The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

WALLA WALLA-Visitors were welcome to tour the new Doughty Home for Veteran Women (DHVW) and browse literature at their grand opening Sun., June 23.

The Doughty Home for Veteran Women is a nonprofit, nonpartisan corporation whose mission is to provide a safe group home for women veterans who are homeless, struggling with legal issues, and/or have difficulties with drugs/alcohol.

By providing education about money management, time management, self-care, and recovery-oriented issues, the group hopes to foster positive changes in the lives of those they serve.

Kathy Covey, CEO of the Blue Mountain Action Council and incoming president of the Walla Walla Valley Chamber of Commerce was on site to provide an introduction to the grand opening festivities.

Covey worked closely with DHVW founder and Executive Director Jennifer Glynn, through an internship with the Support Service to Veteran Family program SSVF. Covey said she and BMAC are proud to support this venture in any way they could which included providing an office as headquarters while the project got underway.

Speaker Jennifer Glynn described the journey that lead up to DHVW's inception. Glynn's struggles with addiction brought her to the Walla Walla VA drug and alcohol inpatient rehabilitation center. Twenty-eight days later, she returned home only to relapse again.

DHVW was named in honor of Jay Doughty, Glynn's brother, who died May 13, 2016 in a motorcycle collision.

"He loved his family and friends and was just a genuinely amazing big brother. When my brother passed I was still in active addiction, it took me four months to get clean. I struggled with survivor's guilt. I wondered why such an amazing, loving, funny, helpful, caring person like him would be taken from this earth and his drug addicted little sister was still here. I came to realize that my life would be a testimony and a way to help others in honor of my brother," Glynn said.

Since then, with the help and support of veterans, friends and family, Glynn has made a dramatic turnaround.

"Today I celebrate two years and nine months clean. I stayed connected to the VA and tried to be of service to other veterans struggling with addiction. I attended a twelve-step program and still attend to this day," she said.

Glynn also graduated from Walla Walla Community College with an associate's degree in human and social services and is continuing toward a bachelor's degree in the same field.

Having firsthand experience with the challenges her clients face, Glynn is able to connect closely with their needs to provide a home in which everyone feels safe.

DHVW's structure is a hybrid, modeled after both the Corps of Recovery Discovery (CORD) transitional housing for veterans and Oxford House programs. Doughty clients can drug test each other within the home if suspicion arises and there is a seniority structure within the home like Oxford houses. The difference is Doughty Home also has a case manager and rules like the CORD program.

The June 23 grand opening date was special for another reason. It would have been Jay Doughty's fiftieth birthday.

"I want his legacy to continue and for the world to know who Jay Doughty was and the lives he impacted. Not only did he dedicate his career to providing love and support to individuals with developmental disabilities, but after working as a behavioral specialist for twenty years for the State of Oregon, he opened two private foster homes in Boise, Idaho and adopted ten adults with developmental disabilities," Glynn said.

The DHVW is run by a board of directors: president Tim Dewald, secretary Amber Reyes, treasurer Robert Sterett and board members Norma Sandoval and Leanne Fackler.

Bridgette Hopkins, a new and very thankful resident of Doughty Home, spoke on her recent stint with homelessness.

"It wasn't a good place to be for a woman," Hopkins said, as she described living in her car for several months.

"You don't think it'll ever happen to you. A lot of people are one paycheck away from it happening to them...I still don't know what happened."

DHVW was created to address the need for a women's group home in Walla Walla and the surrounding area, giving veteran women the tools needed to succeed in ending homelessness and/or recovering from substance use disorders. It does so with help from its partners, BMAC and Turning Point Transportation, LLC.

Find more information on their website, doughtyhomeforveteranwomen.org.