Spokane veterans finding homes: Allen Hamilton working to thrive in own home in East Central

Apr. 15—Among the few decorations in Allen Hamilton's one-bedroom apartment off East Sprague Avenue are a handful of nutcracker figurines.

Hamilton, a U.S. Navy veteran who's spent his life working with hands now slowed by injury, sees significance in the pieces, even though they're not antiques.

"I just like them," Hamilton, 64, said from his home recently. "They're not a waste. They're highly functional, and they're made from waste-wood, or the originals were.

"They are, to me, a highly functional individual. And that's what I'm trying to go for."

Hamilton served as a lithographics mate on the USS Nassau, a transport ship, during campaigns in Grenada and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the 1980s. He became homeless last April, choosing to move away from a family in Stevens County that he felt pressured to continue to support even when his body failed him, causing bouts of depression when that was no longer possible.

The drive to provide, Hamilton said, came from his father. So, too, did Hamilton's decision to join the Navy, where he served seven years as an enlisted sailor.

"He wasn't a good boy, but he wasn't a criminal, either," Hamilton said of his dad. "He was right in between, and the court system said, you have a choice. You're going to the gray bar hotel, or you can go to the Army. And he chose the Army."

But when he realized the Navy had a warm bed and hot meals, Hamilton said, his dad joined up there.

Hamilton worked for years in manual labor after leaving the Navy. He said he didn't want to perform shore duty and preferred being at sea, so he left the service. He also liked the idea of problem-solving issues in the lithographs shop while on board.

"If you run into a problem, or you can't do something, you stop, you think, you scratch your head a few times, and start MacGyver-ing," he said.

Hamilton watched his job become obsolete with the arrival of the copy machine on deck. He then watched as his hands and physical tools became obsolete, with injuries to his elbows and a rating as 100% disabled by the Social Security Administration. That led to a falling out with his family in April of last year, after Hamilton said he'd become depressed that he could no longer work to support them.

Hamilton attributed that focus on providing in large part to something his dad told him when he was young.

"I was, at one time, thinking of becoming a commercial artist," Hamilton said, pulling up photography work he'd shot in downtown Spokane of landmarks in Riverfront Park, including "The Joy of Running Together" sculpture by David Govedare. "If I would have stuck with that, instead of listening to my father and a few others who were older than me ... I believed that they were smarter than me."

Those men told him that artists often starved and couldn't take care of families.

"That made sense, back then," Hamilton said. "And, unfortunately, I created a whole lifestyle around that."

Hamilton said he's trying to find a function beyond physical labor. He's in training as a peer specialist with the local nonprofit Peer Spokane, to assist other veterans 55 and older who've experienced depression and substance abuse disorders.

Initially, the local VA screened Hamilton for inclusion in its Veterans Supportive Housing program in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But his income was too high for that program, after a review.

"It wasn't a good thing," Hamilton said.

Hamilton's housing was instead provided by the VA through its "shallow subsidy" program. Two years of rental assistance is offered to veterans who are a part of the administration's Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, created in 2008 to assist veterans at extreme risk of becoming homeless quickly become capable of attaining permanent housing. It came to Spokane as part of a national expansion in August 2021, and is locally administered by Goodwill.

The idea of the program is to get immediate housing for veterans who are working toward getting back on their feet, said Shannon Dunkin, homeless program manager for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in Spokane.

"It's a short bit of time, where maybe they need a little bit of extra help," she said.

The program pays half Hamilton's rent, while he's saving for a car. But the future, he said, is uncertain. The initial plan was to return to his family.

"If I still have one," Hamilton said.

Now, he's writing a budget and spending his spare time walking and pursuing the creative pursuits that he turned away from in his youth, on the advice of his dad. Books for learning computer application coding and programming are laid out on his dining room table. His YouTube includes bookmarks to motivational speeches about finding beneficial hobbies in your life.

Hamilton misses his wife of 30 years. But he also worries returning to that family will put him back in a cycle of depression that he said led to three attempts to take his own life.

"Once in a while, I do get a text message or call from her," Hamilton said. "She's busy surviving up there, and I'm busy down here, surviving.

"People are busy surviving in their comfort zones. To thrive, you need to step out of your comfort zone. And I did."