Pensacola Veterans Village provides a home and chance for veterans to get on their feet

Pensacola is home to over 33,000 veterans, and for roughly a decade a local organization has been working to help make sure those veterans have roofs over their heads.

Pensacola Veterans Village offers furnished transitional studio apartments to male and female veterans, as well as supportive services such a career training and mental health counseling.

Roger Coleman, a veteran and program manager at Pensacola Veterans, said it takes a special breed to be able connect with veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

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“A lot of people don’t know how veterans think … people don’t know how to deal with a veteran that has trauma,” Coleman said.

Often, the village’s clients struggle with health care needs and unemployment along with lack of housing, but Coleman and his team believe that stable housing is the first priority and steppingstone to independence.

Located at 1617 Blackwell Lane, the Pensacola Veterans Village provides 43 units split between transitional housing and a few permanent living spaces. The complex was built in 2011 and took in its first occupants in 2012.

The village services Escambia, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties, as well as Baldwin County, Alabama.

There are 727 homeless people in Escambia and Santa Rosa County, 150 of them veterans, according to Opening Doors Northwest Florida’s 2022 point in time homeless count.

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Coleman’s job is to go out in the streets to find veterans who need stable housing.

The Veterans Village is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-VA Supportive Housing Program. Veterans only pay 30% of the rent; HUD-VASH pays the rest. If veterans have no income, they will pay $5 a month until they are able to find employment. Utilities are paid for all tenants.

Once they are settled into their units, veterans receive training and education for employment while provided, if necessary, substance abuse counseling, relapse prevention, and mental health counseling.

Employers partner with the Veterans Village. Goodwill Gulf Coast, for instance, hire veterans participating in the program and is within walking distance of their housing.

The program also receives support and donations from organizations such as Manna Food Bank, Inc, American Legion, Purple Heart Foundation, Moose Lodge 557 and Felix's Restaurant & Oyster Bar, which recently donated 1,000 pounds of canned goods and fed the veterans gumbo.

There is a Veteran Affairs liaison on campus three times a week to assist with veterans. If veterans have to go to VA they handle transportation to and from their appointments.

They also receive help setting their disability compensation benefit rates, which dictate the amount of monthly payments to veterans who got sick or injured while serving in the military and to veterans whose service made an existing condition worse.

Generally, veterans can be housed at the village for up to two years, and the program’s goal is to help prepare them to transition into homes of their own off site.

To qualify for the Veterans Village, candidates must be a homeless veteran who has an honorable or medical discharge.

The housing units are only for individuals and not families.

Affordable housing has become an increasingly pressing issue in Pensacola, where according to data from the University of Florida Shimberg Center For Housing Studies that reveal 62% of Escambia County renters who make less than 80% of the median income are paying more than 30% of their income on rent. Almost a quarter of the Escambia County households that rent are paying more than 50% of their income on rent, according to the data.

themselves independent enough to leave and feel like they have a purpose once again.

Anytime a unit is available Coleman has to go through the waitlist calling people who, by that time, their phone number is disconnected. He continues to call each number until some picks up with excitement in their voice.

“They're appreciative because now they have a place to call home and to go to,” Coleman said. “But that's, for me, that's rewarding, because now I'm getting this person off the street and so now they got a place.”

More information about the program is available at voa.org/housing_properties/pensacola-veterans-village.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Veterans Village provides homeless veterans independence