Tales of hope, strength, resilience highlight VVSD 45th anniversary celebration

Veterans Village of San Diego President and Chief Operating Officer Akilah Templeton spoke about the nonprofit’s history and mission at the 45th anniversary event. Photo by Gary Warth

In a ceremony that included emotional memories of the past and vows to continue its mission in the future, Veterans Village of San Diego celebrated its 45th anniversary at its Midway District campus Sept. 29.

“It is very tempting on an anniversary like this to measure those years in dates, in milestones, in programs launched, buildings opened, and veterans served,” said Akilah Templeton, VVSD president and chief operating officer. “Those things are important, but I believe that the true measure of 45 years is something much more human. It is measured in lives.

“It is measured in the veteran who walked through our doors during one of the most difficult moments of his or her life and found a way forward,” she said. “It is measured in the family that found stability again, and it is measured in the veteran who once came here looking for help and who returns years later, not as someone in crisis, but as someone who truly has a story to tell. That is the legacy of Veterans Village of San Diego.”

VVSD was founded in 1981 as Vietnam Veterans of San Diego as a way to enhance service to veterans experiencing trauma, homelessness and other issues. As the nonprofit group grew and expanded its services to all veterans, it launched the first Stand Down in 1988 as a large resource fair. The event became a national model that inspired more than 200 similar Stand Downs across the country, and the main VVSD campus opened in 1990 and has grown to include a rehabilitation center, emergency shelter, housing and a variety of services.

Among the many veterans who have been helped by VVSD was Crystal English, who spoke emotionally about her journey.

“My relationship with Veterans Village of San Diego began from a very different place from where I am today,” she said. “I didn’t come to VVSD as someone who had everything figured out. I came here because I needed help.”

English shared that her life after leaving military service was not what she had planned, but rather a “long and winding road with far too many detours and cul-de-sacs.

“Eventually, I found myself in a position where I never in a million years thought I would be, without a home, in a mental health crisis and in a dysfunctional relationship with adult beverages,” she said. “I needed a way back and an opportunity to rebuild my life. That opportunity came through Veterans Village of San Diego.”

English said she was scared when she arrived at VVSD with hopes of putting her life back together in 2019.

“VVSD gave me something incredibly important,” she said. “A place where I could begin again. Not simply have a place to stay, but regain structure and purpose for my life.

“There were programs, resources and people who understood that rebuilding a life doesn’t happen overnight,” she said.

By 2020, English said she was stable enough to move into her own apartment and begin completing her education by returning to a graduate program she had walked away from at UC Santa Barbara.

She earned a doctorate in geography and said she is successfully employed in higher education, working in geographic information system technology.

“I have had opportunities to contribute professionally and serve my community in ways that I could not have imagined when I first walked through those doors,” she said, speaking to guests on the VVSD campus.

English said VVSD was part of the bridge between where she was and where she is today, and she sees her journey as coming full circle, as she is now a VVSD board member.

Veteran Ron Stark also spoke about how he was helped by VVSD in 1994 at a time when he couldn’t get a job.

“VVSD walked me in here, put me down at the front desk to be the receptionist and then the office manager, and then the IT manager, and then the Stand Down coordinator,” he said about his career at the nonprofit.

Stark also talked about the important role volunteers play at VVSD, and he encouraged people to continue their work.

“The little secret is you get more out of giving than you do out of getting,” he said. “When you give, you get more.”

Veteran and former VVSD employee Roderick Gabriel also spoke at the ceremony and recalled his first experience with the nonprofit in 2006, when he checked into a rehab program.

“It didn’t take,” he said. Gabriel later spent four and a half years in prison, and came back to VVSD in 2014 and heard a man’s story at his first house meeting.

“I had just spent four and a half years in prison, and I listened to this man talk about his experience, strength and hope, and I told myself,”I want what he has,’” he said.

With help from his case manager, Gabriel said he found employment, returned to school and earned a master’s degree. He now works at 211 San Diego as a client service manager.

“It wasn’t just recovery that I got from here,” he said. “It wasn’t just employment services. I literally got a family, I got a community.

“It was literally life lessons that I learned,” he continued, adding that he now has a home, family and career he loves. “It’s how to stand up, how to be a man.”

Templeton said VVSD has acquired a greater understanding about homelessness, trauma, behavioral health care, recovery, employment and the transition from military to civilian life over the past 45 years.

The population of homeless veterans also has declined since then, with annual counts showing a 51% decrease locally since 2014 and a 55% decrease nationally since 2010.

Templeton said VVSD must be flexible moving forward as it continues its mission to solve veteran homelessness.

“We cannot serve tomorrow’s veterans simply by repeating yesterday’s solutions,” she said. Honoring our history does not mean preserving everything exactly how it was. It means preserving the mission. And it means having the courage to change our methods sometimes.

“The battlefield may change, but the mission continues,” she said.