Kurt W. Richter

Kurt Von Richter is a Navy veteran of the Vietnam Era and published poet. In 1972 he returned to his native Indiana on leave after serving overseas. While in town shopping for groceries he was brutally attacked by anti-war protesters and suffered a fractured skull and many broken bones. The head injury effectively ended his Naval career without benefits.

On Saturday, Jan 10, 2015, the Home Deployment Project, a Las Vegas based nonprofit organization that fights to end veteran homelessness, pulled Kurt off the streets of northern Las Vegas after several years of struggling with chronic homelessness.

In 2000, Kurt’s 17 year old son unexpectedly passed away. In 2008 he then lost his wife and daughter. Emotionally destroyed, Kurt bounced from odd job to odd job. Eventually he found himself living in the back room of an autobody repair shop while moonlighting as a security guard at a local casino.

On Mother’s day of 2014, most of Kurt’s security department was laid off. A couple weeks after, the owner of the garage told Kurt he had to vacate the back room because his wife wanted to use it for storage. For the second time Kurt found himself living on the street. Between two bouts of homelessness, Kurt has seen 4.5 years on the streets of Las Vegas.

For the 6 months we have coordinated with Kurt before pulling him off the street, all he has done was state wanted help getting back to work. Always with a positive attitude, Kurt is known as Papa Bear amongst the homeless community because he always took the time to help others while barely having anything himself.

Kurt is a great candidate to help because he is strong minded, sober, and determined to pull his own weight. Through mutual we can ensure he receives the hand up he needs to never be homeless again.

Kurt is currently staying in temporary housing while he finds work.