We continue our discussion of medical debt in the U.S. This episode focuses on veterans medical debt. We are pleased to have Jerry Ashton as a guest on the podcast. Jerry Ashton is a four-decade executive in the credit and collections industry. In 2011 he was inspired by his experience with the Occupy Wall Street movement . In 2014 he co-founded RIP Medical Debt, a 501(C)(3) charity dedicated to buying and abolishing unpaid and unpayable medical debt. In 2021 he established a public benefit corporation called “Let’s Rethink This” (www.LetsRethinkThis.com) . At present he is now focused on relieving our veterans of unpaid VA medical debt in a campaign called End Vet Med Debt (#EndVetMedDebt).

Most of us have seen the distressing headlines about our veterans: their rate of suicide, homelessness, drug abuse, incarceration rate, debt and more. Some have also read about the VA attempts via Mission Daybreak to specifically reduce vet suicide — even throwing $20 million dollars in prizes into the mix for organizations that they feel have innovative ways in which to specifically reduce vet suicides.

Several of VMP’s members competed — one successfully: Marine Veteran Rick Johnson CEO of Voi Health and Voi Technology.

But the overall experience was disappointing.

Innovation seemed to be less important than a solution’s ability to fit within the existing VA bureaucratic process. Contestants were put in silo’s, with no real attempt to create a community or develop cross-pollination. Previous contracts won through the VA moved a contestant’s proposal to the top of the judging stack. To make things worse, only 40 participants out of 1,371 entries “qualified” to share in the pot. Only 40???

Thus, the emergence of VMP and its energetic cadre of risk-takers and out-of-the-box thinkers and their supporters who were among the 1,340 who didn’t win a spot. We decided to create a community out of this disparate group. And, to locate and invite others also with good solutions but who were not aware of Mission Daybreak to join with us in a campaign that runs from 11/1/22 through 1/31/23. Veteran Mission Possible.

We intend to equal or better in featuring our members’ impactful solutions. But, how?

The importance of media

Equal to the need to ferret out and refine the thought leaders and their solutions is to see that their inventions and approaches are brought to public attention and especially to the ultimate recipients — the veteran in need and their advocates.

If they don’t know about you, they can’t do anything about you. To ensure that needed awareness, VMP is constructing a web of media specialists and journalists within and outside our community to tend to this. Nothing beats a press kit containing recent newsworthy items.

In the works:

Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ) is working with VMP to develop an onsite and online “media pool” of experienced professionals whose efforts will be harnessed to write those stories and do those interviews. Today, Veteran’s Day 2022, I will be attending their discussion on military, veterans news coverage at the National Press Club — featuring an appearance by former Navy veteran Bob Woodward.

Cary Harrison, VMP Director of Broadcasting and Streaming Media, is using his sway as a highly regarded radio personality to develop in tandem with famed KPFK 90.7fm in Los Angeles a weekly one-hour program devoted to veterans issues and their spokespeople for distribution through Cary’s affiliate stations across the U.S. “The emphasis will be on solutions, not just the problems,” as Cary describes it.

Cary and KPFK on Veteran’s Day last year featured a one-hour fundraiser for the RIP Medical Debt charity to bring attention to veteran medical debt. Enough funds were raised to abolish almost $500,000 in such debt. Imagine this promoted nationally — with veteran debt as the sole focus!

Host of “Ask a Doctor” on VoiceAmerica Radio Virgie Bright Ellington, author of Crush Medical Debt and an VMP benefactor interviews me about our mutually (un)favorite subjects of medical debt and veteran suicide just in time for Veteran’s Day. Visit this site and skip over the first part to start this latest segment at 32:27. You will not be put to sleep.

In fact, the overall approach of VMP and its allies and supporters is to Wake America Up!

In the most gentle but urgent ways possible to the wrongs that need to be righted and the actions that need to be taken. More details for those who might want to be part of this campaign can be found here: https://veteranmissionpossible.com/.

Don’t dawdle, a veteran needs your help. More than one veteran, to be exact. Thousands of them.

As part of my participating in the filming of a documentary on vulnerable veterans with Let’s Rethink This founder Jerry Ashton and acclaimed documentarist and filmmaker Patrick de Warren, I arrived in NYC in late July from Phoenix, AZ. For this documentary to work I’ve decided to actually ‘Be the Story’ and document my personal process of going from, ‘Homeless to Homeness.’

I arrived in New York on July 26, Flew back to Arizona on August 13, and back to NYC on August 20. I’ve been a temporary resident of the New York Department of Homeless Services (NYDHS) since July 28. Even though I am staying at a shelter, they are kind enough to allow me to use their address to obtain my new New York ID card, register as a New York Democrat (45 yrs as AZ GOP’er), and even get a library card. I am also newly enrolled in the Manhattan VA and starting to receive the medical and mental health treatment I’ve been denied in Arizona. That included the HUD/VASH voucher program for disabled and low-income veterans.

As a service-connected disabled veteran (70% for PTSD) whose also poz, I am eligible for several ‘vouchers’. I already have one voucher from HASA, a Social Services agency and covers housing anywhere in the five boroughs,  CityFHEPS for those not covered by any other vouchers, and the HUD/VASH voucher which I should be getting in the next couple of weeks. So, it would only make sense that after spending the entire pandemic in Arizona and isolating, I would eventually catch Covid once moving to New York and beginning the search for a new home. As of September 8, I have been the temporary guest of Sweet Home Suites, a former motel in Queens that only houses other Covid-positive people in the NYDHS system. Although I am still at the isolation facility, I have already begun my earnest search for an apartment.

My first two apartments I viewed were a one-bedroom in an area that wouldn’t be conducive to the work I’ll be doing in Mid-Manhattan and Brooklyn with various veteran’s organizations including homeless and judicial agencies. The second apartment I viewed is a sweet studio in East Harlem, a part of the city that is experiencing gentrification with the return of former New Yorkers seeking older neighborhoods to adopt as their own. For those of us that lived in Chicago during the 1990’s, we saw this happen with Wicker Park. This apartment is also a little far from downtown, but the neighborhood is diverse, and I would be able to transfer to a one-bedroom after my first year. Both of these referrals have been provided by Eric Jackson of the Jericho Project, a “nonprofit ending homelessness at its roots by enabling homeless individuals and families to attain quality housing.”

The third apartment I viewed was found on ForRent.com and a stunning one-bedroom in a housing complex, Stuytown in Easter Manhattan, a stunning 110-building and 11,000 residents sprawling complex, ironically built to house returnees from WWII, but about twice my voucher of $2,218 for an all-utilities paid apartment in the five boroughs. Although it was painfully obvious that there was no possible way I am going to get $4,500/mo. apartment with my current financial situation, amazing Leasing Agent Paris Hampton treated me with the same dignity I’ve received from everyone in New York. The apartment we viewed is simply stunning and worth every bit of the rent requested.

Next ‘Homeless to Homeness’ installment will discuss the voucher system and applying them to renting an apartment.

What do you do when you exhaust your tools and approaches to what has become an intractable problem, and find yourself at an impasse?

If you are the U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs, which has tried for years to substantially lower the incidence of vet suicides (currently averaging 18 per day), you go bold.

That “bold” constitutes in this case a challenge to the general public, and particularly the veteran advocacy community, to come up with ideas, approaches or inventions that will actually and materially change those statistics for the better — Mission Daybreak.

The premise behind this call to action is part of a 10-year strategy which posits that a comprehensive public health approach is required to address this scourge.

“Suicide has no single cause, and no single strategy can end this complex problem,” their website declares. “That’s why Mission Daybreak is fostering solutions across a broad spectrum of focus areas. A diversity of solutions will only be possible if a diversity of solvers — including veterans, researchers, technologists, advocates, clinicians, health innovators and service members — answer the call to collaborate and share their expertise.”

To motivate this community, the VA set in place a two-phase grand challenge. Phase I being open to all eligible solvers to submit detailed, 10-page detailed concept papers. This ended on July 8. A team of over 300 judges have now set about to determine the 40 finalists to be announced in early September.

1,373 Responses for the 40 Competitive Slots

Over 1,300 individuals and organizations submitted their papers, my organization Let’s Rethink This (LRT) being one of them. Each of them/us hoping to make it into that final tranche. Each of us realizing the odds are against us (close to 50 to 1) no matter how unique or important we believe our approach might be.

On our own, LRT reached out to fellow members of this “Solver Community” to learn a bit more about the solutions they offer and to question their participation once the forty finalists (only 30 of which will advance to the final competitor list) have been selected. Win/Lose or Draw, what will they do if they don’t move into the Accelerator Stage?

Of the dozen or so responding, we were amazed at the range of both skill and offerings. One offered a camping experience on a property he owned by a river. Conversely, another offered a grand plan of establishing 150 therapy-oriented resorts with golf course driving ranges - along with a list of 20 more solutions.

