Kyle Edmonds was an electrician in the Navy. He worked on the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier, and the USS Curtis Wilbur, a guided missile destroyer. He got to sail around much of Asia.
These days, he stays at the Fitzgerald House, a non-profit that provides temporary housing for homeless veterans in Brooklyn. He shares the space with another homeless vet, and his room is getting a paint job. The situation isn’t perfect, but Edmonds said he's grateful for his temporary home.
“They take good care of me. I appreciate everything they have done for me. This is a heck of a lot better than a shelter,” he said.
Edmonds said he's done everything to avoid staying in an emergency homeless shelter, where he believes he'd be lumped in with people who are dangerous and unstable.
"They are quick to cause trouble with people, sorta like a little penitentiary, but without the bars,” he said.
Timothy Daye, Edmonds' case manager at Fitzgerald House, said military veterans are used to an ordered life, not the uncertainty of homelessness, let alone emergency shelters.
"There is no program to put the guys in place who don't drink and who don't drug. You know, everyone is thrown into the same area,” Daye said.
While Edmonds has not lived in a emergency shelter, he's definitely seen hard times. After serving in the Navy from 2000 - 2010, he said he had a high paying job as an oil drilling technician in the Midwest. That is, until oil prices dropped and he was laid off. After returning to New York, he lived in his car, with family, or in hotel rooms.
"This can happen to anybody. Any of us can easily be on the street,” he said.
Edmonds said the experience of homelessness has taught him to be better prepared for a financial disaster. He's taken some online classes in technology and hopes to get a engineering degree from Penn State University. He's interviewed for multiple job openings and is waiting for an offer to come through.
Homeless veterans deserve help finding a home and a job, he said, but that’s not enough.
"You've gotta make that effort, you know, to try to help yourself."