Editorial: Group serving vets gives glimpse into lesser-known fibers of social safety net

When you think about agencies set up to help military veterans, certain organizations likely spring to mind. The federal Veterans Affairs Department, the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, the VA Hospitals, The Veterans of Foreign Wars. Vietnam Veterans of America. Perhaps others. But a 20-year-old agency based in McHenry likely won't make the list.

It should.

TLS Veterans has been helping vets find jobs, homes and health care since 1996, when Vietnam vet Alan Belcher of Woodstock saw a void in the traditional structures set up to aid veterans, went back to school for his counseling license and started conducting support groups. Today, as Daily Herald correspondent Eileen O. Daday reported this week, the agency employs 15 full-time and 12 part-time professionals serving veterans from McHenry, Lake, Cook, Kane and Kenosha counties.

It also operates a transitional living program for the homeless called New Horizons in Hebron.

All this important work, but when Daday asked Executive Director Laura Franz what people most need to know about the organization, her immediate reply was "That we're here."

Not that TLS Veterans has any shortage of business. It has helped nearly 250 vets find jobs this year and 80 families find housing. New Horizons generally has a waiting list of veterans vying for the 20 spots available in its three-track program to move individuals from homelessness to self-sufficiency. And hundreds of other vets and their families have received food, mental health counseling and help with substance abuse problems.

But the agency deserves attention from the public. That's not just because veterans need to know about its highly structured, success-oriented work or even because the rest of us need to be aware of how we can help sustain it. It's also because, operating under the radar of most people's attention, TLS Veterans exemplifies countless organizations working at the grass-roots level to meet the needs of people who are hurting. Together, we tend to refer to them as the "social safety net"; perhaps too rarely do we look at the components of that network.

It's a network under great strain these days in Illinois, as we're all well aware. In that context, TLS Veterans is celebrating its 20-year anniversary with a benefit concert Friday night at the Raue Center for the Arts in Crystal Lake. The show will feature performances by top area country, jazz, blues and rock bands, emceed by John DaCosse of WGN-AM 720's Steve Cochran Show. Tickets cost $35 and you can get them at www.rauecenter.org.

Sounds like a pretty good way to shoulder the organization into a more prominent place on that list in your mind of groups who help the men and women who have served our country.