VETERAN

listed into the Marine Corps, serving from roughly 1974 to 1976.

“It was (a) totally di erent world,” he said about coming back after serving in Vietnam.

Not long after returning, he got into trouble again. He said he went to prison from the age of 19 to 32 for conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine. Once he was out of prison, he said he “worked and tried to make a living.”

Roughly two years ago, Read became unhoused. He said he has malignant cancer, adding, “I am approaching the end of my life.”

Read got connected to TRU Community Care, which is a hospice partner of Rocky Mountain Refuge.

“Hospice called us and said, ‘We have an unhoused person.’ And we didn’t know he was a veteran at rst,” said Executive Director Brother James Patrick Hall about how Rocky Mountain Refuge got connected to Read.

Read has been staying at the Rocky Mountain Refuge since February. “ ese people are incomparable. ey help me out immensely,” he said. “Timisha, she’s incomparable. She helps me out any way she possibly can.” e issue is not singular to Read, as Program Manager Robert Aguilar said a lot of the people Rocky Mountain Refuge serves show up without any sort of identi cation. e lack of identi cation can prevent the person from accessing programs and bene ts such as social security and food assistance programs, Aguilar explained.

Timisha Buskey is the o ce manager for Rocky Mountain Refuge. She said Read is the rst client she has seen where hospice has helped him.

“He didn’t spiral down from hospice, so we’re actually talking about, in August, him transitioning. But we’re not going to put him out without him having bene ts in place so that he doesn’t end up back here in a homeless situation,” she said, explaining that the goal is to get Read a place to stay at a Veterans A airs housing location where he can live in his own unit but still receive care.

One of the di culties is that Read lost his identi cation, which Hall said has Read’s veteran status on it. “Rightly so, he wants that back. And we’ve been really struggling to get that back,” Hall said.

“A big trouble that we’ve got whenever (we are) coordinating transportation from … hospitals is making sure they have all their documentation or personal belongings with them whenever they’re being transported,” he said.

“ at’s so di cult because we’re trying our best to provide the most comforting and e cient care for them,” Aguilar said. “We’re doing the best we can but it’s only so much that we can do.”

“If we had those things, the care we could provide would be so much more,” he added. e Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s 2022-2023 State of Homelessness report said the Homeless Management Information System showed 27,860 people accessed services related to homelessness between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

‘The need is definitely there’ Rocky Mountain Refuge describes its mission on its website as o ering “a digni ed alternative to dying alone on the street for those with terminal illness” by providing a place for unhoused people to live out their nal days.

While the hospice agency partners provide nursing and physician services, the sta and volunteers at Rocky Mountain Refuge provide care such as companionship and cleaning services, per the website.

To his knowledge, Hall said Rocky Mountain Refuge is one of four facilities in the country that does this type of work.