TWO VETERANS EXPLAIN WHY THEY’RE EXCITED TO MOVE INTO NEW UWS AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Bruce Rutherford, one of the veterans who expects to move into new affordable housing at 330 West 95th street.

By Carol Tannenhauser

The city’s Human Resources Administration is turning the building at 330 West 95th street, a former homeless shelter, into permanent affordable housing for veterans. The building was supposed to open before Christmas, but as of this week, veterans who had chosen to live there were still waiting. An HRA spokesman never got back to us about when they can expect to move in.

We spoke to two homeless veterans who are excited about moving in.

“It changes you,” says one of the veterans who has secured a spot in the building. He has asked that we not use his name, so we’ll call him Johnnie.

Johnnie is talking about Iraq, where he served for six months in the U.S. Army during President George W. Bush’s troop “surge” in 2007. He was 20.

“It could be combat missions or transportation missions,” Johnnie explains. “It doesn’t matter what job you’re doing over there. You’re always on high alert. You wake up thinking, ‘What might happen today? Is a bombing coming? A mortar? Are we going to be attacked at the gate?’ Everyone experiences it differently. I wasn’t able to cope with it as much as I wanted to.”

Johnnie’s girl back home was making it harder. Psychologically unstable, she couldn’t handle his deployment, repeatedly threatening suicide. The stress of war and her unraveling were too much for Johnnie. Unable to function, he was discharged early — honorably — for “failure to adapt.”

Johnnie worked a series of menial jobs, living with his girlfriend in constant turmoil and conflict, until, in 2013, she “kicked” him out. His reaction surprised him.

“I felt free,” he recalls.

For the next three days and nights, before entering the NYC shelter system, Johnnie lived on a park bench. He remembers it as a time of reflection and self-discovery.

“I’m not money-driven,” he says. “I don’t ever want to work for anyone else again. I don’t ever want to do meaningless jobs again. Nowadays, I just be. I try my hardest to put positive energy in the universe and see what I get back.”

Johnnie’s plan, after moving into 330 West 95th street, is to go to school. “I have educational benefits that I intend to exploit,” he explains. “I’m going for interdisciplinary studies. Nothing specific. I just want to learn. Someone suggested I go to a community college first.”

“And who was that someone?” asks Bruce Rutherford, 57, smiling.

He had come into the room shortly after Johnnie.

“It was you,” Johnnie laughs.

“I think you will be better served than if you went straight into a four-year college,” Bruce explains.

He is drawing on a decade of experience as a public high school teacher. Bruce has a B.A. in English Literature and a Masters in Comparative Literature from CUNY. Yet, there he is, as a result of a failed business venture, overdue student loans, major depression, and unpaid rent, living in a homeless shelter with Johnnie and about 100 other homeless vets. (Bruce served in the Navy, on an aircraft carrier, after the Vietnam War.) The City has been scrambling to get them all permanently housed, in response to President Obama’s 2014 “Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness” by the end of 2015.

It looked like Johnnie and Bruce were going to make it, be in their own homes by the holidays. In early December, they “viewed” 330 West 95th street and decided to use their federal veterans housing vouchers, which pay up to 70 percent of their rent and guarantee the rest, to live there. They were screened — “rather extensively,” Bruce says, ”including criminal, substance abuse, and mental health histories” – and accepted by the nonprofits contracted to oversee the project and provide health and social services to the veterans.

Then, all communication stopped.

“We’re on pins and needles,” Bruce exclaims. “The application process took place over a month ago and we haven’t heard a word since. We’re in limbo.”

Still, Bruce thinks 330 West 95th street is worth the wait.

“It’s a beautiful, well-maintained building,” he explains. “It was constructed in 1910, so it’s pre-World War I. And it’s the UWS, a bastion of liberalism,” he laughs. “People tend to be pretty tolerant there.”

Bruce’s unofficial survey of articles about this somewhat controversial project put 65 percent of neighborhood residents in favor of it and 35 percent against.

“I can understand the concerns,” Bruce says. “People are worried whether there will be any adverse effects on the neighborhood or their property values. A group of us talked about it. We’re going to be very vigilant and police ourselves. We don’t want to do anything that will reflect poorly not only on the residents of the building, but veterans in need in general.”

“We just want to know when we’re going to move in! We need some information so we can get on with our lives.”