New veterans 'home base' taking shape in Waterloo
Nonprofit converting old furniture store into meeting space and place for help with basic needs
WATERLOO – Tim Combs’ mission for nearly a decade has been helping homeless or financially strapped veterans.
For several years, Kris Jones, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, has been looking for a “home base” for veterans stressed out or down on their luck to feel comfortable and welcome.
Their aspirations have come to a happy confluence in a 30,000-square-foot former furniture store building that’s taking on some major changes in the next few months.
”This is the one-stop shop of whatever we need to do to help veterans out,” Combs said. A grand opening is envisioned for late April.
The building is also adjacent to the recently relocated Veterans Administration health clinic in a portion of the former Hy-Vee store location at 4000 University Ave.
”This kind of falls into place with what I had originally thought of when I first started AFIL back in 2016,” Combs said. “One of the things I had envisioned was a location where veterans can hang out.” The building has a whole gamut of possibilities.
The former Slumberland furniture store at 4020 University Avenue in Waterloo will be the new home for Combs’ nonprofit Americans for Independent Living, or AFIL, an agency that provides transitional housing and help with basic living needs for from furniture to clothing.
The first phase of the building renovation is a newly renovated community room in the back of the old store that will serve as a meeting place for veterans and is capable of hosting family gatherings or group events.
Combs received a $1 million Nonprofit Innovation Infrastructure grant through the Iowa Economic Development Authority in September 2022 to acquire and renovate the building, following the local Slumberland store’s relocation to Cedar Falls near College Square mall a few years earlier. The grant, announced by Gov. Kim Reynolds, was made available through the federal American Rescue Plan Act promoted by President Joe Biden.
The community room was made ready though an $85,000 grant and labor made possible by the staff at Lowe’s home improvement store in Waterloo. That aid was secured on the initiative of Cory Champagne, a recent Lowe’s retiree and U.S. Navy Gulf War veteran who previously benefited from AFIL’s help through some of the agency’s transitional housing on East Ninth Street.
Combs said he’d looked at the former furniture store building a couple of years ago and “sort of kept it in the back of my mind” until funds were secured for acquisition and renovation.
The $1 million federal grant through the state was a stunner.
”We applied. Of course, we didn’t figure we’d get anything, being no bigger than we are. And we got it!” His reaction, he said, was, “‘‘You’ve gotta be kidding me!” It was one of 24 projects around the state receiving a total of $40 million in funding.
He’s received a lot of donations of various items and volunteer help. Combs said he even received a coffee maker for the gathering space, donated by Bunn-O-Matic Corp, which has a production facility in his hometown of Creston in southwest Iowa.
“So this vision of seven years is coming to be,” Combs said. “It’s just amazing.” Fundraising is continuing to finish out the building. and some other details need to be worked out. Nevertheless, he said, “We’re going to do what we need to do to serve the individuals in our area, and anyone else that wants to come here.”
He’s envisioning receiving donated furniture, clothing and a small food pantry. “A homeless vet that gets housed, we’ll put together a small food package for them,” It’s tailored to low-income veterans and families.
The community space can have multiple uses, including job fairs and job training with local employers, cooking classes, regular lunches and gatherings.
“We want to get the older vets out of the house and come and do camaraderie with their old buddies and meet new guys, and hang out, play pool, watch TV; we’ll have movies and books to read; quite time,” Combs said. “We’ve already offered to Kris to come in here when he needs to meet with someone,” who may be having difficulties with stress and personal issues.
”We’re hoping this gets used on a daily basis,” Combs said. A veterans resource fair also may be a possibility.
Jones noted that the facility also is centrally located in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area, close to the city limit line between the two communities, and relatively close to bus service.
Combs “always has a bigger vision,” said Jones. For several years Jones has been organizing “Coffee and Camaraderie” events for local veterans through his own nonprofit organization and has done individual outreach to veterans in crisis situations. He’s grateful to be able to use Combs’ facilities for those purposes.
The issue of homelessness among veterans, and veterans in crisis, is out of sight out of mind to many, but it’s very real, Combs and Jones said. Combs said AFIL has seen and assisted as many as 40 to 50 veterans a year and their families in such situations, including offering transitional housing to homeless veterans. And veterans may find a place to live, but they may be without furnishings and living needs.
Very often, Combs and Jones said, they’re “traveling,” moving from place to place locally and in surrounding states taking advantage of aid available from different organizations until they’ve maxxed out the number of times they can be served in a given location.
And in some cases, Combs and Jones said, they’re living out of their vehicles.
Veteran suicides also is still a very real issue. According to a 2022 report from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, while veteran suicides nationally have steadily declined to their lowest point since 2006, in 2020 there were 6,146 veteran suicides in 2020 – an average of nearly 17 suicides per day.
“Hopefully 2024 will be about a 15 to 20 percent increase in services we do,” Combs, said and he plans to reach out to serve veterans in adjacent counties, reaching out to agencies and organizations there. He also hopes to reach out to local veterans posts to take advantage of the facility as a neutral location.
They hope to get younger veterans, including more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to come in and take advantage of the facilities and services which may be offered.
”You’ve created a home base for veterans,” a “safe space,” Jones said to Combs.
“Tim’s good at advancing that,” Kris said. “I know Tim will go the extra mile for them. He does it all the time. It’s a comforting feeling knowing someone is so dedicated in purpose. He didn’t serve, but he’s serving this big purpose, and all we can do is support him in these efforts. I commend him on that and I feel good to be able to bring veterans here to make them feel part of something.
“We all need a place to call home. Especially in the military,” Jones said. That includes giving the veterans a chance to volunteer to help other veterans themselves.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. Click on their links below to sample their work.
The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative