Operation Welcome Home

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came aboard the USS Midway in San Diego on June 3, 2010, to announce the creation of Operation Welcome Home, a program designed to help new military veterans re-enter society. The Weingart Center was there too as a special guest!

Every year, 30,000 Californians are discharged from the armed services and must adjust to civilian life. Operation Welcome Home will employ 325 veterans who will directly contact new veterans and assist them with making a smooth transition by helping them find employment, education and health care. Insisting that veterans have had to run a bureaucratic gauntlet to learn about all the benefits they are entitled to, Governor Schwarzenegger said aboard the Midway, “We have to create a one-stop shop so there’s no more going from agency to agency but rather one place where you get the services that you deserve.” That one-stop shop, Operation Welcome Home, was created with 20 million dollars in state funding, but it will also rely on volunteers to help with the program.

Rabin Woods, a member of the Weingart Center’s Hope for the Homeless AmeriCorps program, had the honor of attending this event as a special guest of Karen Baker, Secretary of Service and Volunteering for the State of California. Rabin delivered a special message at the event, calling Veterans to engage in service by connecting returning veterans and their families to the appropriate vital services available to them. Rabin shared his personal experience of past homelessness, joblessness, lack of education and medical benefits, and expressed concern that other veterans may face those same obstacles without programs such as the Veteran Per Diem Program and the Weingart Center’s Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program. Operation Welcome Home provides agencies such as the Weingart Center the opportunity to offer streamlined comprehensive services to the many veterans they interact with daily.

Rabin expressed the joy he receives from helping others better their lives as being worth more than money can buy, and called all Californians to action: “I ask you to join me by volunteering your time, talents and resources to serve those who have served us. They have come through on their part of the bargain, now it’s time for us to return the favor and come through for them.”

For more information on our Veterans programs, please contact Richard Caines,

Veterans Program Manager, at 213.689.2121