David Ketchum, an Army veteran who was homeless, now lives at Valor Pointe in Boise. “This is like being in a luxury hotel,” he said. (Sarah A. Miller/TNS)
David Ketchum, 71, is the Valor Pointe garden caretaker. Every evening, he waters the vegetable beds along the three-story building in Boise’s Veterans Park neighborhood that houses previously chronically homeless veterans.
When Ketchum first came to Valor Pointe, Mandy Anderson, case manager for the Boise office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said he had been homeless for so long he didn’t know how to operate the communal washing machines or cook for himself. Now he attends every outing, class and group therapy session that Anderson organizes. He also grows vegetable plants in his apartment windows to replant in the garden.
On a recent afternoon, Ketchum propped up small tomato plants onto trellises he made himself with old wire and tape. “When I got here I was really out of it, living on the streets and all,” he said, while catching his breath as he sat down on a planter box next to a patch of kale. “I didn’t really have nothing to do.”—
Ketchum is one of the veterans and their families who reside in 26 apartments at Valor Pointe, Boise’s only permanent supportive housing complex exclusively for formerly homeless veterans.
He’s one of the lucky ones. Ada County has an estimated 687 people who were homeless last year, according to Ada County’s Point in Time Count, a one-day snapshot of the homeless population. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported there were 149 homeless veterans in Idaho in 2022.
Advocates say most of them would be grateful to have a safe, sanitary place to live where they pay a flat 30% of their income, however meager, for rent. But Boise has only 26 apartments set aside for exclusively for homeless veterans, and they’re the only ones in Ada and Canyon counties. And while public-subsidy vouchers are available for veterans who need to rent apartments in the private market, some go unused because too few landlords accept them.
After decades of trying other approaches to help people experiencing chronic homelessness — meaning they’ve been unhoused for at least a year and have disabling conditions such as mental illness, substance use or physical disabilities — advocates in the 2010s concluded that the best hope for getting them off the streets was to provide them with housing first and services second. Valor Pointe, which opened in 2020, and New Path Community Housing, which opened in 2018 and accepts nonveterans, were designed for them.
But such housing typically requires government subsidies to build and more subsidies to operate. And the limited subsidy funds don’t meet the need.
Many veterans who move into Valor Pointe plan to stay there for the rest of their lives, Anderson said. While that may be what they need, it doesn’t make room for other veterans seeking an apartment.
“If we had more Valor Pointes, that would be great,” said Deanna Watson, executive director of the Boise City / Ada County Housing Authorities, which distributes federal housing vouchers to veterans and other low-income Ada County residents. “That is a model that seems to work better than anything else we have available in the community.”
Valor Pointe is located along State Street in Boise. (Sarah A. Miller)
Valor Pointe has amenities for its residents including a laundry, community room and bicycle storage. Valor Pointe is an apartment complex for veterans experiencing homelessness. (Sarah A. Miller)
A client’s living room inside an apartment at Valor Pointe. (Sarah A. Miller)
Valor Pointe opened in August 2020. Veterans there receive health care from the VA mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment. Anderson works on site four days a week to provide case management.
Valor Pointe apartments are never empty
Veterans who are initially accepted into Valor Pointe have a Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Voucher. They agree to be in case management for at least a year. Like most veterans, they are eligible for health care through the VA, which operates the Boise VA Medical Center.
The VASH voucher pays for all or part of the veteran’s rent. Veterans pay 30% of their income, and the voucher pays the rest.
Veterans like Ketchum who are on a fixed low income can keep their voucher for as long as they need it, and most veterans who live at Valor Pointe use VASH vouchers to pay their rent. That rent is already below market rate at about $853 for a one-bedroom, one-bathroom unit. Unlike veterans in homeless shelters or transitional housing, veterans in Valor Pointe are not encouraged to leave unless that is their goal.
According to Apartment List, the median rent for a one-bedroom in Boise is $1,093.
Anderson said one resident bought a condo after spending a few years at Valor Pointe and building up her income and savings accounts. But for some, their goal is to stay, since it may be the first time they’ve had stable housing.
“They are allowed to be here for as long as they want,” Anderson told the Statesman in an interview at her office in the Valor Pointe, at 4203 W State St. “Some people do come in and say ‘I’m only using this for a stepping stone,’ and in 10 years if they are still here, we don’t care. And if you’re not in two months, that’s OK too. We’re just here to assist you.”
Working veterans who end up earning too much for a VASH voucher keep hold the voucher for six more months to ensure their income is stable, then pay the full rent themselves, Watson said.
“Even if they’re doing pretty well, and they’re stable, it may be the first real stability they’ve had in years or decades,” she said. “I think there’s that fear factor of what they went through to get to a place of safety, and then leaving that place of safety.”
When veterans leave Valor Pointe or die, their apartments are almost immediately filled, Anderson said. The Boise VA keeps tabs on homeless veterans in its care who may need housing or those who are on the brink of losing their housing. Those people are next in line for any Valor Pointe openings.
“A unit never sits empty,” she said.
What is permanent supportive housing?
New Path is another permanent supportive housing unit, which is also run by Our Path Home. New Path opened in 2017 with 41 apartments. It operates much the same as Valor Pointe but is not just for veterans.
The city of Boise has partnered with local developer Pacific West Communities, which developed New Path, to add 96 more supportive housing units. The apartments would be located at 114 N. 23rd St., alongside the original New Path, and would be available to people facing homelessness who earn less than 60% of the area median income, which is $41,160 for a single person, $47,040 for a family of two and $58,800 for a family of four.
Permanent supportive housing is new approach to addressing the affordable housing crisis Idaho. Permanent supportive housing combines housing with support services like mental and physical health resources and case management. The combination of housing and support services is designed to help chronically homeless people build independence and connect with their communities.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that permanent supportive housing can decrease the tax burden on communities by decreasing costs for jails, prisons, emergency shelters and hospitals.
A patriotic sign greets residents in the hallway of Valor Pointe, an apartment complex for veterans experiencing homelessness. (Sarah A. Miller)
Valor Pointe and New Path are the state’s only permanent supportive housing projects.
While these housing models are successful in getting homeless people off the streets and into housing, Anderson said they are sometimes hard to manage.
“It takes somebody pretty passionate about it to help manage it,” she said. “We have 20 other residents, like Tony, but managing a large group can be difficult.
Veterans account for at least 14% of Idaho’s homeless population, according to the Idaho Housing and Finance Association. Ada County has 195 VASH vouchers available for homeless veterans to help pay their rent, but Watson said they never have over 175 in use. That’s because many landlords will not accept vouchers as rent payment, Watson said.
‘It meant everything to me’
Resident Tony Horton, a retiree, volunteers for Our Path Home, an organization that includes the city and other partners that is trying to end homelessness in Ada County. Our Path Home operates Valor Pointe with the Boise VA.
Horton told the Statesman in an interview that he plans to live there until he dies.
He had a long stint in homeless shelters, on friends’ couches and in temporary hotel rooms after he moved to Boise from Dallas nearly nine years ago. Horton said he had poor mental health and was poor at handling his money. He was late on rent often and had evictions on his record, he said.
Horton was living at the Idanha, in one of its affordable apartments, with his VASH voucher, but he got behind on rent and was facing another eviction in August 2020. That was when Anderson called, telling him he had received one of the last available apartments in Valor Pointe.
Through tears, Horton spoke of walking into his new apartment for the first time.
“It meant the world to me,” he said. “It meant everything to me.”
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