New Haven Independent

The two friends spent Tuesday morning, Veterans Day, at the Graduate Club telling people about a battlefield on which thousands of Connecticut ex-soldiers find themselves each year: homelessness. They told their stories at the year’s final monthly breakfast issues forum organized by the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund and sponsored by TD Banknorth.

Tuminski, who’s 56, told the story from his own experience living on New Haven’s streets and now working his way out of homelessness.

At 18, Tuminski volunteered to serve in Vietnam. What did he do there? “I killed people.” He brought home shrapnel in his knee, shrapnel in his side, and flashbacks that continue to this day. He takes medication for that. He has also done a whole lot of drinking.

He’s a familiar sight downtown, a friendly “hello” figure. He has done his best to stay out of shelters; for more than two years he and some buddies lived under tarps by the State Street I-91 entrance ramp.

As he battled alcoholism, Tuminski has had odd jobs, including selling newspapers on the street. Some 20 years ago he worked in a Ninth Square architectural restoration firm — owned by Preston Maynard.

These days, instead of restoring fireplace fixtures, Preston Maynard (pictured) works on getting vets into homes. One of the people he’s helping is Tuminski, with whom he has stayed in touch over the years.

Maynard runs a homeless services program at the Veterans Administration’s (VA) Errera Community Care Center right over the West Haven town line. Thirty to 40 homeless vets come to his clinic each month for help, part of a statewide homeless vet army estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 a year.

At Errera, the vets take part in mental health and substance abuse programs. They get meals. They get hot lunch, toothpaste, winter jackets, gift cards to McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts.

And with Maynard, they make plans: To get into short-term residential treatment programs. To get into longer-term homes.

Maynard also works with not-for-profit housing groups, like the Community Loan Fund and Columbus House, to develop transitional and long-term supportive centers for vets complete with on-site counseling. Maynard showed slides and told the 35 people gathered at the Grad Club Tuesday about successful projects in Bridgeport, Jewett City, Danbury, not to mention New Haven’s Legion Woods.

Vets make up between 20 to 25 percent of the state’s homeless population, according to Maynard. He spoke of some recent visitors to his center: One vet is living in a New Haven park because he’s been clean for 60 days and fears the exposure to drugs in a shelter. Another vet and his family ended up on the street after their Milford home was foreclosed upon. A 56-year-old vet with lung disease has been “walking the street with 2-3 oxygen tanks.” A young female vet came in eight months pregnant; she’d been sleeping on a friend’s couch. Vets make up between 20 to 25 percent of the state’s homeless population, according to Maynard.

The homeless veteran population has a new face, Maynard reported. More are young than in the past, fresh from the Iraq or First Gulf wars. More women are showing up, including many in their late 40s or early 50s. Homeless vets are showing up living in cars at rest areas like Milford’s truck stop. And Maynard is encountering fraily elderly vets who did have apartments or houses and are now losing them.

Since many homeless vets deal with post-traumatic stress through drinking or drugs, finding them long-term homes involves more than locating a landlord or government subsidy program. It means helping them overcome the problems that have rendered them unable to keep a home. It means accompanying them on the road to recovery.

He’s been doing that with Tuminski (pictured) through Errera. Come Thursday, Tuminski announced, he’ll have been sober for 90 days. He’s been staying in a sober house run by Columbus House. He can now graduate to a VA transitional center where recovering vets can stay for up to two years. If Tuminski stays clean, Maynard said, he may qualify some time in 2009 for a VA program that uses federal Section 8 vouchers to pay for a permanent home in a supportive facility. Tuminski said he’s ready. He plans to get there.

Meanwhile, people who want to commemorate Veterans Day by helping Maynard’s organization — donating winter coats or food gift cards, moving furniture for vets entering new homes — can contact him at this email or at 479-8041. Also, Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic, which formed 60 years ago to help blind and dyslexic veterans, needs volunteers to read books. Contact Elizabeth Hess at 624-4334 or at this email address.