Employee Spotlight
November 10, 2022
Gregory Stanton, MA
Community Employment Coordinator
VA St. Louis Healthcare System
Q: How long have you worked for VA? What brought you to VA?
A: I've been with VA for a little over 2 years.
After serving in the military for 10 years, I worked for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as an employee assistance professional.
I did that for 8 years. At that point, I had 18 years of federal time, but I was still young, so I decided to resign from HHS to do my own thing for 20 years. I did private practice (life coaching and therapy), speaking engagements, and served as a pastor in the church for 30 years. I was married and we had children – I now have 4 adult children and 10 grandchildren.
When my wife passed in 2010 after a short bout with cancer, I decided to go on a couple of adventures. I ended up moving around to a few different places. In 2014, I went to Atlanta seeking potential opportunities. A while later, I ended up moving to Phoenix. I was unemployed and didn’t have a place to live after a situation went south with a roommate. For a time, I found myself actually homeless, according to the VA’s definition of homeless, but no one knew.
I connected with VA and met individuals who helped me get my resume together. In the summer of 2019, I came to St. Louis to visit my brother. While I was there, I interviewed for a Community Employment Coordinator (CEC) position and got the job.
Because of my past, I have a strong relationship with Veterans who are experiencing homelessness. The shame that comes with it is tough. Even having a master's degree, the perfect storm rolled in and resulted in my homelessness.
I was able to live in hotels and do things where nobody knew that this was my state of being. When I got the job, it was the ideal. In a way, my experience prepared me for my role and understanding what these Veterans are going through.
Q: What is your day-to-day like as a Community Employment Coordinator?
A: My role is 80% facing community partners and 20% direct services to Veterans.
Working with the community means establishing relationships with local employers. I let them know there is a talent pool available to them, build relationships with them, and find out what they're looking for so I can be the go-to person when they need someone.
For community partners, one of the barriers I had to overcome was that many of the community-based agencies thought we were competing with them. I had to develop a relationship with these community-based organizations and let them know that my goal is simply to be a net-builder to bring all the resources together. When a Veteran stops at my desk, I need to know what resources are available in the community.
A big part of my job was establishing a database of employers, inclusive of the ones we had been working with and that we had not yet engaged. I'm always looking for employers that have excellent benefits packages and offer more than just livable wages, helping Veterans to thrive. Using the database and OneNote makes it simple for me to do a quick search for a specific job if a Veteran is looking for a certain role.
The question that I always ask Veterans is what type of employment they are looking for. They often say, “I'll take anything,” so I rephrase it to ask what their ideal job would be. This helps them to clarify and help me figure out what a good transitional job might be.
By doing the assessment and identifying what their long-term goals are as far as employment, we identify the type of jobs the Veteran really desires.
Q: Why is it important to have people with lived experience in these roles?
A: It's the hidden factors. It's the things that you don't necessarily pick up on in the interview.
It allows us to be able to reframe things – to say they are not a homeless person, but rather a person experiencing homelessness. We try to help them to step away from the stigma.
My experiences give me a level of sensitivity to be non-judgmental, knowing that if circumstances were slightly different, I could be sitting in that chair.
Q: Why is employment so important to ending Veteran homelessness?
A: One thing that every Veteran has in common is that we started our journey with employment. We were employed by the United States of America. I remember the day I was sworn in at 21. I had 2 years of college behind me and had the feeling that this would not be just a job. It affirmed me, being in the military and knowing the things that happen in the lives of so many of America’s Veterans, including things such as post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) that often contribute to their status.
In our roles, there's a need for counseling. Housing First is so important because it's difficult to look for employment or address mental health issues without a home. I recently had a Veteran say that they can just continue to live in their car. But I know it's difficult to do that, especially while being employed. You have to get cleaned up and there's a lot of factors.
To be able to provide housing, mental health assistance, and connections to community partners that can provide the other resources – furniture, clothing, food – really makes Veterans feel good. It's a one-stop shop when we’re connected with our partners and the Veteran doesn’t have to keep telling their story again and again.
Q: For those Veterans who are still homeless or unemployed, what do you want them to know about the services that VA provides?
A: I want them to know that VA offers more than medical and mental health services. We have strong community partners. For example, some Veterans come in trying to restore their credit. We have partnerships with organizations that are legitimate and offer financial literacy training.
I had a Veteran who came in after 20 years of incarceration. He went through VA’s Transitional Work program. We helped him get a temporary job with a great employer, then he ultimately got rehired through VA. He recently purchased a home. He was able to get leads from connecting with not just our offices, but the community partners that we have connected with. His life changed because he was willing to live beyond the stigma associated with being justice-involved and homeless.
Q: What is your “why” for this work?
A: I wish I would've had this job at 30. It's the type of job where there isn’t monotony of doing the same thing. Even though I have things that I do every day, there’s always the possibility of a new face coming in with a new situation. Having the connections with both community partners and CECs within the state that are connected to our vision makes my job easier.
I recently had a Veteran call and say he needed to go to the New York City area but wouldn’t have any connections to CECs there. I reached out to the CEC in Upstate New York who was then able to connect with that Veteran. This same Veteran wanted to work for Amazon and had tried countless times. With my assistance, he got the job. He became a star employee. He ultimate transferred, as mentioned earlier, to New York. He went from homelessness to having stable employment at his dream job in his dream city.
Helping Veterans believe in themselves is the thing I enjoy most about this job – sparking possibility where it appears to be impossible.
