Couple's mission: Helping Long Island's 'forgotten heroes'

New Hyde Park native Matthew Simoni’s life fell apart after he finished serving in an elite U.S. Navy group. He lost his wife to divorce, his home to foreclosure and even his will to live.

He ended up homeless for a year and a half, living behind a convenience store in Virginia Beach and sometimes sleeping in a trash bin or the woods.

Now, Simoni, 37, has rebuilt his life and is helping other struggling veterans do the same. He and his wife have launched an organization in Bay Shore that tracks down homeless veterans on Long Island — some living in the woods — and gets them help with everything from jobs to food to mental health counseling.

Subject of new documentary

The work of Simoni and his wife, Jade Pinto, also is the subject of a new documentary called “Long Island’s Forgotten Heroes" and made by a Glen Cove-based film production company.

The veterans are “men and women who have fought for our great nation,” said Simoni, whose nonprofit is called Bravo Foxtrot United Veterans Inc. “It is not right that we are not doing everything we can to reintegrate them into society and to not leave them forgotten."

Instead of waiting for veterans to come to him in an office, Simoni said, he decided to go to the veterans. He started with train stations, and that eventually led him to veterans’ encampments in the woods.

In the past year, he said, he has located about 40 veterans living in the woods, at train stations, or other places outdoors — from West Babylon to Patchogue, and as far north as Wyandanch and Brentwood. There are likely hundreds more living outdoors across Long Island, he said.

“We know this epidemic exists throughout Long Island and throughout New York State and throughout the country,” said Simoni, whose group also helps veterans living in homeless shelters.

33,000 homeless vets in U.S.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that of about 19 million veterans nationwide, roughly 33,000 are homeless — a number Simoni and others call a vast undercount. 

On Long Island, which has about 93,000 veterans, the federal government counted 127 homeless vets one night in January 2020, the most recent statistic available.

Many of the homeless vets were traumatized by their service — killing people, or seeing others die, including combat buddies — and find it hard to reintegrate back home, Simoni said.

One veteran who appears in the film, Tyrone James, of Brooklyn, describes how an improvised explosive device, or IED, blew up in Iraq, shredding his commanding officer’s body. James had to pick up the body parts and put them in a bag.

He has not been the same since, James said.

“I think about that. I have nightmares. I go through it every single day,” he says in the film. “I’m still back there.”

“But what I’m trying to do is," he continues, "I try to move on. And I never asked for anybody to pity me.”

When many veterans like James get home, they are disoriented and unsure where to get help as they struggle with addiction, mental illness, PTSD, poverty and other issues, Simoni said.

Vets donate services

Since he founded his group last year, it has won the support of a high-ranking Suffolk County legislator, along with lawyers and fellow veterans who donate their services or time.

The owners of an auto body shop in East Islip, Gary Teich and his son, Matthew, donated a minibus that has been painted camouflage and transports veterans to appointments.

Steven Flotteron, deputy presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature, says Suffolk is home to more veterans than any other county in the state — with a sizable number failing to readjust after returning from the battlefield.

Flotteron, who is connecting Simoni’s group with local businesses and government agencies, says Simoni has a special ability to reach homeless veterans.

“He goes into the woods at night, off the highways, behind stores, and he knows how to speak to them, because he slept in the dumpster himself,” Flotteron said.

“He has a charisma about him, and a strength,” Flotteron added.

On a recent afternoon, Simoni and his wife visited a rehabilitation center in Massapequa where a formerly homeless Vietnam veteran is now recovering.

They brought Richard Shropshire clothes, food and advice on how to get legal help to obtain service-related medical benefits.

“I’m almost in tears,” Shropshire, 74, said with a warm smile.

Later, Simoni and Pinto ventured into some woods off Sunrise Highway in West Babylon, where they met another veteran, Freddy Miller, 43. The crew-cut former U.S. Marine from West Islip was dressed in combat fatigues and said he had been living there on and off for a year.

The couple had helped Miller get medical help, too. For now, he is living temporarily with a vet who volunteers with the group.

Living in the woods, Miller said, was “horrible,” with constant noise from traffic just feet away and raccoons descending on his site every night.

“I know I could end up back here real quick,” he said. “I’m living by the skin of my teeth, literally.”

10-year Navy career

Simoni’s work with veterans took a circuitous route. After high school, he attended Nassau Community College and then worked construction jobs, but hungered for more.

“I wanted to do something great with my life,” he said.

So Simoni joined the military. He worked his way up to the prestigious Naval Special Warfare Development Group in Virginia Beach, assisting SEALs in covert missions.

During a 10-year career from 2006 to 2016, Simoni said, he went to Iraq, Afghanistan, Mali, Chad, Sudan, Libya, Kenya and other countries.

By the time of his discharge, though, he was suffering from PTSD and other ailments, Simoni said. He lost five construction jobs in six months. Simoni's life had unraveled.

By 2018, he returned to Long Island, where he still had relatives. Soon afterward, he met Pinto, a tattoo artist in Islip who was key to him getting back on track. She encouraged him to get therapy and use other holistic approaches, including meditation and natural foods, instead of prescription drugs. She also helped him see that doing charitable work for others could help him heal.

Eventually, they formed Bravo Foxtrot together — she is vice president.

They connect the homeless veterans to agencies that provide services including job interview preparation, resume writing, and even getting the proper clothes, such as suits and ties.

Assistance to vets

They have helped formerly homeless veterans land jobs at Huntington Hospital and South Shore University Hospital in Bay Shore. Another works in the kitchen at the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood headquarters.

One vet who had been living in the woods for years was able to win his VA case for disability payments, and bought a condo in Levittown, Simoni said. Other vets, including James, have landed permanent or temporary affordable rental housing the group has helped arrange.

Simoni’s shoestring operation gets no official funding — he is financing it off his VA disability payments and Pinto’s income as a tattoo artist, he said.

Eight months ago, the couple teamed with local filmmakers to do a documentary aimed at bringing attention to the plight of homeless veterans. Tevin Foster and Julius Capio, of Glen Cove-based Hazy Sun Production, trailed Simoni and Pinto into the woods and social services offices, among other places.

The film premiered Oct. 20 at the Bayway Arts Center in East Islip.

“It was kind of like a mind-blowing experience, going into the woods and seeing these guys are living there for years,” said Foster, 28, of Brentwood.

Last spring, authorities or landowners came into some of the areas and ejected the veterans, sometimes bulldozing their encampments, he said.

“Just to even get kicked out of the woods is kind of mind-blowing,” Foster said. “Like, they’re already homeless and then they are being kicked out of where they are staying.”