A second homecoming

Veterans marched down the streets of Oak Bluffs Wednesday as Islanders joined in the fanfare to honor the men and women who served in the U.S. Armed Forces. 

Salutes were made to the Star-Spangled Banner as it fluttered in the wind, and veterans spoke on the importance of service. Veterans were thanked by Islanders, and other displays of appreciation were present elsewhere on the Island, such as free rides for veterans on Steamship Authority ferries and 400 flags displayed at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. 

This year, Veterans Day is flanked by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as well as 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks that forever changed the country. Generations of Islanders have served in different branches of the military, and each of them returned to a different America. And now, those who lived through the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War want to ensure veterans have a place they can call home, which some ex-servicemen of that era say wasn’t extended to them once they came back to American soil.

An endeavor years in the making is underway at 50 Bellevue Ave. in Oak Bluffs, where a 12-unit veterans housing project that will cost a total of $8.7 million is currently under construction on a cleared lot. It’s a collaborative effort between Martha’s Vineyard Community Services (MVCS), Island Housing Trust (IHT), and the Hyannis-based Cape and Islands Veterans Outreach Center (CIVOC), and will be the first project of its kind on the Island once completed. A groundbreaking ceremony took place last month on the 3.4-acre lot, and the small neighborhood is planned to be completed by next fall. 

“It is a thank-you,” Jane Chandler, MVCS veterans outreach volunteer, told The Times. 

Project organizers and volunteers aim not just to have houses ready for the first tenants, but are fundraising to be able to furnish each of the one-bedroom homes, an expense that’s estimated to cost $12,000 per unit. 

The Bellevue Avenue project was spearheaded by this year’s recipients of the Creative Living Award,Tom Bennett, who served as a U.S. Air Force medic, and is currently the MVCS director of veteran services, and Bob Tankard, who served in the U.S. Army in Korea, and is the MVCS veterans outreach advocate. 

Tankard told The Times that the idea for an on-Island veterans neighborhood was sparked around seven years ago, when he first joined MVCS. At the time, among veterans Bennett was working with as a counselor, three individuals were homeless, and they could be put up only temporarily in hotels. 

“We didn’t have anywhere to put them, and the homeless shelters were full,” Tankard said. For one of the veterans, Tankard and Bennett were able to get support through CIVOC. 

Tankard told The Times they saw CIVOC’s campus offered wraparound services that included a medical facility, counseling services, and four temporary housing units to support veterans, and at the time, the Cape organization was contemplating a veterans-focused neighborhood in Dennis, which opened in 2021. They said it was an eye-opening experience that underscored the need and possibility to house veterans on the Island.

“On the way back on the boat, Tom and I looked at each other and said, ‘We got to do something,” Tankard said. 

The two soon reached out to various individuals and organizations on the Vineyard, including IHT, the main affordable housing developer on the Island. The proposed project got widespread support among Island towns, all six of which are pitching in funding, and was approved by Oak Bluffs voters during a 2023 special town meeting. The following year, IHT, which is handling construction, and CIVOC, which will manage the neighborhood and offer services for tenant veterans, created a Bellevue Veterans Community LLC for the joint venture. 

“It’s a great opportunity [for veterans],” Phillipe Jordi, CEO of IHT, told The Times. Jordi said IHT’s fundraising efforts for the project are ongoing, and that it needs to gather $105,000 to meet the $1.4 million goal of private donations. The nonprofit has already raised $7.3 million in public grants and mortgage financing. 

In addition to homes, the neighborhood is planned to have a resource center and a gazebo to provide a quiet space for contemplation or conversation. The neighborhood is aimed at veterans who earn up to 30 percent, 50 percent, and 80 percent of the area median income, and the homes are designed with up to two people in mind. This income threshold ranges from $34,400 (30 percent, one-person household) to $85,450 (80 percent, two-people household). Tenants will be chosen by lottery and applications, but the first six tenants are planned to be one veteran from each Vineyard town. 

