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Charity provides homes for wounded vets
By Tom Leo
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
MARCELLUS, N.Y. – As Army medic Sgt. Jeffrey Guerin was recovering from injuries suffered in Afghanistan, he realized he needed a new place to live.
“My last house wasn't handicapped-accessible at all,” Guerin said.
 Homes for Our Troops
Along with his wife Jillian and daughter Sophie, Evan Morgan awaits his new Bakersfield home.
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“I told my mom, 'No one's going to build me a house,' ” Guerin said.
But last month – only 87 days after groundbreaking – Guerin was handed the keys to a new specially adapted $200,000 home in upstate New York.
More than 300 volunteers helped build the house from start to finish, including project coordinator Lisa Scalice and her husband, Jack Scalice, of Pigliavento Builders. The home was built in record time. It usually takes four to six months for Homes for Our Troops to complete a specially adapted home.
“I'm speechless, it really is so overwhelming,” Guerin's fiancée Jenn Toteda said. “We could not have dreamt this.”
Guerin, 26, was two days short of his 22nd birthday in 2004 when, while on a security patrol in Afghanistan with the 25th Division's 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, his vehicle was ambushed and destroyed in a roadside bombing that killed two soldiers and injured three others. The impact of the explosion severely injured Guerin's legs and feet, and shrapnel blinded him completely in his left eye and left minimal vision in his right eye.
Today, Guerin can stand on his feet for only about an hour in the course of a day, he said. He uses a motorized wheelchair and spends much of his time in a chaise lounge.
“This house is going to make my life so much better,” he said, “just to be able to do things for myself and not sit in a chair and ask for help for everything.”
Founded four years ago to help wounded vets, Homes for Our Troops will mark Veterans Day on Tuesday by turning over the keys to the 34th house, even as it continues work on 19 other homes around the country.
Two are in California, one a renovation for Army Chief Warrant Officer Juan Beltran in Pico Rivera, and the other for former Marine Cpl. Evan Morgan in Bakersfield. Beltran, wounded in a helicopter accident in Iraq, is a quadriplegic who needed his master bedroom remodeled.
Morgan lost both legs and the sight in his right eye when the Humvee he was riding in was struck by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Construction is expected to break ground next month on a 2,200-square-foot steel-frame house for himself, his wife Jillian and daughter, Sophie. He has a San Diego connection through his participation last fall and last month in the Challenged Athletes Foundation triathlon at La Jolla Cove.
“It's still overwhelming to have such generosity presented to us – it's hard to thank people enough,” said Morgan, 25, who is now attending classes at Cal State Bakersfield.
Vicki Thomas, spokeswoman for the charity, said the homes are built by volunteers over a series of weekends and turned over debt-free to the veterans, who apply for help. She said many individuals, organizations and companies contribute to the program, most recently the Sierra Club, which is underwriting the cost of making the new homes as “green” as possible.
“The thing we have been so grateful and appreciative for,” Thomas said, “is that no matter what community we should end up in, tradespeople, the community, local chambers (of commerce), business people, church groups show up in mass for a six-month period.”
Besides providing labor and materials, volunteers feed the volunteer workers and a group of retired military RV enthusiasts, called the “Road Warriors,” park on-site and provide security and communications assistance for the family, workers and materials contributors.
Homes for Our Troops now has completed 33 homes throughout the United States and has an additional 18 projects in various stages of construction.
The organization's founder, John Gonzalves, 42, a former home builder who was not in the military, said he hopes to complete 100 homes by 2010 and then expand the program through a series of regional offices in partnership with local builders and community groups.
“It's something I'd hoped could always be in place for all future generations of vets,” he said.
More information on the program is available online at homesforourtroops.com.
Union-Tribune staff writer Roger Showley contributed to this report.
