Melvin, a Vietnam War veteran, approached the small room tucked at the back of the Army National Guard Armory in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, a town of 13,000 in the northwest of the state. Melvin’s social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) told him to check it out; she heard veterans could request help with legal issues. A van from the Fargo VA, where he was part of an in- patient treatment program, ferried him and a handful of other homeless veterans the sixty miles from Fargo to the event.
Greeting Melvin was a small team of three attorneys and one program coordinator. The three attorneys were from the public defender’s office, legal aid, and a statewide nonprofit serving homeless and at-risk veterans. Two of the attorneys were at a table consulting with a veteran and her husband, and the program coordinator was going through an intake form with another veteran in the far corner. Melvin helped himself to some coffee and took a seat against the wall; there was just one other veteran waiting to be helped.
When it was his turn for an intake interview, Melvin explained that he was looking for some information and help with his child support; he had been homeless on and off for years, moving to find work and staying with relatives for short stretches—Melvin didn’t want to be a burden on his family and never stayed more than a few days with anyone. In between, he slept in his van or outside, when the weather allowed. Melvin had not held down a steady job for a while and had lost track of his child support case. He hoped to come out of the treatment program with a job, available housing, and a way to take care of his child support obligation while he had the support of the treatment team. He said that he was tired of running from it.
While Melvin discussed his child support case with the legal aid attorney, she identified that his case was based out of Saint Paul, Minnesota, in Ramsey County (a mere 190 miles from Fergus Falls). The attorney was able to reach the Ramsey County child support office to determine the basis for the current order so that she had the information necessary to advise Melvin on his options through the court. To everyone’s surprise, the child support officer informed Melvin that he had overpaid his child support due to an error on the office’s end, and they had been unable to reach him to refund the overpayment. Not only was Melvin finished with his child support obligation, but he would be receiving a check from child support for several hundred dollars.
Throughout this process, Melvin had been chatting with the rest of the team, sharing his story and goal to return to full-time employment once he completed his treatment program. He expressed concern that his lack of a driver’s license, in addition to his criminal record, would make it difficult, if not impossible, to find employment in a rural area.
A few years earlier, Melvin was convicted of drunk driving, and his van had been impounded; he was sentenced to ninety days in jail. Before his release, Melvin connected with a Veteran Justice Outreach worker at the Fargo VA Medical Center. She helped him enroll in treatment programs for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, and he was just three months away from graduation when he attended the Stand Down event in Fergus Falls. He did not have the money to get his van back and owed over a thousand dollars in unpaid fines and fees before the court would release its hold on his license.
Melvin had noticed the advertisement for the Stand Down Court on an event flyer but had not been quite sure what it could do to help him. The on-site team was successful in reaching the case’s prosecutor, who agreed to waive all remaining fines and fees upon Melvin’s completion of the treatment program. Within an hour, the public defender drafted a proposed order and emailed it to the Stand Down Court judge, who signed off on the agreement and emailed the on-site team the executed order. Melvin’s social worker agreed to provide the court with progress reports and inform it when Melvin completed the program requirements. Melvin successfully completed the program and had his fines and fees waived, and the court sent a reinstatement request to the Department of Public Safety. He has neither been charged nor convicted of a crime in Minnesota since the Stand Down event.
Melvin was just one of hundreds of veterans served by the Stand Down Legal Section and Stand Down Court at nine events across the state that year. The Minnesota model for Stand Down legal services continues to develop and gain information from other successful programs around the country, but it has several unique aspects that Melvin’s story illustrates. This article will highlight Minnesota’s Stand Down Legal Section, with a focus on the Stand Down Court, as a practical model for addressing the unmet legal needs of our nation’s homeless and at-risk veterans.