When Tom Mann was tasked with finding people to sit on a new Portland-based board designed to support veterans, he naturally looked for people who — like himself, a former Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs administrator — were experts on veterans issues. But there was something else, too.

“None of us have really drunk the VA Kool-Aid,” Mann said of the 19-member board, called MyVA Cascadia. “We love the VA, but we’re also critical of the VA. I don’t think there is anybody on the board who hasn’t had a problem with the VA.”

MyVA Cascadia is the second round of a new, national movement launched by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to eventually create small squadrons of veterans service providers, advocates and other stakeholders across the country who will dig deep into communities to learn what services are lacking for veterans and who is best-suited to fill the gaps, whether it’s the VA, nonprofit organizations or faith-based groups.

But — and this part is important — while the movement was started by the VA, it’s not directly connected to or funded by the VA, and there’s a reason for that.

“There are a lot of people that when you hear ‘VA’ don’t want to participate because they’ve had just bad experiences,” he said.

That said, each group will have a few top VA regional officials in their ranks. Joanne Krumberger, director of the VA Portland Health Care System, and Chris Norton, acting director of the Portland VA Regional Office, both sit on the MyVA Cascadia board, which is designed to serve all 26 Oregon and Washington counties in the VA Portland Health Care System, including Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties in Central Oregon.

JW Terry, a board member with Bend-based Central Oregon Veterans Outreach who served in the Navy for more than 30 years, will represent Central Oregon on the MyVA Cascadia board. He wasn’t available for an interview, but Codi Standiford, COVO’s community liaison, said he’s hopeful MyVA Cascadia will ensure Central Oregon’s unique needs are heard by VA decision-makers in Portland.

Standiford said he’s not entirely certain yet whether MyVA Cascadia will offer something unique to what COVO, a nonprofit that helps veterans find housing, jobs and various services, already does.

“There is cause for hope in this effort because it is aimed basically at accountability, holding the VA accountable and making sure they do what they say they’re going to do and make sure they’re doing what the law requires them to do,” he said.

MyVA Cascadia is not bound by VA rules and is therefore free to think of solutions outside of the “VA box,” Mann said. That’s key, because oftentimes, the VA is restricted by its own cumbersome bureaucracy, he said. In this new format, advocates have the freedom to leverage external resources and help veterans who don’t qualify for VA assistance, while still having a VA ear in the room.

“What (the VA) decided to do is, ‘How can we leverage all of these resources and people that want to help veterans in a way where VA is not seen as the 800-pound gorilla driving this thing, but it’s the community driving it?’” Mann said. “So they reached out in these phases to people like me, people who have been doing this a long time.”

Standiford, an Army veteran, spends a lot of time helping veterans navigate services available through the VA, which is often a frustrating experience. Several years ago, he spent a brief, one-year stint working for the VA.

Last week, he called the VA to try to pay an old insurance premium bill, having received a letter warning him it would soon be taken out of his benefits. He called the number on the letter, but the person who answered told him he couldn’t accept payments at that number. That person — who Standiford said was very kind and professional — transferred him to another number. The next person said he could only accept payments for medical services, not insurance. He gave Standiford another number to call: the phone number on Standiford’s letter.

“At this point, I was really pissed,” he said. “This is something that I’ve dealt with countless times.”

One problem with the VA is its employees aren’t empowered to go beyond what’s often a very narrow scope of duties, Standiford said.

“You can only do ‘A’ and ‘B,’” he said, “and if it’s ‘C,’ you’ve got to transfer them somewhere else. Nine times out of 10, they don’t know where to send you. It’s extremely frustrating.”

The first public MyVA Cascadia town hall is happening from 6 to 8 tonight at the Montavilla Baptist Church in Portland. These town halls will be different from what veterans might be used to, Mann said.

“Instead of it just being a town hall where people complain, we’re going to make it a work session where people come up with ideas and that can include, say, ‘You know, our local community transportation people aren’t at the table,’” he said.

Mann hopes to host a town hall in Central Oregon in March. The first three weeks of the program will be connecting people to existing resources, he said. After that will come the longer process of identifying which resources don’t exist within the VA and how to partner with other organizations who provide them.

All of the work is being done on a volunteer basis; the group receives no funding, Mann said.

Two critical veterans issues Mann said he believes the VA can’t solve — and therefore MyVA Cascadia could impact greatly — are transportation and suicide.

Standiford said he agrees. Although Disabled American Veterans runs shuttles between Bend and Portland, veterans can’t use the service if they’re using oxygen tanks or if they can’t get in and out of the van without help.

“That leaves a pretty large population that doesn’t have any access to transportation,” he said, “so finding some workarounds to that I think is of critical importance.”

Suicide is more complicated, Standiford said. Three of his team members killed themselves within the group’s first year of returning from Iraq in 2007.

“It’s an intensely personal choice that folks make,” he said, “and oftentimes they don’t leave you a really good idea as to why.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0304,

tbannow@bendbulletin.com