Veteran’s death illustrates challenges, increased visibility in Cedar Rapids homelessness

CEDAR RAPIDS — Last Thanksgiving, as Maxine Prime tended to people she always helped at Willis Dady Homeless Services, one of her clients gave her a piece of advice.

She was feeling sick, but still was helping others before herself. Her homeless client, Roger Starr, told her to go home and recover — that if she didn’t take care of herself first, others like him would die from a lack of her care.

For more than seven months, Roger camped out near the Willis Dady shelter, but refused to go inside. The day after Thanksgiving, after months of unsuccessful attempts to bring him in for shelter or to connect him to services, Willis Dady staff finally persuaded him to come inside.

And that day, after living homeless intermittently for several years and unsheltered for most of 2022, Roger died at age 66.

“His last breath was in a shelter, and that hurts,” said Shannon Fay, a veteran housing case manager for Willis Dady.

Last year, 30 people like Roger died while living unsheltered in the streets of Linn County. Six of them were veterans. So far this year, six more have died. Two of them were veterans.

Roger’s story

Though Roger’s situation — dying homeless in Cedar Rapids — was not unique, his story illustrates a tension homeless advocates have faced as the local homeless population continues to grow with no new solutions and no end in sight.

  Buy Photo

Roger’s difficulty with housing started several years ago, when he became estranged from his wife and started living at the Rodeway Inn in southwest Cedar Rapids.

After serving his country during the Vietnam War, retiring from a career as an iron worker in the Chicago area and moving to Iowa with his wife, he found himself in the same situation as more than 100 others in the community last year: homeless.

He was housed once through homeless services for veterans, when he got a place at a northeast Cedar Rapids apartment complex for 10 months. By May 2022, the apartment was scheduled for forcible entry and repossession.

With no evident relationship with his estranged wife, two stepsons or family, Roger probably lost that apartment because he spent too much of his monthly pension on others, say advocates who knew Roger best. He had a little more monthly income than the average client, but most of his cash was gone by the fifth day of each month.

Aaron Terrones, support services director for Willis Dady, got to know him through their drives to the bank every payday. During those rides, Roger’s dreams varied.

Some days, Roger would talk about saving enough to buy a vehicle to travel out of state. Other times, he would talk about buying a house across the street from Willis Dady to share with other homeless friends. But all of his plans had one condition: helping others also experiencing homelessness, not just himself.

In the last seven months of Roger’s life, he was cited with trespassing four times. In October, he was arrested for it. Almost every trespassing citation lists the same place: the Willis Dady men’s shelter at 1247 Fourth Ave. SE, or the area near it.

“Neighbors see Roger and say that’s an eyesore. I think that’s what the problem is,” said Fay. “We need to change a lot of people’s outlooks on what it’s really like. Because it could be any one of us at any time.”

Roger helped others before himself

Roger refused to accept help, no matter how many times it was offered.

“I’ve got to take care of my people,” he said with each refusal — referring to the homeless community he had grown close to through his own journey.

Described as gruff, stubborn and fiercely protective of those he cared about, Roger protected others from those who preyed on the homeless and their meager monthly income. With no blood family to live with, they were his family.

  Buy Photo

In a mentality he couldn’t shed after his honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1977, he refused to leave anyone behind. The day after Thanksgiving, his death was the only thing that could force him to leave everyone behind.

“He really wanted there to be some changes that occurred with other people on the street experiencing homelessness,” said Denine Rushing, shelter services director for Willis Dady. “Roger knew that if he got with the (Veterans Affairs services), they’d get him off the streets and he could do that at any time. But he also knew that the people he was sleeping outside with didn’t have that option.”

The challenges of going to a shelter — be they addictions, mental health issues or a mindframe that says others need the help more — made it a nonviable choice for Roger, as is has for others. But unlike others who go to great lengths to stay out of sight, Roger slept in one of the most visible places — near the shelter itself.

In a world where the housed want to dictate what homelessness should look like, where it can be contained and determined how the homeless should receive help, Roger refused to be moved along with each neighbors’ complaint. His stubbornness highlighted a truth that advocates have been saying for years: There’s only so many times you can shuffle around the homeless population before there are no more places to hide.

The majority of Cedar Rapids’ unsheltered homeless population are single men. Once the Willis Dady men’s shelter is full, there are no other options in Linn County.

“There was a bigger message than Roger even realized — he made homelessness visible,” Rushing said. “Roger was spreading a message without even knowing it.”

Veterans struggle disproportionately

In the United States, only 7 percent of the population are veterans. But among the homeless, veterans account for 13 percent of the population, according to the National Coalition for Homeless veterans.

Last year in Linn County, 20 percent of the homeless people who died were veterans. So far this year, one-third of the homeless people who have died were veterans.

“(Roger) chose to serve his country. He didn’t choose to serve with all the consequences that come with that,” said Terrones, a veteran himself.

Homeless veteran case workers and specialists say that mental illness after service, especially PTSD, affects many of their clients. Going hand-in-hand with untreated mental illness, self medication leads to addictions that can make situations even more complicated to resolve.

  Buy Photo

Fay said many veterans experience challenges receiving care from the Veterans Affairs health care system. And for veterans who need it, accepting help is easier said than done.

“It (often) takes them to be very, very desperate” to accept help, said John Greene, outreach worker for HACAP’s homeless veteran clients. “A lot of them continue to come back time and time again.”

In a culture of self-reliance among veterans, neglecting the resources available to them is common. In helping veterans, Greene has found many who have never tapped into their VA benefits or aren’t aware of all the resources available exclusively for them.

As with many veterans honors, homeless vets tell themselves they’re undeserving of the benefits, or that others deserve them more.

“I’ll be all right, baby,” is something that Prime can still hear Roger say in her head.

Veterans specialists say that, overall, the homeless veteran population in Eastern Iowa is covered well in terms of the number of case workers. It’s often other issues in the course of case management that complicate problem-solving.

Many veterans’ issues overlap with the same challenges for those who never served.

Finding landlords willing to take homeless clients is a barrier in itself, said HACAP case manager Sarah Regan. Even for those receiving VA pensions and benefits, a lack of budgeting skills after they get into housing can exacerbate a precarious relationship.

Roger’s last eviction in May 2022 was prompted by one month of missed rent — $525.

And when they get housed, it’s often to an empty or nearly-empty home, with few avenues for securing affordable furniture.

“Often, we’re stuck putting people in substandard housing,” said Regan. “It doesn’t work out, so that’s part of the cycle — people coming in and out because there’s no other choice in places.”

When other personal factors snowball into a life of living outside, the discrimination homeless people face from passersby, neighbors and business owners leads to internalized shame that further lowers their self esteem.

“When people tell you that you’re disgusting and dirty, that they don’t want you in their business, it affects their self-esteem,” Greene said. “It’s so defeating when every day you’re told you’re worthless.”

For some veterans, it’s a message they started hearing about themselves even before they became homeless. For those who came to love Roger, accepting him as he was delivered a new lesson to advocates who work with some of the city’s most vulnerable people.

“The main thing I learned is that we have to accept homelessness in whatever form it comes in. We can’t dictate what it looks like,” said Rushing, who has been with Willis Dady for 17 years. “Roger had gotten to the point where he was tired of following along to the beat of other people’s drums. He wanted to live life on his own terms.“

And so the homeless veteran left this earth the same way he lived: on his own terms.

Comments: (319) 398-8340; elijah.decious@thegazette.com