Veteran Resource Center holds grand opening

The Veterans Resource Center, a place where veterans returning to school can study and obtain services, including mental health counseling, held it’s grand opening on Oct. 15.

Chancellor Don Griffin, Coach George Rush and City College veterans joined dignitaries from the San Francisco Veterans Administration and City College supporters to officially open the center.

The grand opening, at Cloud Hall, was standing-room only with approximately 40 people overflowing into the cramped hallway.

The room, which is equipped with a flat-screen monitor, a refrigerator, a microwave and six computers with Internet access, gives veterans a place to socialize.

“We need to be ready to serve veterans when they came back from the war. We were not ready,” said Griffin, who has worked as a psychologist for the Veteran hospitals in the East Bay.

“We had only 140 veterans in the college. They were in a facility in the basement of Conlan Hall—totally inadequate staffing.”

As City College has seen the number of veterans return to campus increase, there is a need to filter out those organizations that would hamper them finishing school.

“The Army tried to come in and recruit last week. I asked them to leave,” said the Dean of the Student Health Center, Sunny Clark, who was appointed by Griffin to administer the VRC.

The primary purpose of the VRC is to create a safe and welcoming place on campus for veterans returning from active duty.

”Some guys that have moved here don’t know how to navigate around campus or town,” member of the Veteran’s Alliance club, Jordan Towers, said. The club was instrumental in the creation of the VRC. He said the biggest service is peer mentoring.

City College’s VRC is the first community college center in the country to work closely with San Francisco Veterans Administration, according to founding members of the club.

”It is unprecedented. As veterans we are entitled to care at the VA hospitals, what has not been done before being able to have on site care,” founding member of the Veterans Alliance club, Jim Knudstrup, said.

The SFVA plans to expand its hours at the center from 12 to 40 hours a week.

“We are going to be doing psychiatric assessments and evaluations providing medical management which include psychotropic prescriptions and medication can be then mailed or picked up at the VA,” SFVA psychiatrist Ellen Herbst said.

“Having psychologists on campus is a huge step to what City College has offered in recent years. It means that Veterans don’t have to travel miles to reach the Veterans Administration.” Air Force veteran, Benjamin Moran Cooper said.

Multiple veterans have also complained about waiting for benefits.

“I just got paid last week, My rent money did not get to me until to Oct. 4,” Army reserve medic Jeanette Martinez said. “I had to go through a portion of August and September without rent money.”

“As veterans we get priority registration dates, the VA has been slow to publicize this date. I had to sit in to each class to add. This delayed my paper work a month, lot of veterans are trying to do the same thing.” Cooper said.

Wells Fargo donated $30,000 as an emergency loan to act as a bridge for living expenses until benefits kick in, Clark said.

Manny Flores, a member of Carpenters Union Local 22, and Steve Powers, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electricians Local 6, were among the many who donated their time, material and labor to completing the VRC.

“Anything for the vets and it worked out. It was not a job, it was something you wanted to do.” Flores said.