Veterans get second chance at Fairweather Lodge

Men get second chance at Fairweather Lodge

Rob Madsen sees this as rock bottom.

He lost his marriage and his job. He’s gone from a six-figure household income to nothing. He’s bounced around between the homes of friends and relatives. And all the while he’s grappled with post-traumatic stress disorder, a burden he’s carried since the first Gulf War.

But Madsen isn’t giving up on his future.

Two weeks ago, the 42-year-old Army veteran came to Iowa City’s Shelter House from Clinton with the hopes of turning his life around in a new program that is providing him with a job and, ultimately, a home.

Madsen is one of six homeless men with chronic mental illness who have been accepted into a new Fairweather-style lodge program, a residency and work initiative founded by Shelter House in collaboration with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Johnson County and the Iowa City VA Health Care System.

“There’s a lot of people that had normal lives, some better than others, but we’re all starting over,” said Madsen, one of three veterans accepted into the program. “The Fairweather Lodge is our way to get back into society, something to look forward to, a goal, something to call our home.”
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Men get second chance at Fairweather Lodge