Homeless vet complex forced to shut
John Rankin had been living out of his truck for more than a year when he finally drove to Houston’s Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center to ask for help. He owned just a few changes of clothing. To make money, he scrounged for coins and cans, but he spent whatever cash he did find on alcohol.
“I got tired of being tired,” said Rankin, a Coast Guard veteran, former oil worker and recovering alcoholic. “When you’re 31 years old, living in truck — it hit home, the self-esteem, respect. I had lost a lot of basic dignity.”
Rankin later moved into the VA’s domiciliary, a residential complex where veterans also received comprehensive services, including group therapy, job training, medical help and educational classes. Since 2008, the facility on Fannin Street south of the Medical Center has helped more than 700 people like Rankin rebuild their lives.
Just this June, city and government leaders declared victory over veteran
homelessness here at a celebration at Minute Maid Park. Left unmentioned was that serious structural and managerial problems had forced the closure of the domiciliary and another won’t open until at least 2017. VA officials say other programs will absorb veterans who might have received treatment at the domiciliary, but advocates and relatives of the homeless worry the assistance will not be as comprehensive or supportive.
One Army veteran committed suicide a few weeks after being displaced, leading his family to wonder if it may have contributed to his death.
“Of all the places, why are you going to close a governmentfunded program that served our vets?” said Richard Letourneau, younger brother of 49-year-old Ralph Letourneau, who slit his wrists in May underneath a Midtown overpass. “They deserve better than what they get. … It was like, ‘To hell with all y’all.’ ”
‘Out of the blue’
VA officials dispute any notion the veterans were forced out too quickly or have since received lower quality treatment provided through other programs the agency offers, either here or in other parts of the country.
“Every veteran had an individualized discharge plan that was appropriate for them,” said Dr. Laura Marsh, head of the DeBakey Center’s Mental Health services. “And every veteran was working well with staff to get to the next level of transition.”
The VA expects to open a new domiciliary in about a year and a half, Marsh said.
Veterans advocates said the decision to close the facility in May surprised them and could complicate efforts to house and treat some of the city’s most vulnerable veterans.
Tom Mitchell, executive director of the Texas chapter of USVETS, a nonprofit that provides services to homeless and at-risk veterans, said the news the domiciliary was shutting down “came out of the blue.”
“It acted as that middle (piece) — not in a hospital but a more secured environment,” he said. “It was a good transition ... which we don’t really have now.”
Lynda Greene, director of De George at Union Station, a permanent housing complex downtown on Preston Street, said she often received referrals from the domiciliary after veterans had finished their treatment.
It was “a tremendous asset,” she said. “Not having it there, I think it creates a void.”
Tumult with Riverside
The multifaceted program opened seven years ago, touted as a middle ground between more intense hospital-like environments and independent situations like individual apartments. As many as 40 veterans were treated at a time.
But even as they were helping veterans get back on their feet, VA officials were often battling with Riverside General Hospital, which owned the complex where the program was housed, over a raft of maintenance issues. The VA contracted with the hospital and paid $375,000 a year in rent.
In 2012, the hospital fell under federal scrutiny in a Medicare billing scam. Earlier this year, former Riverside CEO and president Earnest Gibson III, 70, was sentenced to 45 years in prison. His son, Earnest Gibson IV, who operated the domiciliary, received a 20-year sentence.
VA records show that the younger Gibson and his associates failed to maintain the complex over the past seven years. Letters from VA officials to Riverside as far back as October 2008 — when the facility was damaged by Hurricane Ike — show the agency had to evacuate the site because of unsafe levels of mold, which Riverside eventually remedied.
Other records showed the VA contacted Riverside after the ceiling in an electrical room caved in 2013 and with complaints of rodent, roach and mosquito infestations. Complaints also included worms in bathroom tubs, roof leaks, faulty heating and air-conditioning systems, exposed nails tripping patients and staff, and dry-rot throughout the facility.
Riverside appears to never have addressed many of the concerns. Gerry Hilliard, a financial adviser appointed last year to a three-member conservatorship committee that now oversees daily operations, did not return calls seeking comment.
Then, in April, after parts of the ceiling in an office and classroom space collapsed, the VA inspected the facility. Shortly after, the government decided to wind down operations there, though department officials said it was not based solely on that incident.
VA officials stopped hiring new staff or accepting patients in the spring, transferring residents to other treatment programs around Texas, Marsh said.
‘Everything fell apart’
Ralph Letourneau, an Army veteran, was one of the final residents to be transferred when the facility finally closed.
He enlisted in the Army four days after graduating from Willowbridge High School in 1984.
“Our family wasn’t wealthy,” said Richard Letourneau in a phone interview from his home in Arkansas. “He couldn’t afford to go to college and he didn’t do anything to prepare, so the military was next option.”
Letourneau mustered out in 1992 and earned his associate degree in nursing from Houston Community College and worked at several local hospitals.
Then, his younger brother said, “everything fell apart in the last year and half.”
In April 2013, Letourneau gave blood-pressure medication to a patient suffering from tachycardia and hypertension. The patient went into cardiac arrest, but survived, according to records.
The Texas Board of Nursing sanctioned him and mandated retraining, according to a disciplinary report the agency filed in May 2014. His relatives said the requirements — which had to be completed within 24 months — were so onerous that he lost his job and was unable to find a new one.
“It had a major effect,” his brother said. On top of that, Letourneau, who had previously talked about committing suicide, was struggling with depression and bipolar disorder and was trying to kick a dependency on Xanax, he said. Letourneau said he attributes some of his brother’s mental anguish to growing up gay in their deeply religious, Pentecostal family.
New environment
All of which brought Letourneau to seek help in March at the domiciliary, where he met Rankin.
“It was very calm and relaxing,” said Rankin, now in recovery and preparing to start a new job as a maintenance worker in Kerrville. “Between the staff and living conditions, there was a sense of renewal.”
Over his six weeks in the program, Letourneau started to come out of his shell, Rankin said.
“He seemed a lot happier towards the end,” he said.
Then, on April 24, just weeks after VA officials told veterans they were closing the domiciliary, Letourneau and Rankin were transferred to a program run by USVETS in Midtown.
It was a different environment, said Rankin — one more centered on helping veterans find jobs — instead of treatment.
In May, Letourneau went missing. Authorities found his body in a car on Blodgett under an overpass a few days later. County records show that he killed himself by cutting his wrists.
“He was going through a lot, and I guess it was more than he could bear,” his brother said.
Rankin wonders if Letourneau’s departure from the domiciliary aggravated his mental anguish and contributed to his suicide.
“I think the switching of environments was what did it,” he said.