For many returning women vets, fight not yet over

Last month, Josefina Reyes went to work for Tampa Crossroads, a rehabilitation and counseling center that came into being in 1977, the year she was born.

Reyes serves as an intake counselor for women veterans, most of them homeless or headed that way, and helps assess their problems and begin to find solutions.

For Reyes, who served three years with the Army, leaving as a corporal in 1999, this is familiar territory.

Until recently, she, too, was homeless, unable to translate her military experience as a truck driver and vehicle fueler into the civilian world.

Now, instead of being on the receiving end of counseling, Reyes helps guide women out of the downward spiral.

There's no shortage of need.

There are about 300 homeless women veterans in Hillsborough County, according to Sara Romeo, chief executive officer of Tampa Crossroads.

In an effort to deal with this problem, the county Commission on the Status of Women is hosting a Women Veterans Forum today to identify the challenges and develop solutions for women returning home from military service.

Studies show that women returning from combat not only may face childcare issues, but many others, including trauma from possible sexual harassment while serving overseas, according to the commission.

"We want to understand what is going on in the community with homeless female veterans," said Romeo, "and find out where gaps are and how they can best help."

The biggest gaps, said Romeo, are the ones experienced by Reyes.

"The largest gap we see is the employment gap - transferring military skills to civilian life and putting people in jobs."

Reyes said she left the military after becoming pregnant and not wanting long deployments away from her daughter at a time when her marriage was crumbling. After being discharged, she bounced among different jobs, finally taking cosmetology classes and getting a job in a salon.

She earned enough to buy a condo for her and her 13-year-old daughter. But then the pipes broke, she couldn't afford the repairs and the condo ultimately went into foreclosure, forcing Reyes and her daughter back into homelessness.

Then came Tampa Bay Stand Down.

Organized by Tampa Crossroads, it was a one-day program held in September at Al Lopez Park to provide services and counseling for homeless women vets, or those on the verge of homelessness.

Reyes went, was encouraged to see an intake counselor and, within a month, the intake counselor and two others recommended she be hired by Tampa Crossroads.

The organization has a 16-bed shelter for homeless women veterans in Ybor City, called Athena House, as well as an assistance center for veterans at 4203 N. Nebraska Ave.

Now Reyes works at the assistance center, dealing with women who have even more stresses than the ones she faced.

"Most of the women I see are dealing with post traumatic stress disorder," she said.

Many, said Reyes, were sexually abused or harassed in the military.

In one case, a woman came home from Iraq with PTSD and found her marriage crumbling, Reyes said. The husband used the issue of PTSD to take the children and kicked the woman out of the house.

She is now homeless and seeking help from Tampa Crossroads.

That story is not atypical, said Reyes.

And the problem, said Romeo, is only going to get worse.

"We anticipate the number of homeless women veterans to get much larger when troops start returning next month," she said.