Booted From the Army, He Spiraled. Now He Works to Solve the Veteran Homelessness Crisis.
March 21, 2024
ANNE MARSHALL-CHALMERS
On a foggy December morning, Dennis Johnson parks his Toyota Tacoma beneath an overpass in downtown Oakland, California. To his left is a homeless encampment so dense it spills off the sidewalk and into the streets.
To his right is the Oakland Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic, and outside the clinic, a homeless veteran—in his 80s, Johnson says—sitting on a bench, on top of a torn gray sleeping bag. The man’s hooded sweatshirt pools around his withered frame.
Johnson, an outreach coordinator for a nonprofit that finds housing for homeless vets, crouches next to the bench to talk to the veteran and notices his puffy black eye.
“Who hit you in the eye?” Johnson asks.
The veteran—he’ll be L.W. in this article to protect his identity—mumbles an answer and wipes his runny nose. Johnson has seen him before and knows this is not his first black eye. The last time he got one, L.W., who served as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne during the Vietnam War, suffered a shattered socket.
https://thewarhorse.org/veteran-booted-from-army-now-works-to-help-unhoused-veterans/
