News and Press Releases

Veteran Finds an Angel at Town Hall:
Formerly homeless man placed at Ruth Cowin House

Brookline TAB
December 28, 2000

Call it miracle on Washington Street. At least that's what it was for Ralph E. Moore, a formerly homeless veteran who found his angel in town hall. "I've got just about everything anyone could possibly want right now," said Moore, who now lives in the Ruth Cowin House on Beacon Street. "This is one of the best holidays I've had."

A 70-year-old Korean War veteran, Moore became homeless in September, after two friends he was living with passed away and their heirs decided to sell the shared condo. For several weeks, he lived in friends' homes, sleeping on couches, and applying for subsidized housing and food stamps. But he knew it was only a matter of time before he hit the streets.

Then one day a friend called to suggest that he call Paul Keough, deputy commissioner of the Boston Veterans' Benefits Office. Keough was hosting a live show on veterans' homelessness, and Moore spoke to him "on-air."

When the show was over, Keough told Moore to call Richard Bargfrede, Brookline's veteran's agent. Bargfrede, his assistant, Maureen Carter, and Jerry Trombley of the Health Department began helping him immediately, even driving him to the Social Security office in Boston to pick up forms. Just three weeks later, he had a key and a new address, unit 2, Ruth Cowin House.

"If there is a Santa Claus in Brookline he seems to wear many faces and quite a few names," wrote Moore in a thank-you letter sent to Town Administrator Richard Kelliher, "but to me he's a godsend just in the nick of time."

Bargfreded said he wasn't surprised Moore was accepted by the Cowin House, a Victorian townhouse restored by the Committee to End Elder Homelessness, designed to house eight elderly, formerly homeless men and women. Though there are no homeless shelters in Brookline, the Cowin House has been "very receptive" to housing veterans, he said.

"He fit [the requirements] to a T," he said. "Everything fell into line. We were thrilled, he was thrilled. He's very happy down there. He has his life back together. It's like a Christmas story come true."

Bargfrede said that Veterans Services has been getting more and more calls for referrals to shelters, Alzheimer's units and hospice care "because of the age of World War II units."

Keough, who served in the Navy for 22 years and attended law school with Kelliher,said he referred Moore to Bargfrede because he knew him both personally and professionally. He also thought Moore would be more comfortable in Brookline than Boston since he had lived in Chestnut Hill for several years, and because Brookline has more available emergency housing than Boston." We lucked out and it ended up being a happy story," he said. But not all veterans' stories have such happy endings, he said.

With rents rising and the veteran population aging, more and more veterans are finding themselves unable to afford housing. At the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans in Boston, there are more than 300 veterans staying in a given night.

Last year, four of five "heavily decorated combat veterans froze to death in the streets of Boston," he said. "As the economy improves, it seems to leave the bottom behind," said Keough. "With the lifting of rent control, the working poor can't afford housing anymore."

The "condoization" of rooming houses has further exacerbated the problem, he said. Two decades ago, there were thousands of rooms in Boston; today, there are fewer than 100, and even they are not cheap, he said.

The average rooming house room costs $100-$150 a week, he said. While the process of securing permanent housing for displaced veterans took only a few weeks in Brookline, it could take a couple of months in Boston, he said.

"There are hundreds of these same stories in Boston that don't have as happy a result." Moore, it seems, knows this, and is grateful for the help he has received. "It sounds like something out of a movie, but it really did happen, it's life," he said.

"Everything is going so smoothly, I can't believe it myself. I believe in my fellow man again."