Paul Bass Photo
Iraq war veteran Robert Salisbury raised an American flag on Davenport Avenue Monday — and completed a mission.
Salisbury (pictured), a National Guard veteran, raised the flag at a refurbished home in the Hill that has a new name and a new mission. It’s now called “Harkness House.” The mission: to offer 14 male vets at a time up to two years of transitional housing and other help so they can move from homelessness to stable lives.
Salisbury helped raise money for Harkness House.
He also raised the stars and stripes at a ribbon-cutting for the home Monday morning. Salisbury brought the flag back from Iraq, where he served in 2003 and 2004, operating heavy equipment and assisting medical evacuation teams. One day he raised a flag at the base at Ar Ramadi. He brought that flag home. And he decided Harkness House is the right place for it to stay.
Salisbury, who’s studying hotel management at Gateway, raised the flag at a ceremony attended by politicians who have supported the project, including Attorney General (and U.S. Senate candidate) Richard Blumenthal and New Haven State Rep. Pat Dillon.
Columbus House, a homelessness services agency, will manage the new facility. It’s part of its evolving approach of giving homeless people not just overnight emergency beds, but longer-term help, including social services, an approach known as “supportive housing.” (Click here to read about that.)
An estimated 1,400 Connecticut veterans are homeless, according to Columbus House — “people who served our country, who have no place else to go,” as Columbus House Executive Director Alison Cunningham put it Monday.
The new Harkness House is part of a larger effort by Columbus House to help veterans, as part of an initiative entitled The Homefront.
“Welcome to New Haven,” State Rep. Dillon (pictured) told the crowd gathered for the occasion. “New Haven is a welcoming city.”
Dillon spoke of the city’s early embrace of people with AIDS, its immigrant-friendly public policy, and supportive housing for homeless vets.
“We don’t just play a brass band when they leave” for war, Dillon said.