Soldiers Home Foundation

Chapel Programming Plans

The Chapel will reopen as a place for veteran funerals, veteran counseling and referral, non-denominational events such as wedding renewals, as well as community, historic, patriotic and educational programs and tours.

CHAPEL AS REFERRAL & EVENTS CENTER

The need for a place of referral and comfort for veterans, and gathering for veterans and the community, has rarely been greater than it is today--especially for the growing homeless veteran population in Milwaukee. The programming plans for a reopened Home Chapel include using the Chapel to help meet these needs. The Soldiers Home Foundation is coordinating with federal, state and local government agencies, the VA and the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, including the Milwaukee County Veterans Services Office located on the grounds, and veteran service organizations, to develop services for assisting in tackling the homeless veteran problems and to ensure that veterans coming to the Chapel in search of comfort and care are directed to the services to assist them. Additionally, Chapel office space can be used by visiting chaplains as counseling areas before and during funerals and other events.

The plans are for the Chapel to be open 10 to 30 hours per week for funerals, tours and events, hosting 5 events per month and 8 veteran/family funerals per month. The Chapel will produce enough revenue by Dec. 31, 2014 to sustain itself and begin saving a minimum of $5,000 annually to maintenance.

The safe and inviting environment of the Chapel creates a natural Welcoming Center atmosphere for veterans visiting the grounds– a warm, quiet place apart from the hospital where those who are in search of a much-needed social support network can find and consult with the resources they need.

Veteran Referral Center:  Thus, the Chapel will serve as a referral center for veterans. At least one of the Chapel’s offices will specifically provide space for homeless veteran referral and counseling services—and further counseling of veterans in need. Office 1 (located on the north side of the altar area) is specifically set aside as a homeless veteran and chaplain’s counseling office as follows: This office, which has an access door separate from the main Chapel as well as a door to the main Chapel, would function primarily as a veteran counseling office for VA chaplains and counselors and the Milwaukee County Veterans Services’ (MCVS) staff, with priority use of the space set specifically to serve and refer homeless and in-need veterans.

Milwaukee County Veterans Services staff has committed to operating this office for at least two hours per day, at least three days per week, as a satellite office from which it could continue its work of helping homeless veterans and veterans in need of services. The office would function as a drop-in center for homeless veterans and veterans in need. MCVS staff operating the office would focus on crisis intervention and outreach services to homeless veterans, those at risk for homelessness and others who are in need of immediate care. Veterans who come in with needs would be identified and referred by the trained MCVS staff to homeless services on the grounds and in the community as warranted and to VA and state-wide veteran assistance programs as needed.

The VA’s chaplain and counseling staff will also schedule posted times for counseling and homeless referral work (with a schedule that compliments the MCVS schedule) and will have priority to reserve the space with short notice for counseling.

A Referral Directory to veteran service providers will also be posted both in the office and outside the office door. These services include the MCVS, located one block south of the Chapel; the Hope House homeless residence, located across the street to the north; and the VA Medical Center’s homeless facilities and veteran care services, located one-half mile south with transportation available. The directory will also list 24-hour homeless and veteran hot-lines as well as contact numbers for other Milwaukee area homeless and veteran aid providers.

The Soldiers Home Foundation staff operating the chapel during regular weekly hours, as well as on designated weekends, will act as intermediaries when needed to direct veterans and homeless veterans to services and agencies.

VA chaplains and counselors are also interested in using the Chapel as a retreat site and spiritual guidance center for the VA’s Treatment Alternative Group program (TAG)—for veterans living marginal lives, often in shelters, who have tried other formal treatment programs and have not met with success.  “The Chapel could be a beacon for them in their recovery process, a place that is not directly connected to the Hospital, but provides spiritual guidance and healing,” says Milwaukee VA Program Manager of Pastoral Care Chaplain Norman Oswald, who serves as a liaison to the Soldiers Home Foundation’s Chapel Committee. He and VA chaplains are planning a complimentary Chapel program that could bridge these veterans into treatment in a non-threatening environment “that would nurture their inner self.”

Because of its location and spiritual atmosphere, the Chapel will also offer a natural partnership with its neighbor, Hope House, a HUD-funded program for homeless veterans, offering a site for Hope House presentations and programs such as AA meetings, group counseling, and welcoming sessions.

With VA chaplain direction, the Chapel will also function as a welcome site, with presentations and retreats, for returning OIF/OEF Veterans and their families, a way to guide these veterans into healing that helps them avoid homelessness or recover from it.

The VA Chaplains and the Soldiers Home Foundation also plan for the Chapel space to be utilized by VA- and veteran-associated recovery and 12-step programs, as a site available for regular meetings and retreats and day-long workshops. Again, veteran programs would have scheduling priority.

VA Chaplains also plan to establish a grief counseling program through Office 1 and Chapel space that is modeled off of the Wounded Warrior concept. Grief and loss counseling would include not only loss of family members through a death, but also the grief and loss that spring from job loss, loss of home and family, loss of dignity, loss of support systems, loss of identity, health crisis, financial set-backs, and lost relationships.

Additionally, the Foundation hopes to partner with the VA's therapeutic work programs to help with maintenance of the site and potentially helping with Chapel operation, as programs permit.

Building 16, a former chaplain’s residence, which is located behind (west of) the Chapel, can be used for additional office, referral center, meeting and Chapel programming space. In addition, historic exhibits could also be displayed here. The Foundation is also planning a memorial garden space and handicap accessibility to the grounds and building(s).

The Cemetery Roundhouse, located north of the Chapel in Wood National Cemetery (a structure for which the Foundation has already obtained a lease from the National Cemetery Administration and is not part of the proposed Chapel lease from the VA), is being restored by the Foundation in compliment to the Chapel project for an  historic display about Wood National Cemetery and veterans buried there. Tours of the Roundhouse could originate from the Chapel.