WPBN: According to data from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the most current Point-in-Time Count, over 1,400 Oregon veterans sleep on the streets or in shelters every night.
They included Harold Stallworth and Joseph Marberry until recently. Marberry had a shattered back when he left the military in 1990 after five years of service. In 2019, he began living out of his automobile.
“I worked driving a truck – just living in my car because I didn’t have the money to get into a place,” Marberry stated.
In addition to living in his automobile since March 2023, Stallworth served in the military from 1996 to 1998.
The veterans expressed their need to get back on their feet, and the VA-assigned doctors earlier this year introduced them to a chance they couldn’t refuse.
The Hugo, a veterans’ living facility, was marketed as a stunning establishment that offered individual rooms, a glittering pool, connections to obtain food and clothing, and mental health and drug misuse services:
“Of course I was elated to hear the news that I now had a place to go,” Stallworth stated. “Initially when you hear about the program it was a relief, I got to get out of the car, a place with four walls that’s somewhat your own.”
The facility is managed by the charity Reveille Foundation, which provides veterans services in Eugene, and is financed by VA’s Grants per Diem program.
However, the grim reality quickly became apparent when veterans began to come in in May. When Marberry showed them his room, he had an aluminum pan under a leaky pipe in the ceiling of his closet.
“That’s black mold, that’s nasty,” he stated. “That’s been in my ceiling and dripping down onto my food.”
The silicone surrounding his bathroom sink also had black mold on it. A video of the even worse pipe leak in his closet, which created a pool of water he could splash his palm across, was shown to crews by Stallworth. Pictures of other rooms revealed wet patches of carpet on the ground.
“Leaky ceiling, puddles on the floor, they supposedly fixed the problem and then moved me in,” Stallworth stated. “You literally walked into my room and it smelled like mold, you could literally smell the mold.”
Marberry stated that his experience as a two-time cancer survivor raises further concerns, and his doctor thinks he is experiencing an allergic reaction to the mold.
Rats have been frequently spotted in the building, according to other occupants.
Additionally, until recently, the building’s boiler broke, leaving the veterans in cold winters or scorching summers with only tiny space heaters for comfort.
Lucy, a student in the University of California’s social work department and a former intern with the Reveille Foundation, said she began working at the institution in August.
Due to fire safety concerns, she claimed, the kitchen was only open a few hours a day with a supervisor there, and there was no way to feed all 23 inhabitants with just a crock pot and one hot plate.
The kitchen had been completely closed in previous weeks.
“We have residents here who have no access to food, no access to cooking – multiple residents are going hungry here,” Lucy stated. “There was a recent report of multiple residents but one in particular, a Vietnam veteran, who was going door to door begging for food. He hadn’t eaten in two days.”
According to Lucy, when she initially learned about the program, it advertised training and mentorship possibilities for interns and was unique among GDP programs available nationwide.
However, she claimed that she was not given any training at all when she began her internship and that she was not even subjected to a background investigation prior to being granted access to the personal details of the veterans.
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In an unprivate setting, some of the veterans did receive one-on-one counseling. She claimed that after learning more about the conditions at the institution in early November, her university terminated her internship.
“When residents are in there having intimate clinical sessions, they’re seated next to people who are filing out SNAP applications, and people are coming in and out,” Lucy stated.
The Reveille Foundation is currently recognized by the OHA to run an outpatient program for mental health services, however they are not yet certified to offer substance misuse treatment, despite advertising this as one of their offerings.
According to Lucy, there is no security on the property either, and there was a time when someone who was homeless slept upstairs for a few days without anyone noticing.
Steve Yamamori, the founder and CEO of the Reveille Foundation, stated that the organization was established in Arizona in 2018 to assist veterans who were having difficulty reintegrating into society. Four years ago, the foundation relocated to Oregon.
In Eugene, they also operate a transitional housing facility.
Yamamori claims that his team hasn’t discovered any indications of rodents or water leaks, and that he was unaware of the lack of food and clinic privacy until recently.
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“We have found none of that with rodent issues, we have gone through and done our own research and inspection, and we have not found traces of that on property, and we are still doing even more by providing extermination, and we are making that remediation possible,” Yamamori stated.
He claimed that after speaking with the veterans on the grounds, many of them expressed a desire to assist improve the situation rather than vacate the area.
“Some of them are very recently housed, and what we want to do is make sure we remediate any issues that are going on,” Yamamori stated.
During their inspections, they found signs of mouse infestation, water damage, and a structure without heating.
The foundation received a “High-Risk Corrective Action Plan” from the VA on November 27 for failing to fulfill grant agreements that include providing a guaranteed connection to three meals per day, 24-hour on-property management, and training for staff on equity and inclusion and suicide prevention.
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At the time of the foundation’s establishment in May, each veteran who took part in the program got $63.12 each day, or $1,893.60 per month. The charity asked for a raise to $68.64 per day in July.
As of their review in November, the VA verified that 23 veterans were residing in the space. The initiative would have cost the foundation about $320,000 in government funds, with 23 veterans living there each month from May to November.
Some of the veterans are currently being transferred by VA to different housing arrangements, such as various Grants per Diem programs.
