Dear Federal Representatives, State Representatives and Fellow Citizens,

I am the President of a Santa Cruz, Ca. based non-profit (501c3), Not This Time Vets.  Our mission is to provide support for our military personnel - veterans and active duty and their families.

Currently, there are thousands of young veterans, both men and women, returning home with severe "poly trauma" injuries i.e. severe head trauma, brain damage, blindness, burns and amputations.  These patients will require long term care.  In some cases, for a lifetime.

It has come to our attention that these veterans are now being placed in private convalescent homes geared to geriatric care.  Such facilities are not equipped to deal with a large influx of young patients.  The structure of these facilities is centered around care for the elderly.  Being placed in such an environment only adds to the feeling of isolation that these young veterans struggle with every day.  An age appropriate environment, staff and facilities would greatly add to the quality of life for these veterans.

Therefore, we at Not This Time Vets are pursuing the idea of developing a long term care facility to assist these veterans.  Out intent is to make this a "home" environment rather than a "hospital" environment - BUT - one which would meet the needs of the above mentioned patients.  We plan to locate this facility in the Santa Cruz/Monterey Bay Area.

Our proposal is as follows:

Acquire land on which the facility would be located:
This would hopefully be accomplished through the donations of private citizens, a foundation or possibly, through acquisition of property formally owned by Fort Ord.

Secure Funding:  This could possibly be accomplished through grants, funding through foundations in a joint effort with the public, or through legislation extending funding to the Veterans Administration.

Secure Funding for Staff:  This could possibly be accomplished through a number of ways.  Possibly through creating a teaching hospital, such as Stanford works with the Veterans Administration Hospital in Palo Alto, Ca. Or, through a volunteer program with doctors serving a year at a time, or through funding by the Veterans Administration.

We have already gained a great deal of support for this idea and know that the need is there.  We hope that you too will lend your support, ideas and suggestions to this effort.

We would appreciate your letters of support.  Please send them to: 
Not This Time Vets
c/o Donna Jacobs, President
P.O. Box 592
Santa Cruz, Ca.  95061

Phone Donna Jacobs (office) 831-454-0434 MWF 1-4 P.M.
www.notthistimevets.org

With All My Sincere Hope For Our Veterans,
Donna Jacobs,
President, Not This Time Vets