Effort to house homeless veterans in Lane County surpasses goal | Local | Eugene, Oregon

Army veteran Ray Peterson said he was homeless for 27 years before his weight dropped below 90 pounds and he nearly died on the streets of Eugene in late November.

“I was in pretty bad shape,” a slightly heavier Peterson said Wednesday from inside the Whiteaker neighborhood studio apartment that he moved into last month, thanks to a coordinated local effort to put roofs over the heads of scores of homeless veterans in Lane County.

“I know a bunch more out there,” Peterson, 60, said of his fellow military vets. “I’ve warned some of them to get inside.”

Ever since military veteran Thomas Egan froze to death in Eugene in 2008, local government and social service agencies have expanded programs aimed at helping homeless people, particularly former servicemen and women.

To that end, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, Lane County Commissioner Pat Farr and others in late 2014 announced an ambitious goal: to house 365 homeless veterans — one for each day of the year — in 2015.