History
John Keaveney served 2 tours of duty in Vietnam as an Army combat infantryman and left Vietnam in 1972 with a multi-use drug problem. For the next 11 years, he alternated between homelessness and incarceration until 1983, when he was court-committed to a Veterans Administration (VA) drug rehabilitation program called New Directions. When budget cuts closed down the VA program in 1988, John Keaveney, Larry Williams, and another veteran created their own nonprofit, New Directions, Inc., in honor of the program that saved their lives. In 1992, New Directions, now New Directions for Veterans, acquired its first property, a home accommodating up to eight veterans. Today, NDVets has four transitional housing and four permanent supportive housing facilities in the Los Angeles area, with more in the pipeline.
Specialties
Since 1992, New Directions for Veterans (NDVets) has provided comprehensive services to thousands of veterans in Los Angeles County. Founded by two formerly homeless Vietnam veterans and a local advocate for homeless persons, NDVets initially operated out of a five-bedroom home serving eight homeless Vietnam War veterans. We now operate four Transitional Housing Programs, a rapid re-housing and homelessness prevention program called Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF), and four Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) facilities in Los Angeles County, with additional projects in the pipeline.