Hope for homeless veterans

Three years and a month after Sonny Iovino froze to death under the Benton Street bridge in Iowa City, hundreds of homeless veterans are facing another long, cold Iowa winter.

But it might be the last spent outside for at least six local men, thanks to a new lodge-style residence that should be open by early summer.

When the Vietnam-era veteran's body was found, it was first time many of us learned the grim facts about unmanaged mental illness and chronic homelessness among vets here in The Corridor.

Most of that attention's faded now - old news to most of us. But, thankfully, not to everyone.

I got a call this week from Gene Spaziani, housing committee chairman for the Johnson County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

He said NAMI-JC, Shelter House and the Department of Veterans Affairs have bought an Iowa City duplex and are ready to renovate it into a Fairweather-style lodge for six veterans fighting the two-front battle against homelessness and mental illness.

The project's been in the works for years and was prompted in part by Iovino's death. When the lodge opens early next summer, Spaziani said, it will be the first of its kind in Iowa.

An estimated 40 percent of homeless veterans struggle with mental illness - they need more than a bed on a frigid winter night to get back on their feet. Studies show that Fairweather-style lodges (they're named after the psychologist who developed the idea) decrease residents' chances of having to be hospitalized for mental illness.

They increase residents' success in keeping employment and cost less than conventional treatment programs. They interrupt that otherwise endless loop of mental illness and homelessness.

The six men chosen to live in the first Iowa City home will pay rent and run their own household - shopping, cleaning up, maintaining the place. They'll also support each other during the rough times - each making sure the other is taking medication, getting to work on time. They'll receive job training and coaching and they'll even work together - at least in groups of two or three, Spaziani said.

“Some people won't be convinced to do this,” Spaziani said. “But if they can it will be a permanent solution.”

For six men of hundreds, sure, but that's six men more than now. And organizers already are readying to submit grant applications for a second lodge - so there's six more.

And, who knows - with community support, there could be six more, and six more, and ...

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net