Stars bring cheer to homeless vets

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- A lineup of celebrities including Jack Klugman, Donna Mills, Connie Stevens and JoAnne Worley turned out for Veterans Appreciation Day -- an event intended to lift the spirits of hundreds of clients at a facility for homeless U.S. military veterans.

The stars served lunch to the veterans who are temporarily living at the Weingart Center in downtown Los Angeles, in the heart of the city's Skid Row district. A study conducted by the Weingart Institute concluded that veterans are twice as likely as non-veterans to become homeless and represent about 20 percent of the homeless population in Los Angeles.

Weingart Veterans Program manager Richard Caines told United Press International most of the clients at the center served in Vietnam, while the second-largest group is made up of Gulf War veterans.

Klugman, who served in the U.S. Army during World War II, said he was surprised that so many of the veterans he met at the event knew who he was.

"Most of them did," he said. "They knew about 'The Odd Couple' and 'Quincy.' I started to forget about it already."

Mills -- best known for her performance as Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner on the prime-time soap "Knots Landing" -- said it didn't matter so much to her whether the veterans at The Weingart Center recognized her.

"If they didn't know who I was, they knew that I was a celebrity," said Mills, "and that made them feel good -- that a bunch of us went down there and cared enough to tell them how much they meant to us. They don't get told that enough."

Caines said the veterans under his program's care were still buzzing about the celebrity visit long after the stars had left the center.

"A lot of these guys held ranks when they were in the service," he said. "When they fall and they're on the skids, it's like they're part of the invisible society."

Worley, who became a star on the NBC comedy "Laugh-In," was a particular favorite among the vets. Klugman said he especially appreciated seeing the way that Worley and singer-actress Connie Stevens interacted with the veterans.

"God, I was so proud of being an actor," said Klugman. "JoAnne is my favorite person in the world. I really was proud of my clan."

Caines said The Weingart Center is open to all veterans -- not just combat veterans. The center does not have clients who have served in the current war in Iraq, but Caines said if history is any guide, the United States should start preparing now for some veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom to have trouble readapting to routine daily life -- probably within a few years.

"It takes a lot of time for a person to lose all of his support systems and wind up on Skid Row," he said. "It doesn't happen overnight."

It is fairly common knowledge that homelessness affects military veterans in numbers disproportionate to the general public, but Klugman said he was surprised to learn how prevalent the problem is.

"There's so much hypocrisy going on," he said. "We respect our fighting men and when they come home everybody seems to forget about them. I think you're going to see a lot of Iraqi war kids be homeless because the nation is divided. And I hope to God they are given as much consideration when they come home as they are now, when they're fighting."

Whenever celebrities turn out for special occasions such as this, the question comes up: When will they come back?

Mills, who has frequently participated in events to help the women's programs at the Los Angeles Mission, said she told Caines to call on her whenever he needs her to come back. But she acknowledged that it's hard to get people to go to Skid Row.

"Not many people want to look at that," she said. "It's not easy to see."

Caines said he wants eventually to move the center to a more hospitable part of town.

"This area is oversaturated with pain," he said. "All the (social) services are down here."

Caines also said that it is almost immaterial whether any of the celebrities who served lunch and chatted with his clients come back for more visits. In one of the life-skills classes that the center offers, a central theme is that the homeless vets have responsibilities to themselves to regain their dignity and their self-sufficiency.

"(These visits) show that there are people who care, but you have to take control for your life ever single day," he said. "If we never had another celebrity come down we still would move forward with a positive message."

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