State budget set aside nearly half a million dollars total for four nonprofits
By Skylar Laird
SCDailyGazette.com
GEORGETOWN — U.S. Army Sgt. Frank Rutledge was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from his second tour of duty in Iraq in 2005. As he sought health care through the Veterans Benefit Administration, he ran up against a process he found difficult to navigate.
Rutledge eventually got the benefits he was entitled to. But in talking with other veterans, he realized not only did they have the same problem, many were in worse situations.
After all, he had somewhere to live — something many other South Carolina veterans do not have.
“I saw a great need,” said Rutledge, who had joined the Army straight out of high school and served for 20 years.
In 2006, the Georgetown native started working out of his home to help others access their military benefits. Then, in 2010, he officially started Low Country Veterans Group, a nonprofit dedicated to helping connect veterans with resources and a place to live.
Low Country Veterans is one of four charities receiving money in this year’s state budget to help homeless veterans. Altogether, the four nonprofits are set to receive $458,000 in one-time spending requested by legislators, which they will use to build tiny home communities and other transitional housing to veterans.
Homeless veterans
In a state with more than 350,000 veterans, somewhere around 350 are homeless, according to estimates from the national nonprofit Housing Assistance Council. Another 52,500 veterans live in housing that the nonprofit qualifies as “inadequate,” according to the organization.
However, advocates suspect the number of homeless veterans is much higher.
Based on local and federal data, Scott Dulebohn, director of Veterans Welcome Home and Resource Center, expects there are somewhere between 300 and 500 homeless veterans just in Horry County, where his nonprofit operates.
Some veterans receive monthly Social Security and disability stipends. In some cases, that’s enough to afford rent or mortgage payments. In others, it amounts to as little as $700 per month, Dulebohn said.
“There’s not really anywhere you’re going to live on $700 a month (in Horry County),” he said.
Even if someone could find a place to live that they could afford, they would have little to nothing in the way of savings to pay for emergencies or to move somewhere else, Dulebohn added.
Tiny homes and transitional housing
At Low Country Veterans Group, veterans can stay in one of seven bedrooms at a fully-furnished house in Georgetown while they get back on their feet. The nonprofit took over operations of the home, owned by the Georgetown Housing Authority, in 2010 after the previous operator left.
In recent weeks, Rutledge helped an elderly Vietnam veteran get into a homeless shelter in Myrtle Beach after the veteran was sleeping on the back porch of a home from which he had been evicted. That man is now going through a program to help him get back on track, Rutledge said.
“It’s hard for me as a veteran just to think about the word homelessness in the same sentence as someone who has served their country,” said Rutledge.
While the veterans stay with Low Country Veterans Group, the nonprofit covers their food costs, helps connect them with resources and even helps pay for utility deposits when they move out, Rutledge said. If a veteran is eligible for federal housing assistance, that money goes to pay for the house. Otherwise, the veteran pays nothing to stay there.
“Our main focus is to see that no veteran is left behind,” Rutledge said.
To continue that work, legislators set aside $150,000 for the nonprofit in the state budget this year.
A dozen or so veterans stay in Low Country Veterans’ house each year, typically for 30 days at a time, Rutledge said. During colder months, the house typically fills up as living on the street becomes more difficult.
When that happens, the nonprofit will send veterans to Dulebohn’s Veterans Welcome Home and Resource Center. There they can stay in one of the four bedrooms at a transitional home in Myrtle Beach, or soon, in one of 25 tiny homes the charity is building in Little River.
Those tiny homes, paid for with private donations, are slated to open in mid-August, Dulebohn said. The nonprofit hopes to get enough money to build 16 more tiny homes, in the style of duplexes, to eventually house 41 veterans at a time. Veterans usually stay for three to six months.
Legislators set aside $138,000 to help pay for a portion of the remaining homes, but Dulebohn said it will likely take another $1 million on top of that to complete the project.
Veterans Welcome Home and Resource Center caps its income-based rent payments at $500 to encourage veterans to save up and move somewhere of their own, Dulebohn said.
Upstate veterans struggling with housing can turn to the Upstate Circle of Friends’ VetForward Program, which houses veterans in a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom home for subsidized rent. With $96,000 from the state, the program plans to open another duplex of the same size in November.
Eventually, the group hopes to open three more homes, according to documents the nonprofit submitted to the state.
“Housing concerns continue to grow for our veterans who risked their lives for our country,” wrote Rep. Wendell Jones, D-Greenville, in his request for the money. “We owe them a debt of gratitude. This is our responsibility to them.”
A place for female veterans
When going to Veterans Administration hospitals Army veteran Laurie Strange found people often assumed she was there to get health care for her husband instead of herself.
It’s what prompted Strange to form PTSD Veterans Village in 2022 with the goal of opening a tiny home village in Bishopville specifically for women veterans.
“Women veterans, believe it or not, are considered the silent homeless,” Strange said. “That’s what our project is about.”
The $100,000 Veterans Village is set to receive from the state will help the nonprofit buy land on which to build the homes, Strange said. The 68 acres the nonprofit is considering includes some homes already. Strange hopes to add enough 600-square-foot cottages to house 10 veterans by the end of the year.
On top of $1.6 million to buy the land, the project will likely need more than $2 million to start building houses, most of which will come from private donations and grants, Strange said.
Like the other nonprofits, PTSD Veterans Village will be transitional housing, meant for someone to stay short-term while getting connected with other resources, Strange said. But the goal for all of these groups is for the veterans they serve to save enough money to move into their own homes.
The Veterans Benefit Administration offers veterans home loans that don’t require any down payment and offer lower borrowing costs than they might get elsewhere. In a lot of cases, a veteran owning a home is just a matter of getting them connected with the benefits they earned through their service, Dulebohn said.
But the application process for the home loan program is difficult to understand. Both Rutledge and Dulebohn strive to cut down on the red tape.
“When (veterans’) backs are up against the walls and the system keeps denying them certain things because they can’t navigate through the system, that’s where we come in and put the bureaucrat out of the way,” Rutledge said.
Skylar Laird covers the South Carolina Legislature and criminal justice issues. Originally from Missouri, she previously worked for The Post and Courier’s Columbia bureau.
S.C. Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
