‘Stand-Down’ Aims to Lift Up Homeless Veterans at Tent City Gathering

Robert Van Keuren calls them “the other MIAs”--”missing in America”--veterans who roam the streets of the nation as part of its growing multitude of drifters otherwise known as the homeless.

He said America’s homeless veterans are about to have a powwow in San Diego that has never been tried before.

Van Keuren, who served three years in Vietnam as a Navy “river rat,” says the country owes homeless veterans a favor and that it is time to start paying back the debt.

Part of the pay-back will begin at 10 a.m. Friday, in what Van Keuren, executive director of Vietnam Veterans of San Diego, labels a “first-of-its-kind” happening anywhere in the country.

It’s being called a “stand-down,” a military term used when a unit is shifted from combat or combat readiness to rest and recreation. This stand-down has turned a San Diego High School field into what looks like a tent city.

San Diego is the perfect place for such a stand-down, Van Keuren said, since most of these men and women were trained and stationed here and “now make this their home”--even though the streets are the only “home” they know.

The gathering will be in the high school’s upper athletic field, near the point where 12th Avenue becomes Park Boulevard and joins the junction of Interstate 5 and California 163.

Much of Wednesday was taken up with Navy Seabees setting up the 25 tents that will shelter the homeless vets or serve as centers offering food, information and medical assistance. Van Keuren said the tents will house 20 people each. As many as 500 veterans are expected for the event, which ends at 2 p.m. Sunday.

Purpose of Gathering

Van Keuren said the gathering has three aims:

- To offer immediate assistance to homeless veterans in San Diego County, in the form of medical assistance, food, shelter, employment assistance and drug and alcohol counseling.

- To enable homeless veterans to find “longer-term” solutions to the problems they encounter.

- To heighten community awareness about the problems of homeless veterans nationally and to initiate fund raising for a homeless veterans’ assistance center.

He cited several groups--including the Vietnam Veterans of San Diego, the County of San Diego, the Veterans Administration, the Non-Commissioned Officers Assn., the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars--as being particularly helpful in establishing the stand-down.

On Friday, participants will be welcomed and offered clothing, showers, food and a tent for the night. Local rock groups will perform, although Van Keuren said “this won’t be a Woodstock. We want to do more than sit around and listen to rock. We want to work, we want to effect change.”

Saturday will consist of workshops dealing with employment, medical needs, social services, Agent Orange, mental health and legal problems.

Sunday will include the general wrap-up, preceded by a “big breakfast.”

Van Keuren said 30% to 40% of the nation’s homeless male population are veterans and that 75% of those are Vietnam-era veterans. He said much of his group’s effort is focusing on finding out why so many of the nation’s veterans are homeless.

“There’s been a failure on the part of this nation to reintroduce veterans, particularly Vietnam veterans, into the mainstream of American life,” he said.

“These are the country’s other MIA’s, the missing-in-America brigade. I must say that everyone has been remarkably supportive--the county and the city--in helping with the proper permits in securing the grounds.”