Ray Carville, who handles government affairs for Veterans Inc., said the agreement the federal Labor Department has with the group calls on the organization to reach out to 72 homeless veterans and place them in meaningful jobs.
“We have to provide housing for our veterans and in order to keep that housing, we have to give them jobs that provide a liveable wage,” Carville said. “We’re speaking to veterans on their own terms, we engage them where they want to be engaged. That’s the most important thing, breaking down the barriers to access.”
It wasn’t so long ago that Scott Patashnik, a U.S. Army veteran was living on the streets. Now he’s the residential coordinated for the agency’s Connecticut office,
Patashnik makes sure that fellow veterans can have a roof over their head in one of the 20 units of transitional housing in the national group’s Connecticut headquarters on Arch Street in New Britain. The Veterans Inc. facility also doubles as a job training and counseling center, he said.
Before taking the residential coordinator’s job about two years ago, Patashnik had been working for Hartford Healthcare and at the Veteran’s Administration hospital in West Haven.
“It was pretty fortunate for me to get this job,” he said. “I, too, was a client here once and now I prepare the rooms when one veteran moves out and another moves in. I make sure they have the supplies they need.”
Helping some of his fellow veterans is easier than helping others, Patashnik said.
“Sometimes it’s just helping get the right documents they need,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumental, D-Conn., announced the grant on Wednesday, and said it would “expand access to the American Dream.”
“Who deserves it more than our veterans,” Blumenthal said.
This content was originally published here.
