VA Homeless Programs

Employee Spotlight

March 13, 2025

Catherine Phillmon

Community Employment Coordinator, North Florida South Georgia Veterans Health System

In the spirit of service and sacrifice, many Veterans have not only answered the call to protect our country but have also dedicated their lives to supporting their fellow service members in need. This blog series highlights the inspiring stories of Veterans who have gone on to serve other Veterans through VA’s homeless programs, using their own experiences to create pathways to stability, dignity, and hope for others.

Q: What do you do in your role as community employment coordinator?

A: I offer employment services to Veterans who are at risk of homelessness, helping them generate new or additional income to keep their housing. I also work with homeless Veterans as they become housed to establish income or access education and training so they have stable income to sustain their housing.

Q: Can you tell us about your military service?

A: I served in the U.S. Navy for over 27 years, from April 1982 to November 2010. I come from a very small town of about 1,900 people in rural northwest Florida. When I was getting ready to graduate, I realized there would not be a lot of employment opportunities, and my parents didn’t have money to send me to college.

When I visited my older brothers who were serving in the Navy, I met some of the women from the Navy's softball team. I was mesmerized by the stories they told, and I thought the Navy would give me an opportunity to leave small town America.

For the first portion of my career, I worked on a communications ship and on shore. During the last 11 years, I was a command master chief, the advisor to the commanding and executive officer.

Q: What are two words you would use to describe your experience?

A: Challenging and rewarding. In 1997, Congress began to allow women to serve on board more ships, and it was very competitive for women to get a billet on a ship. I did a lot of special assignments and overseas assignments, constantly competing for a billet at sea.

The military afforded me the opportunity to use tuition assistance and go to college to get my master’s degree, but the rewards were bigger than that. Growing up in small town America, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me I would travel the world; see different types of governments, cultures, and religions; and eat some of the world’s best food on foreign land.

Those are things that you don’t get out of a history book. If you haven’t stood at the foot of the Mediterranean, the blue you see in pictures will never capture the blue you see in person. To get out and see the world is an eye-opening experience, and it taught me that we have more in common than what keeps us apart.

Q: Where did you get your community-oriented mindset?

A: My mother is a product of the Great Depression. She picked cotton in the Mississippi Delta before she was three years old. People could not exist in a silo back then. There was a lot of sharing resources and community support. My mother is a registered nurse, so she was always helping our neighbors out.

The Navy is very big on volunteerism, especially when you serve overseas. When we pulled into port, we’d go do things at orphanages, restore churches, and help with food drives. The Navy teaches you to ingratiate yourself into the community where you are, and I believe you should leave a community better than you found it.

I have a saying that a neighbor isn't just next door, and community is not just a ZIP code. We really do have so much in common. Everything my mom poured into me, and everything the Navy continued to nurture, helped me be who I am today. No matter how much work I do with others, I realize there's still so much to be done, and I'm just happy to be part of it.

Q: What inspired you to be a community employment coordinator with VA homeless programs?

A: I was planning to be an ethics compliance officer, but then, one of the retired chief petty officers took me out on a community outreach project in Jacksonville. I was putting food in Styrofoam containers for people, and this gentleman came through the line who was missing some fingers. I made a comment, and he realized I was wearing a Navy sweatshirt and told me that he had been in the service too. This guy literally changed the trajectory of my adult life.

After he went through the line, I joined him on the curb. We sat down, eating from containers, and he talked about having served in the Army. He had been in Vietnam, and when he came home, he suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder. He was very honest that he drank a lot and abused his wife and kids until his wife put him out of the house. They also discharged him from the Army. He said, “When I didn't have a home to go home to and I didn't have a job to go to, what was the point of staying sober?” From there, he said he existed from drink to drink and arrest to arrest. I remember being shocked.

Have you ever seen the space shuttle when it takes off? I knew I was going to be an ethics compliance officer, and that man bumped me on my take-off and altered my trajectory. I knew it that day. I knew something was different.

But I realized nobody would hire me to work with a homeless population because I didn't have that kind of experience. I was fortunate enough to go work for a career source doing outreach to Veterans who were losing their income. I cut my teeth there, then worked as a benefits contractor before I finally made my way into this role.

This is my tribe, and I feel quite at home here.

Q: What is your message for Veterans who are still homeless?

A: Homelessness is often a series of actions. Unfortunately—because of the stigma of homelessness, or because people are struggling financially or with mental health, substance abuse, or addiction—people often don't reach out, and they suffer alone. We need to get people to stop and realize that it could be any of us. So many American families and individuals are a major event or a couple of paychecks away from homelessness.

By the time we meet these Veterans, they have already lost some of their options. We could have engaged with them earlier to keep their housing, which is less costly and less traumatic. I call that saying no. They say no to opportunities because they suffer in silence.

The opposite of that, for me, is to say yes to everything as you are trying to get housed. Say yes to everything until you find whatever your fit is. Say yes to transitional housing, to a shelter, to a job program, to training programs, to an apartment or a house, to a roommate, to mental health care services, to talk therapy.

For the Veterans who are still struggling: say yes. You don't know what the right thing is going to be for you if you don't say yes and accept everything that's available to you, navigate it, and figure it out. Don’t suffer alone. You’re not the only person going through this because, sadly, in America, homelessness is very common.