Homeless female veterans revive lives at Athena house

The mood is cheery inside the two-story 1920 brick building on Columbus Avenue. It's almost dinnertime and the aroma of a baking taco pie fills the building.

The women here - there are 10 - are trickling in from their daily chores. Some have jobs, others are looking for jobs; some do volunteer work, others are getting counseling.

This place is just for them. They are all veterans of military service. They all were, in some way, traumatized and unable to cope with civilian life.

They all were saved from homelessness by this place, which once served as a home for World War I veterans.

Their lives are on the upswing thanks to the Athena Project, a program offered through Tampa Crossroads that gives hope to a previously neglected group. When the house opened a year ago, it was the only program in the nation that offered help to homeless female veterans. It now serves as a model for similar programs around the country.

Life-altering opportunity

Sandra Conley is 53 and served nearly 15 years in the U.S. Army, leaving in 1994 after family health issues arose. She talks about being sexually attacked by two officers and having her complaints ignored. She said many women in the Athena Project have similar stories.

She enlisted in a recruiting office in Muskegon, Mich., in 1979. She loved the duty and the travel.

Her time after the Army was difficult, though. She spiraled into homelessness, prodded by drug and alcohol abuse.

"My life has been up and down," she said. "I worked, then I didn't work."

She moved to Florida in 1995 to take care of her sick father in Orlando. He died a short time later. She became homeless last year, staying at shelters and on the street. She has a pacemaker, on top of it all.

On the street, there was no counseling for her emotional problems, no help for her medical issues. She gets all that now, she said.

"It's like a blessing from God," she said. "I'm able to see again. I don't have to worry. I've got a safe house."

She pulls the baking pan out of the big oven in the kitchen. The warmth fills the air, as does the aroma. On cue, others begin to gather at the table in the next room.

A model project

Just more than a year ago, Tampa Crossroads opened the transitional home for homeless female veterans in the 90-year-old former Cueto-Sierra Boarding House just north of Ybor City's historic district. The Department of Veterans Affairs funds a portion of the project.

Now, the two-story, 4,500-square-foot building can house up to 16 female veterans.

The home is a place where the women, among an estimated 400 female homeless veterans in the Tampa Bay area, can receive treatment for substance abuse, mental illness, domestic violence, post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

They also participate in job training programs and educational opportunities designed to get them back into civilian life and living independently.

Sara Romeo, executive director of Tampa Crossroads, a social service agency that works with homeless people calls it "a beautiful program." She says 36 women have gone through the program in the past 12 months, and 85 percent are now living independently.

Many have landed jobs, while others have been helped in getting benefits and entitlements through Veterans' Affairs, she said.

"Women can stay up to 24 months, and that's pretty much unheard of in the transitional community," Romeo said. She said most stay for less than eight months.

Problems emerge later

A few of the women are in their 20s, but most are older - in their 30s, 40s and 50s, she said. The average age is about 41.

That was expected, Romeo said. After veterans serve and come home, especially if they serve in a combat zone, they go back to the lives they had put on hiatus.

"It takes a while for them to lose their grip of going back to being a mommy," she said. "It takes a while to slip into homelessness."

The program has no room for children. Female veterans with children have placed them with relatives until they are able to leave the Athena Project, Romeo said.

Tampa Crossroads has been approved to develop a transitional housing center for homeless female veterans with children, but that will be at another facility and is at least a year away, she said.

Bay area needs service

It made sense to open a program for homeless female veterans in the Bay area, she said.

"We have very high military population here," Romeo said. "A lot of military people come here because of two (VA) hospitals, Haley and Bay Pines."

Since the Athena house opened, the VA has approved about 10 similar programs based on the model, she said.

Female veterans represent a growing number of those who are without homes in the nation. The VA says nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night nationwide. Of that, between 6,000 and 8,000 are women.

Pete Dougherty, director of the department's homeless veterans programs in Washington, said the VA is working to improve services for female veterans.

"There are a lot more sexual-trauma issues involved with women veterans than male veterans," he said. "What we find is that women veterans are much more likely to have family and child care responsibility issues as well. So treatment often involves families, too."

The agency, he said, has a plan to eliminate homelessness for all veterans in five years.

"The idea is to push this very hard," Dougherty said. "The long-term benefits, if we catch these men and women early and get them into treatment for health care and psychological needs, is that it's much easier to deal with. If we can get them back on their feet and rejoin society, they will lead much better lives. And the cost to society is a whole lot less."