This is the second part of a story series on homeless veteran outreach and surplus property.
Barstow is known for boots.
Ask the approximately 200 military surplus property screeners who look to the Defense Logistics Agency for used and excess personal items and equipment to hand out at local homeless veterans stand downs each year.
“Our highest demand items are boots size 10, 11 and 12,” said Kevin O’Connell, a Department of Veterans Affairs logistician who has served as a primary touchpoint between Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services excess property sites and VA veterans outreach coordinators since 2010. “We get lots of boots from Barstow. We frequently get items from Richmond. Columbus is a good spot, too.”
There are, frankly, a lot of “good spots” in DLA’s property disposition network. According to the command’s Reutilization, Transfer and Donation Branch officials, O’Connell and all authorized regional VA screeners pulled nearly 300,000 used and excess items originally valued at more than $10 million from DLA’s property disposal system in fiscal 2022.
“I generally look for Condition A and B stuff,” said Don Donahue, the current DLA property screener for Chicago’s veterans stand down events. He cited hoodies, sweat suits, t-shirts, coats, long johns and, of course, boots as the items he’s always keeping an eye out for. “You name it, I’ve ordered it. 95% of it is fine. In a triwall full of duffel bags, maybe we’ll have three that we have to throw away.”
O’Connell said that in his estimation, VA event planners were making upwards of 6,000 property requests annually before the pandemic struck, many events were cancelled, and the average number of requests fell by about a third. The DLA RTD team’s data shows that more than 400,000 items originally worth $18 million shipped to the VA in 2019 and about 150,000 less items were requested the year COVID-19 upended the nation. Despite the recent drop, the property remains critical to outreach efforts.
“Vets love to show their patriotism and service, and surplus is something they are familiar with and can relate to. It’s one of the things they look forward to the most,” said VA substance use disorder specialist and DOD surplus property screener Sean Stallworth. “The services at the stand down are great, but the surplus is the carrot that gets them to engage.”
Stallworth said that each year, he begins acquiring items from DLA Disposition Services sites about six months prior to the vet outreach events in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek, Michigan, when he’ll begin checking DLA’s online inventory weekly for “essentials” like cold weather gear. His property wish list is informed through ongoing community partner engagements that provide “a baseline of what the community may need.”
In 2022, stand down giveaway items came from military installations near and far, including outer wear from South Korea, emergency blankets from Japan, sleeping bags from England, extreme cold socks from Germany, and gloves from Italy.
“When I’m getting surplus, I have a lot of control over what I’m getting for our particular stand downs. There’s a lot of clicking, sometimes items vague descriptions, but overall, I think it works pretty well. We find what we need,” said Amanda Briggs, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-area VA property screener who has snagged used property from DLA for multiple stand downs in Grand Rapids and Saginaw. “I like this process way better than before the fire.”
The fire Briggs refers to took place in 2016 at a New Jersey warehouse that burned down along with the VA’s entire inventory of items procured from DLA. Prior to the conflagration – the fault of a neighboring warehouse tenant two units down – it was the sole consolidation point for the VA material, and O’Connell served as the central dissemination point for stand down planners.
“[O’Connell] would send an enormous list with thousands and thousands of things on it. We’d send it back with our requests and from there, he’d do the best he could,” said Jeanne Douglas, a retired Chicago-area VA screener who ran the city’s stand down for 25 years. “We would overorder, because you never knew what you were going to get.”
Nowadays, the regional screeners have direct access to DLA’s inventory and make requests that they know can impact their unique local at-risk veteran populations. O’Connell still helps link them up with DLA’s disposal support representatives, who can answer questions and provide training on skills like how to create a want list, and he makes sure they are aware of interesting property releases, like 8,000 pairs of New Balance sneakers that made their way to DLA’s Columbus site in 2022 after the closure of DOD-operated temporary refugee camps.
“The fire and process change was good, in a way,” O’Connell said. “I’ve gotten more positive feedback on the way they’re doing it now. The [screeners] who have been doing this awhile, they’re very good at it and they’ve got it down pat.”
There are currently more than 40 DLA Disposition Services property disposal sites at military installations spread across the U.S. and its territories, at places like Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, California, Fort Meade, Maryland, and Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, and additional sites overseas. Wherever the items originate from, the VA is asked only to cover the cost of getting the items to where they need it. The property itself is free, an investment already made by U.S. taxpayers.
“The surplus is welcome, it’s impact is enormous,” said VA Peer Specialist Ronald Henson, a property screener for Michigan stand downs. He said recent policy changes that now allow housing assistance to those who were discharged under “other than honorable” circumstances has “widened the net” for VA outreach personnel. He cited the lingering feelings of mistrust toward the VA from some generations and said personal property hand outs help change the dynamic.
“They gave me a tent, they gave me a jacket,” Henson said. “It helps them understand that the VA is looking out for them now.”