A long way home

Tomorrow marks Air Force Reserve veteran Steve Thomas' fourth anniversary of living soberly with a roof over his head.

Because he struggled with cocaine addiction for about 30 years, Thomas knows a life can be drastically altered in just four. At a Faces of Homelessness Speakers' Bureau forum last night, he and two others shared their experiences of living on the streets with a crowd of about 25 students in Cole Field House's Veterans Center.

The event was a part of this university's Veterans Week's activities, as more than 2,050 homeless men and women living in the Washington area last year served this country, according to Tasha Vanterpool, coordinator for the university's Veteran Student Life Office. There are only 292 transitional housing beds available in the area for homeless veterans, she said.

"Nobody in their right mind chooses to be homeless. And the other thing is, homelessness is embarrassing," Thomas said. "The second you tell someone, they treat you different whether it's conscious or not."

Each of the three speakers — two of whom are veterans — found themselves without a home after falling victim to drug use, depression or overspending.

However, each said they use this experience for a greater purpose: to share their stories and help eradicate homelessness through awareness.

"I think God wanted me to be able to talk to all of you about homelessness, and he wanted me to know what I was talking about it when I did it," said panelist Allen Banks.

Although there are resources for the homeless, Banks said many go without help if disorders, such as depression or extreme introversion, had landed them on the streets in the first place.

Banks — a military veteran — had a top-secret security clearance, worked in the State and Justice departments, helped protect two presidents and owned a home, car and a boat near the Chesapeake Bay with his wife and two children.

Yet, Banks said he found himself homeless for six months after his lifelong battle with depression spiraled out of control — causing him to stop going to work and his family to leave him.

"I went from piloting planes to looking in the sky and seeing a plane and saying, ‘I might never fly again,'" Banks said. "I went from being a tight-knit family man to thinking, ‘I'm never going to see my family again.'"

He did not shower for three months because, as a self-proclaimed introvert, he did not talk with anyone on the streets.

"I just didn't know there were places a homeless person could use a shower," Banks said. "And you don't know hunger until you eat a bite of food and actually hear your stomach grinding it."

Today, Banks is managing his depression and living in an apartment due to the support he received from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

Some students said they found the perspective the event offered to be powerful.

"I think hearing success stories period are just inspirational, and even though I don't think anyone who came has been homeless, you could pick and pull things from each of their stories and apply it to your life and let that inspire you," said senior physical education major Chris Day, vice president of communication for TerpVets.

And panelist Jackie Grimball said she was a woman no one would have expected to wind up without a home.

She said she grew up affluent, educated and privileged despite living in segregated South Carolina. Before she became homeless, she went to college, married a Marine and was earning — and rapidly spending — thousands of dollars as an attorney's consultant and advocate for patients of mental institutions.

"I'd done fundraisers before, and many of them were for the homeless," Grimball said. "We just raised the money and sat around talking about people we had no intention of ever meeting."

After losing her job and home, Grimball spent four nights on a Langley Park bench — "dressed to the nines" with Louis Vuitton luggage, two potted houseplants and a cell phone — before moving to the women's shelter where she still lives. And now, Grimball said, she has character.

While homeless, Grimball said she realized the greatest resource she had was simply helping others in worse need and accepting help herself.

Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said one of the reasons stereotypes about the homeless persist is because many don't share Grimball's attitude.

"I think it's interesting to understand the consequences of a group of individuals who just get forgotten," he said. "People often think about why the top 1 percent of Americans don't care about the other 99 percent through the Occupy movement. But here, we often ask why 99 percent of the Americans don't care about the 1 percent that's homeless."

lurye@umdbk.com