PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) - Data from the most recent Point-in-Time Count and the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that more than 1,400 Oregon veterans spend the night on the streets or in shelters on any given night.
Until recently, Joseph Marberry and Harold Stallworth were two of them.
Marberry served for five years and left the military in 1990 with a broken back. He started living in his car in 2019.
"I worked driving a truck - just living in my car because I didn't have the money to get into a place," Marberry said.
Stallworth served in the military from 1996 to 1998, and also lived in his car starting in March of 2023.
The veterans said they were desperate to get back on their feet, and earlier this year, the doctors they were assigned through the VA connected them to an opportunity they couldn't pass up.
A veterans housing facility known as The Hugo was advertised as a beautiful facility, delivering mental health and substance abuse services, private rooms, a sparkling pool and connections to get food and clothing:
"Of course I was elated to hear the news that I now had a place to go," Stallworth said. "Initially when you hear about the program it was a relief, I got to get out of the car, a place with four walls that's somewhat your own."
The facility is run by the Eugene-based veterans services nonprofit Reveille Foundation and funded through the VA's Grants per Diem program.
But in May, when veterans started to move in, it didn't take long for the bleak reality to set in.
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Marberry invited a FOX 12 crew to see his room, and showed them an aluminum pan placed beneath a leaking pipe in his closet ceiling.
"That's black mold, that's nasty," he said. "That's been in my ceiling and dripping down onto my food."
Black mold was also visible in the silicone around his bathroom sink. Stallworth showed crews a video of the even worse pipe leak in his closet, which produced a pool of water that he could splash his hand across.
Images of other rooms showed drenched portions of carpet on the floor.
"Leaky ceiling, puddles on the floor, they supposedly fixed the problem and then moved me in," Stallworth said. "You literally walked into my room and it smelled like mold, you could literally smell the mold."
Marberry said his doctor believes he's having an allergic reaction to the mold, and his history as a two-time cancer survivor creates a greater concern.
Other residents have reported regularly seeing rats in the building.
On top of that, the building's boiler was broken all year until just recently, leaving the veterans in sweltering summer heat or freezing winter conditions, with only small space heaters for relief.
Lucy, a former intern with the Reveille Foundation and a student in the University of California's social work program, said she started working at the facility in August.
She said the kitchen was only open a few hours a day with a supervisor present due to fire safety concerns, and with only a crock pot and a single hot plate, there was no way for all 23 residents to be fed.
In recent weeks, the kitchen was shut down entirely.
"We have residents here who have no access to food, no access to cooking - multiple residents are going hungry here," Lucy said. "There was a recent report of multiple residents but one in particular, a Vietnam veteran, who was going door to door begging for food. He hadn't eaten in two days."
Lucy said when she first read about the program, it was different from any other GDP program offered anywhere in the nation, and advertized training and mentorship opportunities for interns. But, she said, she received no training whatsoever when she started her internship, and she did not even go through a background check before she was given access to the veterans' personal records.
Some of the veterans did receive one-on-one counseling, in a space with no privacy. FOX 12 saw footage of the area where personal sessions were conducted, which was behind a half-built wall with no door.
"When residents are in there having intimate clinical sessions, they're seated next to people who are filing out SNAP applications, and people are coming in and out," Lucy said.
She said her university pulled her from the internship in early November when they learned more about the conditions at the facility.
Currently, the Reveille Foundation is certified through the OHA to conduct an outpatient program for mental health services, but they do not yet have certification to provide substance abuse counseling, which is one of the services they advertised for the facility.
Lucy said there is also no security on-site, and at one point, a homeless person was living upstairs for a few days without anyone knowing.
"Reveille is supposed to have someone here 24 hours, so what happens in a crisis?" she said. "What happens when people need us?"
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Reveille Foundation's Founder and CEO Steve Yamamori said he created the foundation in Arizona in 2018 to support veterans who were struggling to transition back into society, and they moved their operations to Oregon four years ago.
They also have a transitional housing location in Eugene.
Yamamori said he wasn't aware of the lack of food and clinic privacy until recent weeks, and says his team hasn't found evidence of rodents or water leak issues.
"We have found none of that with rodent issues, we have gone through and done our own research and inspection, and we have not found traces of that on property, and we are still doing even more by providing extermination, and we are making that remediation possible," Yamamori said.
