Media report on homeless haven opened hearts

Published: June 29, 2008 6:00 a.m.
Aid pours in to finish off haven for vets
Frank Gray
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the Shepherd’s House, a halfway house on Tennessee Avenue that has been trying to finish a suite that would serve as a shelter for homeless veterans.

The need for such a shelter was epitomized by a man named Julius, a homeless 18-year Air Force veteran with an alcohol problem. He had suffered two strokes and a heart attack and ended up partly paralyzed, getting around in a wheelchair and living outdoors in a wooded area near a golf course off Coliseum Boulevard.

Julius, forgotten and abandoned, was the subject of a lengthy search by local veterans officials and others who had heard about him but couldn’t find him.

When Julius was finally located, people willing to help were scant. Julius was rejected by some other shelters because he posed a liability, and there weren’t any shelters specifically designed for homeless vets.

But the Shepherd’s House agreed to give him a place to stay, and after a few months he was stable enough to get his own apartment.

Unfortunately, within weeks of setting back out on his own, Julius suffered a heart attack that left him in a coma, and he eventually died.

All the Shepherd’s House founder, Barb Cox, could do was look at the partly completed suite intended as a veterans shelter. For two years she had been trying to get it finished, and it would take only a few thousand dollars to get accomplished.

But money had been tight and finding donations had been hard.
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