Hearts & Homes builds support facility for struggling vets

FORT MYERS, Fla. A once-empty warehouse on Alicia Street is now a state-of-the-art support facility for struggling veterans.

Hearts & Homes, a Fort Myers-based organization dedicated to helping homeless vets, spent the past two years converting the warehouse into a place where necessities like toilet paper, pillows, crock pots and coffee pots are made available. The facility opened Wednesday.

“When I came to Florida, I didn’t have anything,” former U.S. Marine Darrell Harris said. “They helped me find a place. They helped me put furniture in it. They got me teeth. They helped with dental work.”

There was a desperate need for a facility like this, said Carl Harrell, a Hearts & Homes volunteer and Army veteran.

“You have so many homeless veterans –- a lot of them with PTSD that are stuck in the woods,” he said.

Harris believes it’s an example of why charity should begin at home.

“We send so much money overseas to help third nations, but we’re not helping our own veterans here,” he said. “That’s sad.”

The facility will eventually provide medical and dental services, a food pantry and an office area with computers.

Those who want to volunteer for Hearts & Homes can sign up on their website.

WINK reporter Channing Frampton went live on Facebook at the facility’s opening Wednesday morning: