TESTIMONY
Timothy Pena, Founder of The Forgotten Veteran, on Challenges Facing Cold War Veterans and Access to Benefits
1:06:42
·
5 min
Timothy Pena discusses the issues Cold War veterans face, including PTSD, homelessness, and accessing VA benefits.
- Pena shares his personal experiences of homelessness, working in transitional services, and the obstacles in obtaining veteran benefits.
- He emphasizes the significance of recognizing and assisting Cold War veterans, particularly through cooperation among New York City's organizations.
- Pena critiques policies that deny veterans access to resources, jobs, and housing, advocating for better support systems.
- He highlights the community's view of veterans and the bureaucratic barriers to effective aid, stressing the lack of community interaction for veterans in shelters.
Timothy Pena
1:06:42
Thank you for having me here.
1:06:45
My name is Timothy Pena.
1:06:48
I run an organization called the forgotten veteran.
1:06:53
I'm also a cold war vet.
1:06:56
I had I went in in the late entry in 1977 at the time My dad had been in Vietnam, my uncles had been in Vietnam, and my grandfather was Seabee's in World War 2.
1:07:13
So, D Day, as you know, CBS played well, the biggest part.
1:07:19
They're the ones who put every body on the beach and cleared the beaches before the d day invasion.
1:07:26
So thank you for making this in honor of my my grandfather.
1:07:34
So I spent 5 months in in the shelter, Gordon Avenue.
1:07:42
I've worked in transitional services since I was homeless.
1:07:46
Became homeless in 2016 and went into a transitional program in Phoenix.
1:07:53
I was immediately put at the front desk And I spent nearly 2 years there as a front desk ninja for Catholic Charities in which I received a stipend, a monthly stipend.
1:08:12
I got, I believe, 4 3 or $400 a month stipend for the front desk work.
1:08:19
And I also did all of their social photos.
1:08:23
We did the announcements.
1:08:25
I did.
1:08:25
The resources.
1:08:26
As well as the outreach program for Manaus, which is and I we did that for about 2 years.
1:08:35
We had anywhere from a 100 to a 120 visits per month by veterans who were in the homeless shelter.
1:08:44
In camps, in their cars.
1:08:47
Some of these guys were reservists not eligible for the VA programs that we were with the Grant Per diem program, which is the same program over at Borden Avenue.
1:09:02
There's a lot of talk here today about Cold War veterans and our benefits.
1:09:09
I was PTSD for 30 years.
1:09:20
Before I suffered a huge breakdown of 2014.
1:09:25
And it was then that I decided that I needed to either get help through the VA.
1:09:32
Part of that was getting diagnosed and filing a claim.
1:09:38
As far as so I was a peacetime, but because I was in a combat program or a combat situation.
1:09:47
I was PTSD.
1:09:52
Got PTSD out of here who want to put it in the Persian Gulf during the Iranian hostage stage.
1:09:58
I was considered a combat zone.
1:10:02
So I have actually gotten a lot of my benefits that wartime veterans would have gotten.
1:10:11
But because of that, one of the things that I strongly support is that that cooperation between the fantastic organizations that are here in New York City who are just dying to help us and making sure that we have those access to those services through these shelters, through DVS, through the VSOs.
1:10:45
I would I would suggest that with nearly 50% of the veterans that I came across while I was working in transitional services and what I witnessed over at Borden Avenue in the 5 months there.
1:11:01
That we are really wanting to step up.
1:11:06
We're kind of those guys who can help the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans maneuver through the system because we've actually kind of gone through it.
1:11:17
But we're seeing a lot here with veteran eligibility.
1:11:23
I can guarantee you the community doesn't care.
1:11:28
The community sees us as veterans.
1:11:31
They see us as a veteran where we serve whether we served in a national guard, whether we served in the reserves, whether we saw combat, they don't really care that much.
1:11:42
And we're being denied access to resources jobs and housing because of these policies that are not being worked with.
1:11:57
It's not that DHS doesn't want to help us, is that they're being prevented from helping us.
1:12:06
And they're being prevented because we are stuck in these shelters with no community interaction no community engagement.