Victory for Maine veterans, a decade in the making

I started fighting for VA substance use and mental health treatment as a state representative in 2014. This month, we'll break ground on a new treatment facility at Togus.

Dear Mainer,

Last weekend, I attended two events: a convention of the Maine Department of the Disabled American Veterans in Bangor and a ribbon-cutting in Presque Isle for the new VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic — the product of decades of work and lobbying by Maine veterans. 

It was great to speak on Saturday with members of the Maine Department of the Disabled American Veterans at the Maine Department Convention. 

Veterans and veterans service organizations are inspiring in their dogged advocacy on behalf of their fellows. It is the same spirit of service that leads young men and women into uniform and a demonstration of the special bond they share with those who served before them and those who will follow in their footsteps. 

Any sense of inspiration in their service, however, is paired with a sense of frustration — not with their work, but with how hard they have to fight to ensure veterans receive what they have earned, and with how long it takes for their advocacy to bear fruit. Many do not live to see the benefit of their efforts; Future generations become the beneficiaries of a lifetime of service and work carried out by those who came before them.

It’s a dynamic I know well: Soon, the VA will break ground on a new substance use and mental health treatment facility at Togus in Augusta, which will ultimately feature 24 treatment beds. 

It’s sorely needed and a long time coming. There is nothing I have worked for longer during my time in elected office than increasing mental health and substance use treatment for Maine veterans.

In 2014, I had just been elected to represent part of Lewiston in the Maine House of Representatives. The first meeting I attended as an elected official was with a large group of veterans and the former Director of the Maine Bureau of Veterans Services. 

We discussed a lot, but one issue rose above the rest: how little was being done for Maine veterans who needed treatment for mental health issues or substance use. Young veterans there, those who signed up to serve after 9/11 like I did, were particularly fierce champions for this priority. The older veterans, seeing how much it mattered to the younger ones, supported their calls for action.

At the time, there were no in-patient treatment beds here at home, so veterans had to wait for a bed to open up at an out-of-state facility. The wait could be long and many veterans didn’t want to be sent to another state far away from home, family, and community. I decided I would make it my mission to address this gap in services. 

One of the first bills I passed into law in the Maine House created a commission to review veterans’ services in Maine. I co-chaired the commission and our final report highlighted this gap in mental health and substance use services at the federal level, and the trouble veterans were having accessing disability and health care benefits through the VA. 

As a result of the commission’s work, I led the Legislature to create new Veterans Service Officer positions in state government to help with claims, among other things. But our appeals to the VA to address mental health and substance use needs fell on deaf ears. 

So I carried this priority with me to Congress. In my first year, we achieved a small but crucial victory: I convinced the VA to conduct an assessment to determine whether Maine veterans were correct to insist we needed additional capacity to meet the demand for mental health and substance use treatment in our state. 

No surprise, but: We were right. In its review, the VA found that Maine needed an additional 24 treatment beds to meet veterans’ needs.

A recognition of need, though, was no guarantee of action. We needed a commitment from the VA. I pushed the VA Secretary to approve the program and I introduced and passed two amendments to the VA’s budget to increase funding for mental health treatment facilities. Ultimately, in the fall of 2020, the VA announced that it had approved the new services at Togus.

In the three years since that initial approval, I have worked to prevent delays and keep the VA accountable to its promise to Maine veterans. There have been some hurdles along the way but finally, next month, the VA will break ground on the facility and begin construction. 

By the time patients start receiving care in that facility, it will have been a full decade since my meeting with Maine veterans back in 2014. This weekend, I couldn’t help but think of the men I met that day and their dedication to ensure the VA was delivering for all veterans. Or about the veterans in Maine who kept pounding the drum over this past decade, doing their part to keep this project alive.

For making sure elected leaders and VA officials heard their calls, they deserve a lot of the credit for the new treatment beds at Togus. 

Politics is frequently a very cynical and frustrating line of work. Leaders play games for the cameras and the huge amounts of money in politics create fertile ground for corruption. But when I think about this ten-year mission to help Maine veterans in crisis, it makes me hopeful.  

A desire to serve the public through elected office should grow out of, and be sustained by, a commitment to real-world objectives that will benefit those we aim to represent. When leaders are fueled by those commitments, rather than a desire for the spotlight or personal fortune, a better version of politics is possible.

Respectfully,