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VCP alum Charlie built lifelong relationships while working toward permanent housing readiness in the program.
U.S. Army Veteran Charlie moved into Veterans Community Project with a singular goal.
“To get my own place!” he exclaims, adding, “And look at me now.”
Today, Charlie lives just a few miles away in a townhouse at a historic school building that was recently converted to residential housing. It’s a complete 180 from his situation six years ago when he was experiencing homelessness and living in his car before moving into VCP of Kansas City in 2019.
“If not for VCP, I don’t know where I’d be right now... I know you wouldn’t see me smiling like this,” he says.
Over the year that he lived in his rent-free 240-square-foot transitional home in the Village, Charlie worked with case managers to stabilize his income, gain reliable transportation, and improve his physical health. Now happily in his own place, he’s surrounded by mementos from his time at VCP and his 69 years of a life well lived.
In the mezzanine office of his two-bedroom unit, a small model semitruck sits in front of a palm sized globe. The two pieces are reminders of the 45 years that Charlie spent—and loved—as a truck driver.
After graduating at the top of his class in trucking school following his service in the Army during the early 1970s, he earned his first job with firm based out of Missoula, Montana. Charlie reflects how this made for a drastic change of scenery in his life up to that point. “So, I was born in Memphis and raised in Kansas City and, man, I thought this country was flat.” He recalls spending one youthful night sleeping beneath the stars and in the shadow of the Our Lady of the Rockies statue atop the Continental Divide.
Over the next four decades, the career took him what felt like everywhere. With a big smile, he says, “All those places people talk about going... I’ve been there. From Bangor, Maine, to Compton, California. From Miami, Florida, to Seattle, Washington. Every ocean on our coasts, every one of the Great Lakes, I’ve touched ‘em.”
These days, living on a modest fixed income in retirement, Charlie’s brought his traveling to a halt. After he counts out rent, utilities, insurance, and such, there’s not a whole lot left over every month.
But, he says, “I’m comfortable where I’m at right now... I really am. I’m warm in the winter, cool in the summer. My cabinets are full, I’m eating healthy.”
In front of the TV in his living room, and adjacent to the couch he kept from his home at VCP, there’s a collection of mini football helmets representing each team in the NFL. The centerpiece is a slightly larger Kansas City Chiefs helmet.
Charlie grew up playing high school football across the state border in Kansas City, Kansas. He was a star quarterback at Sumner High School, with a vivid memory of scoring a touchdown in the state championship game at Arrowhead Stadium. His playbook sticks in his mind, too (ask him about his favorite trick play: 48 Pitch-Out Pass).
That said, while the memories of football are good, some of the current-day reminders aren’t. Charlie still navigates a bevy of health challenges rooted in a combination of football, military service, and truck driving. He’s had seven surgeries in his life—which, in turn, contributed to his homelessness as healthcare costs dwindling his savings had compounded with a family living situation falling apart in the late 2010s.
Earlier this month, Charlie went back under the knife for a hip replacement. Although he knows the recovery process can be a grind, he’s looking straight ahead. He’s warned his townhome neighbors to be on the lookout for him moving around again soon. “’That fool’s out roller skating again,’ they’ll say before long,” he chuckles.
Finally, one of his proudest mementos is a picture of his dog, Blue. He adopted her while living in the Village and, he swears, “If you didn’t get along with Blue, you just don’t like dogs.”
Charlie, Blue, and his Veteran neighbors spent much of their time at the Village on their front stoops, shooting the breeze and “talking about old times.” Blue turned into a magnet for conversation with anyone from regular VCP volunteers to elected officials touring the Village. To that end, “Buttigieg gave her a pet, you know,” he says about the former presidential candidate who made a campaign stop in Kansas City.
Along with Blue, Charlie is quick to mention his neighbors when talking about VCP today. He still stays in close touch with several of them. They look out for each other, he says, noting that one had just recently called to wish him well going into his surgery.
“We’ll chat about family, about life,” he says, “but mostly it’s: ‘Hey, how are you doing? You need anything?’”
He adds, “Relationships are so important. We were all at VCP for different reasons but we did share one thing in common in that we’d all come on hard times.”
They got through it together then, he says. And today, they’ve built themselves a lifelong support system.
Back at the new place of his own, Charlie is at it again building relationships with those around him. He regularly hosts cookouts on his corner. He waves and grins and stops to chat while getting his daily steps in around the complex. While he’s always taken this kind of positive outlook, he says with certainty that it was rejuvenated while at VCP.
“That one year in the Village set off a whole chain of events,” he says. “Not one time in the last six years have I turned around and gone backwards—it’s all been progressing.”
Adding, “VCP saved my life, man... and now, I’m going to be around a long time, because I feel great.”