‘Ride With Valor’ Gift Homeless Veteran A Home & Service Dog After His Death

Follow National Coalition to End Homelessness, more than 37,000 veterans currently experience homelessness.

Research shows that those who served in late Vietnam and post-Vietnam are most at risk of becoming homeless, but of course veterans from recent wars are also affected.

Many veterans returning home from deployments often face “invisible war wounds,” which correlate with homelessness.

Ride With Valor is a non-profit organization founded in 2018 by US Army Veteran Russell Scot Rhoda. When he returned home, he found that only selected veterans received support from their communities. He wondered why all ages of veterans weren’t treated the same, and he made it his mission to help ALL veterans and their families in any way. you can.

Ride With Valor provides dinners, brings veterans to their appointments, and now has a new program called “Hearth and Home” where they give a homeless veteran a new home they renovated.

This is the second year they’ve done it, and this time they surprised a Vietnam War veteran named Milton Ra-Mon Smith, who was homeless and lost his service dog.

“When my dog ​​died, it broke my heart. I cried maybe for three or four days,” Smith said News 5 Cleveland. “I still look for her as I walk. When you walk in, when you walk away, open the door and think she is there. She’s not there.”

Ride With Valor gave Smith a new home in Cleveland, but that’s not all. They also surprised him with a new dog to help fill the void lost to his service dog.

Smith said it was a double stroke of luck and he couldn’t be more grateful.

Watch Smith receive his new home and dog in the video below, and click here to learn more about Ride With Valor.