One last mission: retired colonel tries to stabilize homeless women veterans

By Kathleen Moore, Staff Writer, Times Union

TROY – For the last two years, a retired veteran has been trying to save homeless veterans, one woman at a time. It’s not an easy job, but it’s the last mission for retired Colonel Christine Rem.
The 74-year-old is a registered nurse who spent decades in the Army Reserve before being activated for active duty after 9/11. She was on active duty for six years, giving her a total of 30 combined years before her retirement.

She began to focus on the plight of women veterans, especially those with children. Housing is a huge need. And thus the Capital District Women Veteran Program was born in 2022.
Using the house in Troy that her Polish immigrant grandparents bought in 1920, she has housed eight women and two children so far.
But giving them a room in Christopher House was the easy part.

Two of the women have struggled with substance abuse, and she couldn’t get them through it.
“I told her – and another one who had a drug issue – I’ll go to the rehab with them. But they have to go rehab. And they choose to run instead,” she said.
For others, she has hard-won successes. She helps each woman get their veterans’ benefits, if they are eligible. That means figuring out if they are eligible – a challenge in and of itself. It’s made harder by the fact that many of the women who come to her feel like they’re not “real” veterans because they did not serve in combat, she said.
They chose not to ask for benefits, thinking they did not deserve it.

“Some of them served 30 to 40 years ago. There was no war going on (after the Gulf War),” she said.
Others worked in the United States during wars but in non-combat jobs.
“Some of them never left the country,” she said. “They never went to war. But you only have to serve 180 days on active duty and you are a veteran. I can help them secure their pensions, get healthcare at the VA.”
Others worked in the National Guard for their entire careers, but aren’t eligible for services.

“There are citizens who have spent 30 years in the National Guard or Reserve but because they didn’t have 180 consecutive days, they are not eligible,” she said.
In that case, she takes them to the county Department of Social Services to get them enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare.
She is now trying to raise $40,000 so she can hire a part-time case manager.
"Because I’m getting older. I need somebody," she said. "It's a hard job. It's different than renting."

In one complicated case, she took in the spouse of a soldier and spent months on the paperwork needed to get their son eligible for VA healthcare. The child needed essential surgery to be able to walk. She got the paperwork done and the first of two surgeries was completed before the mother fled rather than face drug rehab.
She sees that as a failure – even though the child is now in a good position to get the other surgery he needs, if his mother goes to the VA anywhere in the country.
Other women have embraced Rem’s philosophy about housing.
“Older women living together, supporting each other, so they have more extra money to spend on having an enjoyable life,” she said. “In America we emphasize independence, having your own apartment. I think that’s why we have the housing crisis right now.”

Her house is considered “supportive housing,” which means there is no date by which a resident must move out. They can stay as long as they want. They each pay rent – 30 percent of their income, whatever it is – and receive free cable television, internet, electricity and all the other utilities that come with the house.
They each have their own bedroom, and share the living room, bathrooms and kitchen.
Some women do not want to stay in a shared house, though Rem argues it’s better than the alternatives.
“Someone who’s 67 is engrained in the fact she wants her own apartment,” Rem said. “But the apartments she could afford, she doesn’t feel safe. She’s older. She’s a woman. She’s alone.”

Others just needed a place to live while they got their veterans benefits. One veteran, who was medically discharged from the Navy with a head injury that causes seizures, was able to move out after she completed the lengthy veterans disability paperwork. She spoke about her homelessness under the condition of anonymity.
When she went to the VA for outpatient care, she said, other veterans would quiz her about whether she “really”  worked in Navy aviation ordinance. Her job, among other things, was to load bombs on planes.
“It was mainly questioning, ‘Oh, did you really?’” she said.
It left her reluctant to go back for services.

“A lot of us, especially females, we’re reluctant to reach out for help,” she said. “I was always reluctant to reach out for any veterans benefits because I didn’t even know if I qualified.”
When she lost her apartment – which she was subletting, to the landlord’s dissatisfaction – she called the VA.
“I probably would have made too much for actual housing assistance” because she had a job, she said. “What I needed was a place to sleep.”
Her only immediate option was to sleep in her truck. They referred her to Rem.

“It is a phenomenal – what the colonel is doing is absolutely phenomenal,” she said. “She just provides a leg up to female veterans to get services and resources they don’t typically know they qualify for.”
Now she has her disability pension and is living independently.
“That program really, really helped ensure my security. Especially while I was in the process of filling out all my paperwork to get my disability. Going to all my interviews,” she said. “That fact that she focuses on female veterans is really fantastic because you don’t see that. It seems like we can get lost in the mix a little bit more than our male counterparts.”