He said he met with the veterans on the property, and many of them do not want to leave the space and instead want to help improve the conditions.
"Some of them are very recently housed, and what we want to do is make sure we remediate any issues that are going on," Yamamori said.
The VA told FOX 12 via email that they performed three reviews of the property this year - one in April, one in September, and another in November.
Their reviews uncovered water damage, evidence of rodent infestation and lack of heating throughout the building.
On Nov. 27, the VA issued a 'High-Risk Corrective Action Plan" to the foundation, saying they are not living up to their grant agreements, which include a guaranteed connection to three meals a day, 24-hour on-property management, and training for employees on suicide prevention and equity and inclusion.
FOX 12 asked Yamamori about the VA's reviews.
"We don't have evidence of a lot of that stuff, so I just want to make it clear that when we are getting onto the property, we're not finding all of those issues but we're taking them all very seriously," Yamamori said. "With the water intrusion, we brought out a third-party mold inspector last week and they found no water intrusion. So there's not that standing water that would make mold a systematic issue.
"Unfortunately what I will say is that communication on my part, we need to increase that communication, and so communications with our veterans, communications with the site team as well as communication with the VA as well needs to be increased so we can hit these items on a more regular basis," he added.
When the foundation opened its doors back in May, they received $63.12 per veteran per day who participated in the program, or $1,893.60 per month. In July, the foundation requested an increase to $68.64 per day.
The VA confirmed that 23 veterans were living in the space as of their review in November. With 23 veterans per month residing in the space from May to November, the foundation would have received around $320,000 in taxpayer dollars for the program.
The VA is now in the process of moving some of the veterans to other housing situations, including other Grants per Diem programs.
They sent FOX 12 the following statement:
"No Veteran should be homeless in the country they swore an oath to defend. Through the VA's Grant Per Diem (GPD) Program, we provide transitional housing and vital support services to help Veterans achieve stable, permanent housing. This program reflects our nation's duty to ensure every Veteran has a place to call home. In the case of the Veterans previously residing at housing provided by the Reveille Foundation, VA Portland HCS is taking swift action to relocate them after identifying serious health and safety concerns. Our top priority is to safeguard their well-being while continuing to support their transition to stable housing. VA remains fully committed to ending Veteran homelessness and upholding our responsibility to those who served."
They gave the Reveille Foundation until the end of the year to fix the issues, or else their grant funding will be pulled.
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Yamamori says by that deadline, he'll bring in third-party organizations to provide residents with at least one hot meal a day, open up parts of the kitchen for personal cooking and dishwashing, move the clinic to the more private former fitness center downstairs, and training for employees will be brought up to standard.
However, the uncertainty around the housing situation has pushed some of the veterans to dangerous places.
"These residents are traumatized," Lucy said. "We have had residents who have been admitted to the hospital since with suicidal ideations and no support."
"I am disappointed with the VA because I would've rather seen us be able to take care of these issues without moving people out, and because it is a triggering thing for them," Yamamori said.
FOX 12 pointed out to Yamamori that the residents say they're frustrated the issues weren't taken care of before the VA started asking people to move.
"We can do a better job with communication, with the VA, with our veterans, with the site team that is there, and I acknowledge that, we can do a better job," Yamamori said. "What I would like to do is make sure we can get folks back in. Right now we have two weeks to be able to remediate all of these issues and we hope to be able to welcome back the veterans in our space."
FOX 12 asked Yamamori if he feels he's let these veterans down.
"The standards that I would like to see for our veterans can be improved, but that's our commitment is to make sure that we're offering not only programming, but a facility that is not only compliant but going above and beyond to support our veterans," he replied.
For veterans like Marberry and Stallworth, the stable future and fresh start they hoped to gain through the program is now on shaky ground.
"To figure out that you've been violated on just about every front - it's disheartening," Stallworth said.
"I felt like here I'm stuck in a rut, and now I'm actually moving forward, and now I feel like I'm going right back to being stuck in that rut," Marberry said.
FOX 12 also reached out to the building's owner, Fortify Holdings for comment but has not yet received a response.
Lucy, the former intern, said she has set up an online fundraiser to help these veterans as they make this transition. She is also seeking legal counsel to help veterans who wish to take action against the Reveille Foundation.