Spokane veterans finding homes: Wallace Toombs can stay in his home of 26 years with help from VA

Wallace Toombs can look out the front door of the apartment he’s lived in for 26 years and see everything he needs.

“I can go across the street to the hardware store, if I need it,” Toombs, 69, said on a recent Friday in his apartment just off Interstate 90 near the Fancher curve. “I can go to Starbucks. I can get a haircut, if I need it.”

Toombs, a four-year veteran of the U.S. Navy in the 1970s, has knee and shoulder problems that limit his mobility. Yet for years, he’s lived independently in this apartment, and wanted to remain in it even after the rent was increased following the moratorium on evictions put into place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toombs got a notice early last year that his rent would be increasing in six weeks from $635 to $1,000 a month, he said, a price tag he could not afford on his Social Security benefits. It sent him into a panic.

“I was kind of hard to get along with,” Toombs said, “I just would snap at everything. You don’t think about anything else.”

The anxiety Toombs felt is likely shared by many who eventually approach the local Department of Veteran Affairs for emergency housing assistance. Federal laws require a veteran to be either out on the streets or within 14 days of being evicted for subsidies to be made available, said Shannon Dunkin, homeless program manager for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs in Spokane.

“Because of the system and the rules we all have to follow, sometimes we’re not able to act as fast as we hope,” she said.

In addition, Toombs’ $1,000 rent just bumps up against what’s known as the voucher payment standard for Spokane County set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s the highest amount the voucher program will pay for a one-bedroom apartment in the county, Dunkin said, and in other parts of their service area, especially rural areas, the cap is even lower.

It was hard for Toombs to admit he needed help when that notice came, he said. He has two adult daughters but didn’t want to impose on them.

A brother who’d also lived in the complex, and who’d been in combat in Vietnam, moved into assisted living in Spokane Valley, and he and Toombs speak only occasionally.

“I’m old enough, and stubborn enough now, that living with somebody, even if they’re family, you don’t really want to do it,” he said. “Because you’re used to being on your own.”

Toombs grew up in Colfax, working after school at a meat-packing plant and a local service station to help support his mother after his father died of cancer when he was 7. He was one of five children.

“She made sure that all of us gotten taken care of,” Toombs said of his mom. “We got raised, we always had clean clothes. We didn’t have to want for anything.”

He keeps a photo of his mother, Lois Toombs, on his desk, which is filled with correspondence from medical providers, pill bottles for his blood pressure, diabetes and knee pain, and an ever-present coffee mug. Today’s mug reads, “Blessed.”

But in the midst of the uncertainty about his housing, Toombs said he considered what it would be like to be homeless. He’d been homeless once before, he said, while driving truck after his time in the Navy. He hauled nuclear fuel out of the Tri-Cities, which caused other motorists on the road to give him a wide berth, even though the contents were inert.

Toombs’ initial response wasn’t to go to the Veterans Affairs offices. Because he knew his landlord, he was able to continue making his normal monthly payments, but late rent started building up.

Toombs started looking at other voucher programs, including Section 8, but spoke to workers at the VA clinic on Second Avenue who informed him of the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program run in conjunction with the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“Once I got approved, and everything, that’s when I finally took a breath,” Toombs said.

The assistance allows him to stay in his apartment, but he’s still on a tight budget, even with an increase in his Social Security benefits. Only recently could he afford an internet subscription, and as he talks about his housing situation, a YouTube video plays showing a man building an underground house in the woods with available materials. The only sounds are natural, like the flitting of a bird or the man’s handsaw driving through lumber.

“I don’t have to pay the money for cable,” he said. “Regular TV, to me, is just mind-numbing. This is something that’s fun to watch, and you learn from.”

Persistence allowed Toombs to remain in his own home, he said. While he is anxious about the thought of rent continuing to increase, veterans should know that assistance is available if they need it.

“It wasn’t wrong to ask for help,” he said. “The help was there, and good people are there to help you. You just have to say, ‘Hey, I need it.’ ”