Almost 25% of homeless people are military veterans. Transitioning from the battlefield to a civilian job or school can be challenging - especially if the veteran has unresolved problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
The chairman of the board at Clearwater’s Homeless Emergency Project understands the plight of homeless veterans at several levels. Bruce Fyfe and his wife Wanda helped raise more than $1.6 million to build a 32-unit complex specifically for homeless veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A ribbon-cutting for $3.7 million facility was this week. Veterans will start moving in November 1st.
Bruce Fyfe is a cheerful man with wire-rim glasses and rosy cheeks and would be reminiscent of Santa if his white beard was longer. He is wearing a blue long-sleeve shirt with HEP logo embroidered above the pocket. Our first stop is a transitional unit for veterans – about a third of their current population.
“There’s six apartments here, five upstairs, some are dual occupancy or single occupancy depending upon the diagnosis,” Fyfe said. “Guys in here can stay in here for a year, two years, three years. However long it takes to solve their underlying issues and problems.”
Next I get a peek at the brand new 32 unit apartment building for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
“This is pretty much what they look like, full bedroom, living area, full kitchen with a stove, microwave,” Fyfe said. “We used the same criteria we always use, would this be a place that I would stay in. If it isn’t, I don’t want to build it and that’s been the philosophy of HEP since we started.”
At the Veterans Club House, we settle into a couch to talk. Bruce is a businessman – an executive with an investment management firm - and he has volunteered on the HEP board for 21 years. So, he and his wife Wanda have been helping homeless people for decades – many of them veterans.
“The irony is that I was doing this and I couldn’t help my son,” Fyfe said. “He served three tours as a combat Marine in Iraq during the worst of the fighting. And, he was in a weapons platoon so he was – particularly his first two tours – in combat virtually every day.”
His son started showing signs of post-traumatic stress after his first tour, and even stronger PTSD symptoms after his second deployment to Iraq. He was scheduled to leave the Marine Corps with an honorable discharge, but Fyfe says his son’s unit was called back to Iraq.
“He elected to extend his tour because he didn’t want to see his unit go back without him,” Fyfe said. “One of the kids that he served with told me that during the second tour he had saved his life and they had become quite good friends and when they were going back they invited him over for dinner. And his wife told me the story and she said I feel so badly because I begged your son to go and protect my husband.”
Fyfe said that third tour for Brendan was probably “one tour too many” because his son returned with severe PTSD symptoms like anger and alienation.
His son had a hard time transitioning into civilian life. He moved to Massachusetts to be close to his Marine buddies, tried college, had several jobs, went into a VA program, turned to alcohol and then drugs.
“He ended up dying of a drug overdose at the age of 24,” Fyfe said quietly. “Which is a phone call I will never forget and never I hope anybody else ever receives.”
At the funeral for Brendan MacDonald Fyfe – in what Bruce describes as a moment of hubris – he announced that he and his wife were going to start a fund to help veterans like their son. Two and a half years later, they’re cutting the ribbon on 32 individual units for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
“And there’s some real fulfillment there,” Fyfe said. “This is a milestone, but it’s the beginning. It’s not the middle, it’s not the end. There’s a great deal of work left to be done.”
That’s because more Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are transitioning out of the military every day. Fyfe wonders if there are enough services and resources to help them transition from the battlefield to civilian work or school.
“Unfortunately, more and more veterans are going to be getting into trouble,” Fyfe said. “The war ends for the public. It does not end for the people who fought it and it certainly does not end for the families who lost loved ones in it.”
In the meantime, Fyfe is looking forward to a less public role, now that the veterans housing project is built. He is focusing on his next project – developing a business that will make HEP self-sustaining.