Don't Call Them Homeless Veterans!

By Amy Clark

"I was absolutely shocked. It was like an ambush."

The disbelief is clear in Nancy Hughes Moyer's voice even now, nearly five years after she first faced the full force of community opposition in Chicago. It was February 2010, and the organization she directs, Volunteers of America Illinois, was two weeks away from asking the city council for its vote of approval on a site for Hope Manor, what would become 50 supportive apartments for formerly homeless veterans. What Hughes Moyer and her colleagues had thought would be an easy follow-up meeting with a community group to present finished plans turned into, in her words, "an unfettered disaster."

Opposition to housing for military veterans can be hard to fathom. Active and retired service members hold a hallowed place in American culture. They greet their families from overseas during Thanksgiving Day football broadcasts. Nearly 30 million people make the pilgrimage to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., each year to visit the war memorials there. But when it comes to our own neighborhoods, it seems many of us simply don’t want a military veteran living next door.

After two years of work to build the support of community members and the local alderman, who ultimately has the final say over new housing development, Hughes Moyer and her staff had been confident. All parties had been supportive, and no significant neighborhood opposition had surfaced. The alderman himself had recommended the long-vacant lot that had been chosen for the site. 

But it was clear from the start of this meeting that misinformation and stigma had infected the conversation...