By: Albert Kalenscher

        Christina Dupre has always understood the importance of helping service members in her community, and that has helped push her towards some of her most meaningful work yet. Christina grew up in a household with veterans, so she recognized from a young age the trauma that can come from war and what life as a veteran was like. Professionally, Christina worked consulting different defense departments “I did a lot of work with the Department of Defense, and when 9/11 hit, I felt uniquely qualified to help.” Christina hoped to help bridge the gap between technology and government, and fix some of the major technological problems within the military. This experience bolstered her passion for helping military veterans.

        Christina’s focus switched from a national scale to working at a local level shortly before she moved to Portland 5 years ago. In 2009, Christina’s partner was in need of a hip replacement and was directed to the VA. In response to this, he was put on Morphine in order to handle the pain. For Christina, this did not seem like a proper response to the problem. She saw it as fixing only the symptoms of his problem, and not providing the resources for him to recover.This story was not relevant just to Christina, as the same situation happened to a friend of hers around the same time. This response also creates another problem, the addiction to prescription pills that has become an epidemic in this country. “She was able to get herself off of the drugs,” Christina said, “but there’s a lot of people that need a communal meeting space”. She decided that since this kind of support was not provided by the VA, she would find somewhere that did, and she found that in Veterans Village. in hopes to provide this village with mental health services it might need, like addiction counseling and PTSD support. “Again I feel like I’m in a unique position to help, this time at a community level instead of nationally,” said Christina. The Veterans Village in a local non profit that is just gaining steam that plans to build a cheap housing community for veterans, located in Clakamas County, Oregon. Christina now spends her free time building housing pods for veterans, sawing insulation and putting up the foundations for these new homes. “The best way to get involved with a project is to go there, get dirty,” says Christina.

      Next, Christina plans to provide the Veteran’s village with the resources that she felt the VA were not providing. She plans to use the resources she gained from her work in technology consultation, specifically connections from her work with the Department of Defense, to provide the Veterans Village with these mental health services. Christina hopes to continue in her efforts to provide the veterans of Veterans Village with the services they might need, including free internet for the housing pods. “We’re building a template in Clackamas County,” says Christina, “That we can perfect and replicate across the country.”