One offered art therapy, another a sophisticated “tactical film service” for veteran entrepreneurs. One conceived of creating a major “community solution” engaging vets by way of helping them actually generate revenues within the community.

A few kept their cards close to their vest and shared little of their approach, others shared their complete concept papers. Many emphasized mental and physical therapies involving camping and treks — many involving the transition from military to civilian life.

At least two pure medical approaches ranging from repurposing existing drugs to bring about better treatments for TBI and PTSD to curing prostate cancer were among the offerings. Technology showed up in the form of cellphone apps and online volunteer or therapist “time banking” addressed the problem of social isolation.

Can there actually be losers?

In the sense that at least 1,300-plus individuals and organizations put out their best and most creative solutions into public awareness — no. No one has heard of these people, much less their ideas! Some of them, with this new awareness, might luck out like some contestants in TV’s famed Shark Tank who fail to win over any of the deep-pocketed sharks, their very appearance on that show attracted other investors who did move forward with investments.

But the odds! Think of it.

For every one “winning” solution chosen, almost 50 other approaches were passed by. Judges erred in not making that selection. (We may never know, unless the VA makes available a list of the runners-up along with their Concept Paper. Surely, a VC, investor or philanthropist just might find it worth the while to sift through those entries.

The bottom line: It’s all about gaining awareness. If people don’t know about you, they can’t do anything about you.

So, a salute to the VA for this noble experiment. It will get press, and perhaps generate enough public consciousness about the prevalence and horror of vet suicide that public interest will enable the hard work of this Solver Community to bear fruit.

It’s one thing to be aware of a problem. An entirely different thing to do something about it. Don’t gamble on someone else stepping up — the stakes are too high.

Let’s end Veteran Suicides — for good!

As part of my participating in the filming of a documentary on vulnerable veterans with Let’s Rethink This founder Jerry Ashton and acclaimed documentarist and filmmaker Patrick de Warren I arrived in NYC in late July from Phoenix, AZ.

For this documentary to work I actually participated in the process of going ‘homeless’ (which I was) and registered with the New York City Dept of Homeless Services located on 30th St. in Manhattan – just seven blocks from the Manhattan Harbor VA. The men’s shelter is an eight-story former school with classrooms serving as offices and 2–5-man rooms. It was quite an experience.

 Everyone entering the building passes through a metal detector and belongings are thoroughly inspected. There are no weapons allowed or any item that could be used as a weapon. No outside food is allowed, and no food can be removed from the dining area. There is security and staff everywhere.

Although formidable, the result is a calm, peaceful environment with tons of support from case workers from multiple agencies (including the VA with an onsite veteran’s case manager three days a week). There are laundry facilities, hot meals, showers, and comfy beds. Essentially, it is a steppingstone intake for the hundreds of temporary residents who will be referred to other short-term housing and supportive programs.

What is amazing is that Veterans experiencing homelessness are immediately identified and fast-tracked to a number of transitional programs regardless of military discharge status. 

I was transferred to the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence in Long Island City in Queens; a large sprawling building with hundreds of beds in open bays and 6 x 9 ft cubicles. Here, the cubicles are provided to veterans that qualify for HUD/VASH and all the veterans are provided a safe haven with meals, showers, counseling services, and access to mental health and medical providers.

I was immediately assigned a case worker to assist in obtaining permanent housing, whether with HUD/VASH or any number of veteran-supportive housing programs and employment opportunities structured around a vet’s needs. As a 62+ veteran with physical and mental health disabilities, they made sure that I would be aware of need-specific options available through agencies on the federal, state, and city levels. Thorough!

The NYC-Phoenix Difference for this Vet

My start at the 30th St. men’s shelter in two weeks has positioned me to be approved for a HUD/VASH voucher for which the Phoenix VA and CRRC refused to allow me to apply! This provided me an immediate confirmation that these people were on my side.

In that same, short time I was also accepted to participate in an SSVF program providing business opportunities and housing to veterans. I’m surrounded by an amazing staff of case workers and counselors, and a security staff and feel accepted, respected and safe. 

It is no wonder why the per-capita suicide rate of New York is less than half that of Arizona. It is proof-positive that the Veteran-based support policies and programs for at-risk and vulnerable veterans being done in NYC reduces stress and contributes to saving lives. I expect to count mine among them. Tim Pena, Veterans Justice Project.