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Veterans Advisory Committee Minutes December 4, 2018 Page 4 Mr. Nahakuelua explained there's a large population of homeless who are hooked on meth and then they have a psychotic break and they get sent to the State mental hospital. Some come down through the channels of adult mental health and some are violent and make threats to the case managers and they're combat qualified and when they're in a psychotic state, then paranoia kicks in and fear kicks in and then fight or flight and Veterans will fight. Chair Doolittle acknowledges that mental health is huge part of it. Ms. Lewis stated there's also a group in the community that's working on the homeless issue and tapping into that might be beneficial. Hope Services, Catholic Charities and they have regular meetings. We don't want to reinvent the wheel, but from the Veterans perspective we can see some of the unique things we are talking about that we really need to pay attention to. Chair Doolittle asked where the homeless Veteran's home is. Ms. Lewis replied, it is near Puainako, heading towards town, first left about an acre, a big property. We can go together but there is someone we need to coordinate with. Mr. Messina stated it's for homeless so one of the things Hope Services does is set them up with an exit plan. Kind of like a group home but no one enforcing rules. There's one guy in charge kind of like a chaperone. Ms. Lewis added that they can use a lot of items also, like toiletries, VFW gets some requests from them. Mr. Wery added the old St. Joseph Convent across St. Joseph's school is also a homeless shelter, run by a non-profit and they have a lot of Veterans come through there. Ms. Lewis explained, she's thinking the parade is a good start, but there's a lot of other services and groups doing things and we need an integrated solution. She knows for Washington State, if you're on meth you're not allowed to be in the home, but if you're not in the home you won't ever get off meth, it's a catch 22. Mr. Nahakuelua explained, here we have two types of homes, wet houses and dry houses. Wet houses they can do drugs in the home, they have a safe place to do the drugs. There are some other places, dry houses where they can't do drugs in the home. Veterans Services Counselor Roddy Sueoka asked if there's a shelter in Kona that's been trying to accommodate Veteran specific groups. Vice -Chair Brulee-Wilson stated only one place she knows of is Hope Services but we may want to check with the Vet Centers because she knows from past experience from doing homeless standdowns, Vet Centers have a pretty good count on homelessness. But