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Under the tracks of a northbound 5 train, Joseph Gotesman pulled a sandwich from a plastic bag and approached a man sitting near a jumble of boxes. His query was crisp and succinct: “Excuse me, sir. Are you a veteran?”

Mr. Gotesman, 22, leads VetConnect, a Bronx-based organization devised to combat homelessness among veterans. Since it started work in January, the small group has made contact with dozens of veterans living on the streets in and around the Bronx. VetConnect has helped five veterans get permanent housing, including one who needed it to get much-needed surgery, and has worked with others to find employment.

Such small numbers might seem paltry in a city where the ratio of homeless people to people who have homes is the third highest in the nation, but a spokesman for the Department of Homeless Services says that every little bit helps.

“Many of our partners started out as small, neighborhood-focused organizations. We value every effort, however small, to reach out to a homeless man or woman and connect them to services,” Chris Miller, the spokesman. “It makes a difference.”

The strength of VetConnect, said Mr. Gotesman, is its grass-roots nature. “We’re local,” he said. “You can’t get more local than community members reaching out to their own. And as we grow, it will be community members reaching out to their own as well. You won’t see me at a VetConnect excursion in an L.A. or a Boston community excursion.”

And that is exactly where the organization is heading. In the last few months, VetConnect has begun the process of putting together teams in other states where homelessness among veterans is high, such as California and Texas. In September, VetConnect was awarded a $5,000 grant from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, which will assist the organization in, among other things, expanding, conducting research and distributing materials.

But Mr. Gotesman, who is in his second year of medical school at Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, has found that the issues that homeless veterans face are complex and often require continuous effort to resolve.

“Helping a veteran is not a quick, simple feat,” he said in an email. “It takes time and relationship and trust building.”

Still, fostering relationships with veterans living on the streets can be difficult. Mr. Gotesman says that many of the veterans he has met are wary of seeking help from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Many do not believe the change is possible,” Mr. Gotesman explained. “After years or decades on the streets, begging for handouts from passers-by, it almost seems too good to be true.”

Joseph Mangione, 56, was begging for money under the Brooklyn Bridge when he met Mr. Gotesman last December. “It was snowing,” Mr. Mangione recalled in a phone interview. “I was holding a cardboard sign that said ‘homeless veteran.’ He pulled over and offered me help.”

Mr. Gotesman checked on Mr. Mangione every two weeks after their initial encounter. Meanwhile, he and other volunteers called the local V.A. hospital and began the process of verifying Mr. Mangione’s service record and his eligibility for benefits. With help from VetConnect and Section 8 vouchers from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Mangione was able to move into his own apartment in the Bronx just three months after he met Mr. Gotesman. He recently was granted a license for street vending, allowing him to earn an income and begin to sustain his newfound life.

Mr. Mangione, who served as an infantryman in the Army during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, said he avoided going into shelters when he became homeless.

“They want to throw you in these shelters with drug addicts and alcoholics,” he said. “A soldier doesn’t want to live around that.”

He was also critical of the Department of Veterans Affairs. “They wanted me to jump through so many hoops,” he said.

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Mr. Gotesman said VetConnect’s goal for veterans was not “to ‘give them a fish,’ it’s to ‘teach them to fish.’ That is, to motivate them to a change and then provide them the necessary connections and resources to achieve their success.”

Recently, Mr. Gotesman helped a veteran named Lawyer Anderson get surgery that had been delayed because he was in and out of shelters, where he often had to sleep in a chair when beds were full. Mr. Gotesman said the Department of Veterans Affairs would not operate on Mr. Anderson’s service-connected injuries until he was in a stable home. After months of trying, VetConnect was able to get him permanent housing and the surgery he required.

Dr. Michael J. Reichgott, who served as an officer in the Army Medical Corps during the Vietnam War, is a professor of internal medicine at Einstein and Mr. Gotesman’s faculty adviser. Dr. Reichgott believes that VetConnect’s small size could allow it to be more personal than larger veterans groups, and called Mr. Gotesman’s efforts “a commendable effort at community service and social advocacy.”

Questions remain about whether such small organizations can address a population of homeless veterans that, according to some estimates, makes up a quarter of the homeless in New York City. But for veterans like Mr. Mangione, VetConnect is a clear answer to a complex problem.

“There should be more like it,” he said. “It’s a shame there’s not.”



Jacob W. Sotak served in the United States Army Reserve for 10 years, including a tour in Afghanistan. He graduated from Dartmouth College and now works as a news assistant at The New York Times. Follow him on Twitter: @JWSotak