The idea to fully furnish the units came from Chandler and Anita Botti, a fellow MVCS volunteer, both of whom had family who served in the military. Chandler described the veterans neighborhood effort as a “great meeting of … the hearts.” 

Chandler told The Times she’s long been inspired to help veterans. She was just entering high school when the Vietnam War was ongoing, and she lost her brother-in-law in the fighting. As she got older, she had “eye-opening” conversations that made her more aware of the war and the negative reception veterans received. She recalled a moment when she was a waitress in Fairhaven and sat next to a man in the upstairs portion of the restaurant, who said to her, “You probably don’t want to sit next to me. I’m a Vietnam veteran.” 

“It literally broke my heart,” she said. 

Botti, who’s 80, said a number of her high school classmates were drafted and sent to Vietnam; some were killed in combat. Her own “respect for public service and military” came from her father, who was a World War II veteran of Europe. 

The two made a visit to Washington, D.C., last year when National Guard members were deployed to the capital by President Donald Trump after he declared what he called a “crime emergency” in the city, and Botti recalled how young the “kids” in the Guard were. Botti said that no matter what is happening in the country, “our military is key to our democracy,” and should not be abused, whether that be by sending service members into harm’s way, or not taking care of them when they return home. This drove home the desire to fully furnish the Bellevue units.

“Those veterans are going to walk into their house, just with their suitcase, and be able to go to bed on clean sheets, blankets, pillows, and everything already set up,” Tankard said. “It’s like walking into a fine hotel.”

Bennett said many improvements have been made over the years to help veterans, giving credit to the oft-criticized U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He noted how the symptoms shown by Vietnam veterans, which were once called “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” spurred the recognition of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The mental health condition wasn’t recognized by the American Psychiatric Association until 1980, seven years after the U.S. withdrew troops from the Southeast Asian war zone. 

Based on the MVCS veterans services’ count, there are 1,100 veterans on the Vineyard. Neither Tankard nor Bennett directly served in Vietnam, but they said they received a similar cold treatment when they returned home, where fiery protests were denouncing an unpopular war abroad. They recalled how some Vietnam veterans were even ostracized by veterans of World War II and the Korean War in Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion posts, so there was a missing link to camaraderie between the generations. 

Bennett, who’s offered counseling services for veterans for years at MVCS, said a part of the reason they wanted to make a veterans community on the Island was to make a home where they feel like they belong, and are surrounded by individuals who understood the experiences, culture, and language of the military. It’s also why there was a surge of support to preserve a combat veterans support group on the Island after it lost federal funding last year, a program where younger veterans can learn from Vietnam veterans’ experiences. 

“They can talk about things that they did, and things that they didn’t do, that they can only talk to each other about,” Bennett said, adding that some of the experiences are “beyond horrific” in war. “It’s about surviving and taking care of your brother and each other to get through it.” 

Tankard agreed, saying that there were elements of his service that he didn’t speak about with his family except his brother, who fought in the Korean War and was notified that his whole company was wiped out just two days after being told that he would be returning home. 

“He carried that for the rest of his life,” Tankard said. 

But the ongoing collaborative effort between veterans and supporters toward the Bellevue Avenue project — alongside other collaborations over the years on the Island, like the annual luncheon for veterans at Giordano’s Restaurant in Oak Bluffs — mends some of the internal strife felt stateside.

“Coming home from Korea in 1966 and getting spit at and called names and whatnot, I didn’t think American people wanted anything to do with military people,” Tankard said, adding it was difficult for returning veterans to “talk about our pain or hurt” from what they experienced, even to family. “These two women [Chandler and Botti] allowed us to see people who care.” 

“Now we’re marching in the Fourth of July parade and everything,” Bennett added. 

Many people will thank veterans for their service during the federal holiday, something Bennett said the Vietnam-era veterans didn’t receive for years. As people shake hands of veterans, Bennett hopes those saying “thank you for your service” will also reflect on national service, and how they themselves can give back to their country.