It’s an organization committed to helping homeless veterans in San Francisco for the past 40 years.
After receiving that help, one formerly homeless soldier is now back on the street, but this time, he is helping others.
Sixty-year-old Winston Nicholas is playing his five-piece drum set inside of his studio apartment at the veterans commons building in San Francisco. As a young man in his early 20s, he took a break from serving up drum beats to join up and serve his country.
“I served in the United States Army, served a total of 10 years,” Winston Nicholas said. “I was 82nd Airborne. I went in after Vietnam. Went in 1977 discharged in 1987.”
The former army staff sergeant says he fell on hard times as a civilian and eventually became one of the estimated 400 homeless veterans in San Francisco.
“I was married for 20-something years,” Nicholas said. “I picked up an alcohol problem, alcohol addiction, destroyed my marriage, my family. Then, I lived on the streets for about a year. Then, I went into a program for about nine months, found out about swords to plowshares there. The rest is history.”
“We as an agency will serve people if you served one day, if you served for 20 years,” Swords to Plowshares Associate Director of Housing and Residential Programs Tramecia Garner said.
The 75 units at veterans commons are part of the supportive housing for vets provided by the non-profit Swords to Plowshares organization.
“We provide wraparound services for veterans,” Garner said. “We do housing, which means permanent supportive as well as transitional housing. We have a few family units. We provide employment training services, legal services. One of the things that we are really trying to prioritize are folks who are the most vulnerable out on the streets to make sure they are being served.”
That same spirit of helping others lives on in Sgt. Nicholas.
“What I’m doing is a small thing, but it is helping people who are homeless and letting other people know whether they’re veterans or not, there is a way out of this disease of alcohol and drugs,” Nicholas said. “You have to seek that and pray and keep striving for it.”