New shelter planned near Whitefish

Helping America’s homeless veterans is Jason Stevens’ driving passion. He discovered this only while he was living among them at a homeless shelter.

In August he will open a “veterans lodge” to house 35 homeless veterans near Whitefish. His Glacier Hope Homes will pay back those who volunteered their lives in the Armed Forces.

“I don’t think I could have found a better place to do it,” Stevens said. “The community here has been incredibly responsive.”

The Glacier Hope Homes, located at the current site of a resort on Hodgson Road near Happy Valley, will offer around 12,000 square feet of space for the 35 veterans it is capable of housing.

“The property is 17 and a half acres, with three ponds and lots of wildlife,” Stevens said. “We will have psychotherapy treatment, social stimuli; we will provide three nutritious meals a day and will specialize in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. We will have an addiction counselor available. This will be a 24-hour location.”

Stevens, 59, had gone through a messy divorce in Washington and came to Montana to stay with relatives. Things “went sideways” very quickly, and he found himself homeless, staying at Samaritan House in Kalispell.

During the day, the homeless people at the shelter have to leave. So Stevens and many of his compatriots spent time at the ImagineIF Libraries (then Flathead County Library). There he got the chance to talk to many of the homeless veterans in the Flathead Valley.

Stevens saw the extreme need for more shelter for these people, noting as many as 146 homeless veterans “are out there every night in Kalispell.

“And there are only 100 beds,” he stressed.

More than 70 percent of these veterans are dealing with drug or alcohol dependency, Stevens said. Many more deal with other forms of mental illness, which make it hard to maintain interpersonal relationships or jobs. Of these veterans, 47 percent served in Vietnam.

“A lot of these guys don’t understand what benefits they have,” Stevens said. “It’s about trust. Many of these guys don’t trust society or police or anyone besides their buddies.”

Glacier Hope Homes will start a buddy system of sorts, pairing veterans of different generations together so they can learn to trust people again. The buddy system also will help defeat the crippling loneliness many homeless feel.

Stevens was homeless for three months before he got a job at a local supermarket to get back on his feet. His drive to start Glacier Hope Homes was a full-time effort, so he quit that job to spend all his time on the nonprofit.

“One of the things when I started was how to fund it,” he  said. “We have private investors, a block grant from (the U.S. Department of Housing and Development) and about a third comes from what we call ‘earned income.’”

That last funding category includes Medicaid, Medicare and Veterans Administration benefits. The Glacier Hope Homes will have central buildings and outlying cabins.

While the beds at shelters such as Samaritan House are a good option, Stevens said wants to address some of the more difficult to reach homeless residents.

“Yes, I was homeless, but I never had to live by a creek,” he said. “There is a group of guys who live on Ashley Creek. Every year someone has died out there. I want to help these chronic homeless men.”

Stevens admits some of the veterans are resistant to coming back into society, but his mission is to help all of them if he can.

On that path, he has partnered with the Veterans Center at Flathead Valley Community College, several local mental-health clinics, the VA clinic in Kalispell and the Flathead Job Service. When the facility opens to homeless veterans on Aug. 4, it should open up a new world to them.

“We’ve got to make sure that support system is there for them,” Stevens said. “The first four to six weeks we’ll have them come in and just get healthy again. Get good food, get good sleep and stay warm. Slowly, but safely, we’ll ask them what they want to do.”

Many homeless veterans want to get back into the work force, but have found dead ends due to lack of clean clothes, phone, transportation and mailing address. Glacier Hope Homes will enable them to wash and shave, give them an address for employers to check and would provide rides to jobs.

“Some of these guys want to do construction or something,” Stevens said. “And I want to help them get there. This is more than just room and board.”

The cost is $1,500 monthly per person. Several fundraisers are already in the works, and Stevens locked down the purchase of the property just days ago. Things are moving fast, he said, and volunteers can be part of that.

“This is a community-driven place,” he said. “We’ll have all these amenities, and we’re going to be putting in a memorial park. I want the community out there. I want people to come.”

For more information on Glacier Hope Homes, contact Stevens at 871-6738.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.