 2016.
"I declare today that we have put an end to veteran homelessness in Mecklenburg County," Fuller said during his 2016 address, garnering cheers.
While the community works toward a solution, the Department of Veterans Affairs is working to become more flexible with its SSVF program. The agency told WCNC Charlotte it broadened eligibility last fall to allow veterans with more resources the option of additional assistance.
"VA’s update to the SSVF program regulations expanded program eligibility to be more inclusive to households whose income is up to 80% AMI," the VA said in a statement. "Furthermore, VA regularly reviews program regulations for all its homeless programs and services to ensure they are inclusive and responsive to the evolving needs of Veterans experiencing homelessness and housing instability."
According to the VA, the agency awarded an additional $3 million in the fiscal year of 2022 "due to increased demand for SSVF services in North Carolina."
Nothing is permanent
Mecklenburg County's peaks and valleys battling homelessness are a reminder that nothing is permanent. Charley Blissit knows that too.
The SSVF program helped house him and his wife in Salisbury after their 2020 lease termination. At the time, he said they worked at a dollar store while they stayed at a motel. However, he ended his participation in the program in April 2021 after realizing the program "wasn't actually helping" get them out of motel living. He said, it wasn't until the days that followed that the VA told him he was supposed to have requested an agency representative to help them find a place they could afford.
Blissit has lived in the woods ever since, but isn't giving up hope. Instead, he's making the best of his current situation and working on his credit score in the process. He prays one day he'll be able to build an affordable housing community of his own for himself and his friends, complete with plumbing, running water, and an actual roof.
"That's what I've been praying over for a long time," he said overcome with emotion. "I'm praying for a better world."
Contact Nate Morabito at nmorabito@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
EVICTION PREVENTION ASSISTANCE FOR VETERANS
HOME ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS IN CHARLOTTE
This story is part of ‘I Can’t Afford to Live Here,’ a collaborative reporting project focused on solutions to the affordable housing crisis in Charlotte.
WCNC Charlotte is part of the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative (CJC), launched by the Solutions Journalism Network with funding from the Knight Foundation. The CJC strengthens the local news ecosystem and increases opportunities for engagement. It is supported by a combination of local and national grants and sponsorships. For more information, visit charlottejournalism.org.