Programs
Veterans Medical Care
Care for veterans in housing, and for veterans who are still outside.
What this covers
Most veterans we see arrive with more than one thing wrong, and with a history of care that stopped and started. Our job is to make it continuous.
- Assessment of the whole situation — not one complaint at a time
- Primary care coordination, and referral into specialty care that will actually see you
- Management of the chronic conditions that arrive untreated: diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease
- Pain assessment that does not begin from suspicion
- Medication review, including reducing what should not still be prescribed
- Transport coordination, so an appointment is a thing that happens rather than a thing that was offered
Coordinated, not duplicated
Where you are eligible for VA care, we coordinate with the VA Healthcare System rather than replacing it — including its mental health and substance use services. Where you are not eligible, we work through community health centers. Duplicating a service that already exists in St. Louis would waste money that should be treating someone.
Eligibility
Veterans in the St. Louis region who are experiencing homelessness, who are housed through Valor Villages, or who are at risk of losing housing because of a health condition. Discharge status does not disqualify you from being assessed.
Veterans Crisis Line
Call or text 988 then press 1. Available 24 hours a day, every day.
Why this population
14.4%
of American veterans meet criteria for PTSD in their lifetime.
National Health and Resilience in Veterans Study
24%
of women veterans served by the VA carry a PTSD diagnosis, against 14% of men.
US Dept. of Veterans Affairs, FY2024
33,000+
veterans experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2022.
HUD 2022 point-in-time count
Think this might be for you?
You do not need a referral and you do not need to prove anything first. Tell us what is happening and we will be honest about whether we can help.
What usually arrives untreated
Veterans who have been outside for any length of time tend to present with the same cluster: hypertension nobody has measured in a year, diabetes managed by guesswork, pain that has been dismissed often enough to stop being mentioned, and a medication list that is partly remembered and partly guessed. Frequently there is also a mental health history that stopped receiving attention when housing did.
Treating those one complaint at a time does not work, because they interact. Uncontrolled blood sugar makes pain worse and healing slower; untreated pain wrecks sleep; poor sleep worsens everything else. The first assessment is longer than a standard appointment precisely so that the whole picture is visible at once.
Working alongside the VA, not around it
Where a veteran is eligible for VA care, our role is coordination rather than replacement. Duplicating a service that already exists wastes the veteran’s time and fragments their record further. What we add is continuity: making sure the referral actually results in an appointment, that the appointment is reachable, and that what happened at it is known to whoever sees them next.
Where somebody is not eligible, or eligibility is unresolved, care does not wait on the paperwork. The benefits and documentation work runs in parallel.
Pain, and the assumption that comes with it
Veterans reporting pain are frequently met with suspicion before assessment. That is both a clinical failure and a practical one, because it teaches people to stop reporting symptoms. Pain here is assessed on its merits, the source is identified where possible, and medication is reviewed with the aim of reducing what should not still be prescribed rather than defending it.