All-day Chesapeake event aids homeless veterans

CHESAPEAKE

For some, like Edgar Wilson, it was chance to get a free meal and a few articles of warm clothing.

Shirley Luckett came looking only for help with what she feared would be complicated paperwork.

On Saturday, both of them got something they needed at the Dr. Clarence V. Cuffee Community Center, where the service organization Disabled American Veterans held what it billed as a stand-down for homeless former service members. The all-day event included free haircuts, showers, food, medical checks, flu shots, clothes and personal hygiene items. Representatives from government agencies and nonprofits were on hand to help with Veterans Affairs claims, Social Security paperwork, job searches and enrollment in subsidized housing and treatment programs.

As it turned out, many of the neediest people who showed up were not veterans, and many of the veterans who came looking for help were not homeless, including Wilson and Luckett.

Even so, by midday the volunteers who organized the stand-down already were calling it a success. As of noon, they'd served about 60 people.

"The bottom line is that we're here to assist members of our community who need it, and it's very clear there's a need," said Etter Bowers, with DAV. "We're not turning anyone away."

For years, DAV has hosted similar events on the Peninsula. Saturday's stand-down in Chesapeake was the group's first on this side of the water, and leaders hope to start holding it annually, Bowers said.

In addition to advertising in advance, organizers also dispatched vans to homeless shelters on Saturday, Bowers said.

Wilson and Luckett each said they heard about the stand-down through friends.

Wilson, who served six years in the Air Force as a water sanitation specialist in the 1950s and '60s, has been living for the past several years in a group home in Chesapeake. He said he "does OK," but the clothing he picked up Saturday will help a lot.

Luckett, who left the Army in 1988 after eight years, was laid off from a secretarial job in June. She'd been meaning to look into filing a disability claim with the VA for years - something she'd never done before - but losing her job made the need even greater.

"I guess I just didn't know where to start, so I procrastinated," she said. "Sometimes you just need someone to say, 'We're here to help.' "

Corinne Reilly, (757) 446-2949, corinne.reilly@pilotonline.com