Nicole Hanlen, a legislative aide to Rep. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton, takes helping others to a personal, dogged level. (Photo by Joey Bunch/The Denver Post.)
Richard Wilson hoped to turn his luck around when he landed in Colorado from New Jersey last year, hoping to find work as a limo driver. But his bad run of luck ran off the tracks. A sore throat was first thought to be a strep infection, before a Veterans Administration doctor diagnosed him with stage 4 tonsil and throat cancer six months ago.
He already had spent time living in his pickup truck, and the 64-year-old Marine Corps veteran’s only friend was a giant leafy houseplant named Eleanor.
Then, through a series of blocked paths in the maze of bureaucracy for disabled veterans and the homeless, his dilemma was handed over to Nicole Hanlen, the legislative aide for Rep. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton. That was Wilson’s first lucky break in a while.
Hanlen is a retired teacher who said she’s proud to have been a fighter for the needs of her troubled and disadvantaged students during her 30-year career.
A social worker in North Carolina, who learned of Wilson’s plight on Facebook, first contacted U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter’s office. Perlmutter’s staff called Hanlen, since Wilson had found a space he could barely afford to rent for $400 a month in a damp, dark unfinished basement in Salazar’s district.
Weak from his illness and inexperienced, Wilson couldn’t get help for himself from the Veterans Administration, low-income housing authorities or even volunteer organizations. They each cited reasons to turn him away.
Wilson might be dying, but his hope was dying faster.
“I think it hit a nerve with me, because my dad died of throat and tongue cancer,” Hanlen said Wednesday morning in Salazar’s office. “It’s a miserable death, it can be, even if you’re surrounded by family and friends.”
Her late father, Howard Monthey, was a Navy veteran who always helped out his neighbors and especially anyone in need, no excuses, no exceptions. Even while he was sick he continued to cook elaborate meals for others, Hanlen said. She thinks she draws from his compassion and strength.
Hanlen took time off from work, with Salazar’s encouragement, to accompany Wilson to the VA office to negotiate for him, which didn’t amount to much help. Wilson’s VA caseworker initially didn’t return Hanlen’s call. When Hanlen called back, the caseworker’s voicemail message said she was out of town.
So Hanlen stayed on the case. Through the nonprofit Community Resource Center, she found him a motel room in Lakewood where he could stay for a couple of months. But first she had to get him out of his squalid living conditions and find a place for his possessions.
Her grandson thought she was giving away his toys when she emptied out that plastic containers they were in to use for some of Wilson’s stuff. Then she found a storage facility near her home for about 20 plastic containers, a bed, a bookcase and a table. Then it became a matter of moving them there.
Hanlen called on her friends: Chaz Tedesco, an Adams County commissioner and a Navy veteran; Eric Montoya, a Thornton City Council member, who brought his son, Isiah Montoya; and Adam Matkowsky, a longtime Westminster police office and, like Wilson, a Marine Corps veteran.
“Richard had no idea the high-caliber of people he had helping him that day,” Hanlen said, smiling.
The storage unit cost $110 a month, a big bite from the few hundred dollars Wilson gets in Social Security and disability payments, Hanlen hopes someone will step up to help Wilson pay that.
It was a weekend when they moved him, and the Community Resource Center couldn’t secure his place in the motel until the next Monday, so Hanlen kept Wilson at her home. He told her he was happy just to have people to watch television with for a little while.
Last week Hanlen’s partner, Jim Joy, the former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, took Wilson to three subsidized housing facilities to fill out applications and help resolve any problems. Wilson wasn’t optimistic; he had been turned down before because he has bad credit.
“How can someone homeless have good credit?” Hanlen said.
Salazar was working at his desk nearby.
“Why would they deny you low-income housing because of your credit report?” he piped in. “That sounds like a (legislative) bill that needs to happen.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, sir,” Hanlen replied.
None of Hanlen’s passion to help others came as a surprise to her boss.
“I’ve seen her do this with other people before,” he said in the House chamber earlier in the morning, citing one example of a constituent whose wife needed immediate life-saving surgery but was getting a runaround from the insurance company that put the surgery in doubt.
“I think it took Nicole about 43 minutes and the issue was cleared up, and she was able to have that surgery the next day,” Salazar said. “When Nicole latches on to something, she won’t let it go until it’s done.”
Hanlen, though, is troubled by the many other veterans who could be caught up in bureaucracy, as Wilson is. She recalled the day she took Wilson to the VA office.
“I felt so bad, because there were five other guys waiting and we moved to the head of the line, because of who I represent,” she said, referencing Salazar, who is vice chair of the House veterans affairs committee. “Coming out, a couple of them said, ‘Can you help me?’ I said, ‘Call your representative; they’ll help you.'”
Wilson said Tuesday he didn’t know what he could ever do to return her kindness, but he has an idea for when his health improves.
“I offered to cook for her,” he said, adding that cooking is what he does best and enchiladas are his specialty.
That would please Hanlen’s father, the veteran and cook who was committed to helping others.
