From Streets to Stability
By Maureen Dyman, Communications Director
Verton Morris, 77, Army Veteran and Vietnam survivor, had been sleeping on the ground outside the Houston VA’s Community Resource and Referral Center for weeks. He’d come inside to do his laundry, grab a snack, exchange a few words.
Every morning, Emily Winfield walked past him. Winfield, a licensed clinical social worker and director of the CRRC, kept showing up…working to convince Morris to accept help. But he wasn’t ready. Not yet.
“She never gave up on me,” he said.
This week, her persistence, and his, paid off.
Morris was among 18 Veterans who received housing at the CRRC’s Homeless Surge Event, a single-day mobilization that brought together community partners, VA staff, and resources under one roof to move homeless Veterans off the streets and into stable housing as quickly as possible. By the next day, Morris had keys in hand and a new place to call home.
A Community Showing Up
The surge event drew a wide network of partners to the CRRC, including Baker Ripley, U.S. Vets, Combined Arms, and a range of Veterans Service Organizations. Staff worked rapidly to identify Veterans who were close to housing-ready, connect them with available resources, and complete the paperwork and placements needed to get them housed that same day.
There was music. There were refreshments. There was a palpable sense of purpose.
“The VA is deeply committed to making sure every Veteran who needs housing gets it,” said Winfield. “Events like this allow us to accelerate that work and meet Veterans where they are and remove every barrier we can, all at once.”
Survival Skills, Forged in Vietnam
Verton Morris served in the U.S. Army from 1970 to 1978 and was deployed to Vietnam, where he learned to sleep in trees to avoid snakes. Decades later, those same instincts helped him survive Houston’s streets.
“I can sleep on the concrete now,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I don’t bother anyone and for the most part, they don’t bother me.”
Despite having his backpack stolen, there was no bitterness in his voice..just the quiet accounting of a man who has lived hard and knows it.
Things haven’t been easy. After his service, Morris struggled with addiction. A five-year jail sentence in the early 2000s. Fifteen years of homelessness. A long road that led him to Arkansas, where he finally got the treatment he needed, and then moved back to Houston.
He has been clean for two months. He takes full responsibility for his path.
“I made some bad choices, and I blame no one but myself,” he said. “But now I got my head together.”
Ready, Finally
Morris had been coming to the CRRC for about a year…doing laundry, getting a bite to eat, staying connected to the VA community in small ways. Winfield passed him outside every day. Each morning, she encouraged him to come in, to take the next step.
He wasn’t ready then. He is now.
Morris doesn’t talk like a man looking back. He talks about working out. About getting organized in his new place. About taking care of his mind and body. About his love of travel and how he hopes to get back to it.
“I feel young,” he said. “I’m ready for a fresh start.”
He is very vocal in his gratitude toward the VA staff at the CRRC, the people who kept the door open and the light on.
“If Veterans are ready,” Morris said, “these folks are here for them.”
Coming Home
The CRRC serves as a hub for homeless and at-risk Veterans in the Houston area, offering case management, showers, laundry, meals, and connections to housing, employment, and health services. This week’s surge event represents the kind of intensive, coordinated push that VA and its community partners are increasingly using to drive down Veteran homelessness.
For Morris, who survived a war, survived the streets, and survived himself, the numbers are simple: one day, one event, one set of keys.
After 15 years, he’s going home.