Painesville-based nonprofit Sub Zero Mission is launching a program this Veterans Day to get homeless veterans off of the streets.
"Our goal is not to have any homeless veterans," said Lisa Sprowls, program manager for the new initiative, Homeless Veteran Re-Empowerment. "Those two words should never be in the same sentence."
The organization had been providing sleeping bags, hats, coats, gloves, boots and other warming items to homeless veterans across Ohio and several other states for the winter months. The Re-Empowerment program represents the next step in the group's mission, using connections made over the years to help get veterans off the streets.
While there are many programs to help homeless populations, including veterans, the Re-Empowerment program is different because it provides all necessary services in one place at no cost, said James Hido, the group's marketing director. This makes the process simpler for veterans and leads to a greater chance of success. Other programs require a veteran to maneuver between various agencies and individuals, he said.
“Within that 12-hour initiation process of them coming back with us, we're already putting them into treatment," Hido said. "We're putting them into stable housing. We're putting them into a position to be able to start earning their own revenue and so forth.”
Sub Zero Mission is trying to address a problem with homeless veterans that is disproportionate to their numbers in society, Hido said, noting that less than 1% of our nation serves in the armed forces, but nearly 20% of homeless people in the U.S. are veterans.
"So there's a clear, prime disconnect of what's happening when a veteran gets out of service and gets reintroduced back into society," Hido said.
Hido said the program will address that disconnect by working more cohesively with organizations like Veterans Affairs to ensure that veterans received proper and thorough treatment upon exiting their time in service.
However, the Department of Veterans Affairs issued a news release Nov. 12 detailing improvements in the state of veteran homelessness. The release cited a VA report, issued in coordination with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Interagency on Homelessness, which found a 5% decrease in the number of homeless veterans in Ohio over the past year, dropping from 623 in January 2023 down to 589 state-wide at the start of 2024. The report also determined that veteran homelessness reached their lowest levels since measurements began in 2009, with a nearly 12% drop nationally since 2020 and nearly 56% drop since 2010.
Sub Zero Mission will provide homeless veterans with a range of services, including enrolling them in the Veterans Affairs system, providing substance abuse treatment if needed, counseling, temporary transportation and housing, employment opportunities and mentorship, Sprowls said. The program will also provide support services like job search, resume writing, interview skills, banking assistance, getting a driver's license and social security card.
"We're doing kind of soup to nuts," Sprowls said. "We're going to walk with them hand-in-hand in every aspect to get them treated, to get them on the road to recovery, to mentor them. I don't know of any other organizations out there or treatment facilities that do that."
The program, which will start in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties, plans to work with three veterans the first year, Sprowls said. The goal is to get the veterans established in a home with a stable job so they can rejoin their families within two years of them starting in the program, she said.
The program costs approximately $90,000 per veteran over the entirety of the program with funds coming from donations and grants, she said.
