by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
For exhausted combat units, a standdown is an opportunity to get some overdue rest and recovery, somewhere safe, far from the firing line.
For some veterans, that need for sanctuary remains, long after the last bullet is fired.
“We’re giving to the poorest among us, the most vulnerable part of our community,” said April Charney, an attorney with Jacksonville Area Legal Aid. “This one day a year, we’re reaching out to help them.”
The first standdown in the nation was held in San Diego in the summer of 1988, specifically to help the growing number of homeless veterans. As conceived by two Vietnam vets, Robert VanKeuren and Dr. Jon Nachison, a standdown’s procedure has three basic elements: “Feed ’em, bathe ’em, clothe ’em.”
The long version elaborates on those elements to include food, clothing, job counseling and referrals, medical and legal assistance.
About 250 veterans were served at Jacksonville’s seventh annual standdown, held earlier this month at the Fairgrounds, said Dr. Aaron Givens, chief of the Veterans Service Division for the city.
They received medical and dental services, shoes, backpacks, assorted clothing, free food and haircuts.
“The Department of Defense gets very involved,” said Charney, who did standdowns in Sarasota for about eight years as a Legal Services representative. “They donate thousands and thousands of dollars worth of military pants and boots, sleeping bags, backpacks, socks and shirts.
“You got your veteran’s ticket, and you came away with a whole bag of stuff.”
They also received voting information and advice on wide-ranging legal and medical issues.
Hitting back at the predators who prey on low-income people has become a priority with JALA.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the members of our service community are low income,” said Lynn Drysdale, consumer fraud attorney with JALA. “Members of the military are among those targeted by predatory lenders.”
In addition to investigating those who take advantage of the desperate and the unwary, Drysdale wants to start consumer education and literacy programs in the schools.
“I have this concept that we raise predators because we keep people in the dark and allow fear and intimidation on the financial level to occur,” she said. “If you teach kids how to read their parents’ mortgages and leases and car contracts, then the parents are going to be working with that.
“It’s a more positive approach — catch people at the front end so they don’t end up in the messes that put them either in our office or out in the street.”
For the program to have any teeth, Drysdale said, her office is going to need some help.
“I’m looking to bring certain resources, particularly private lawyers and bankers, to the schools to start helping in this process,” she said. “There’s a whole private world out there that’s not really involved in schools in this way.”
As JALA’s representative during the standdown, Charney’s job, “besides meet and greet, was to give people the opportunity to ask a lawyer a question and get an answer without having to go fill out a long application.”
She was assisted by Tara Newberry, a JALA law clerk who recently completed her first year at Florida Coastal School of Law.
“She did a lot, from helping set it all up to helping people with information,” Charney said. “Maybe other students from Florida Coastal will also get interested in public interest law.”
Most of those receiving services at the standdown were male, 25 to 65 years old — “overwhelmingly baby boomers,” said Charney. “And most of them came by themselves.”
If Charney is able to work out the details, future standdowns will include a criminal amnesty court, which was a regular part of the event in Sarasota.
“The last time I was there, we probably had 20 to 30 individuals come through the criminal amnesty court,” she said. “It involves things like fine forgiveness, changing a fine to community service, handling violation of probation, misdemeanor nonviolent charges.
“They had issues with sealing and expunging records, which is a very popular issue. Getting their voting rights back, dealing with security deposit issues. Divorce, child support, paternity.”
During standdowns in Sarasota, information was fed through the public defender to the state attorney, who would work with the clerk of court, “making sure there’s not another record out there,” said Charney. “And if we couldn’t get a circuit court judge there on Saturday, we’d set it up for the next regular court session.”
Given what she saw during the Jacksonville standdown, Charney has nothing but high hopes for the future.
“The setup was fantastic; I was very impressed,” she said. “We passed out a lot of materials, and I made a lot of contacts.
“You always feel good giving to the community that way. It’s just a very ‘up’ atmosphere. It can only get better.”