MID-HUDSON –The state has yet to release $176,500 it earmarked for the Hudson Valley veterans’ programs through the Dwyer Veterans Support Project. The funds were approved for 2020 and 2021.
A number of state and local elected officials and veterans advocates Friday called on the state to release the funds and include them automatically in the annual budgets.
The Dwyer program includes Vets2Vets counseling, which has been highly successful in assisting veterans get through rough patches in life.
During a Zoom news conference, Ulster County Executive Patrick Ryan, a West Point graduate who served two stints in the Middle East, said suicides among veterans average about 22 a day, and that was before COVID-19.
“And then you add the COVID pandemic on to of this and you see nationally staggering and tragic statistics of the impact. Just last year, across the military we saw an over 20 percent spike in suicides and in the army, an over 30 percent spike in those suicides so the pandemic is exacerbating this epidemic and you could not see a worst time to hold or not provide funding for this life-saving program in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Ryan said.
Jessica Bugbee, currently a Dwyer Vet2Vet Ulster facilitator, said the program literally saved her life following her discharge from the army.
“I feel I would be in an institution, in jail or dead, were it not for this community,” she said.
Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro said it is “maddening” that the state has not released the funds for this valuable program.
“Only in New York can you have a scenario where a successful program that saves lives, supposes those men and women who sacrifice in service to us, engenders near bipartisan support, all for a nominal amount of money, would be leveraged in politically callus way,” he said.
Others speaking in support of the program included Orange County Executive Steven Neuhaus, a Naval Reserves officer, Rockland County Executive Ed Day, and Assemblyman Colin Schmitt, a member of the Army Reserves.
