CHULA VISTA, Calif. (KGTV) – Many of us take having a roof over our heads for granted.
“I had a desire to reclaim what many of us take for granted,” Damien Carlisle, a formerly homeless veteran, said.
It’s been an 11-month journey for Carlisle. He went from being homeless in January, living out of a hotel, to staying at the Veterans Village of San Diego to his own home in Chula Vista.
“It's moving in the right direction, definitely. I'm able to afford my own place again, pay my bills on time, rebuild my credit, got a nice car,” Carlisle said.
ABC 10News first told you about Carlisle’s journey in April.
He was working with attorney Chris Czaplak, the Managing Partner of Home Front Group, as a part of a pilot program from the Regional Task Force on Homelessness and the Lucky Duck Foundation to help veterans at VVSD.
“To reach as many veterans as we can who've been unhoused and help them with a, uh, with the process of increasing their disability compensation,” Czaplak said.
Many of the veterans, including Carlisle, had something called an other-than-honorable discharge on their record.
“There was a minor misconduct, and through whatever the circumstances are, they end up with an other-than-honorable discharge. That's not a hard no, but oftentimes the first response from the VA is you are barred from receiving benefits,” Czaplak previously told ABC 10News.
Carlisle was able to start getting his VA benefits after working with Czaplak, including getting a VASH housing voucher in June.
That led him to PATH, a homeless and housing advocacy group, which helped him get housed in July.
“I think one of my favorite pieces of working as a case manager, in like homeless services, is exactly that, that moment where it becomes a reality, right?” Katherine Fuentes, a case manager At PATH, said. “You do so much paperwork; there's so much behind the scenes and so many working parts that once you're able to say you've been approved, let's sign a lease, that's awesome.”
It was an outcome that Czaplak said he saw as a possibility of happening.
"I knew we were going to get somewhere. I thought the facts of his case were compelling enough, you know, he had this desire to just, you know, do better and live a better life,” Czaplak said.
Carlisle said he wouldn’t be here without the help of others during his journey.
“What you see on this, in this camera in the backdrop here, is the culmination of a lot of people who've poured and invested into me, and I'm grateful for that,” Carlisle said.
Czaplak told ABC 10News he recently found out that the pilot program that helped out Carlisle and other veterans is getting expanded into 2027.
