Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility: Shut it Down

A live/work space for artists
In the mid-to-late 1990′s, and even through early 2003, the artists, musicians, drifter, dreamers and visionaries of downtown West Palm Beach, Florida knew of or had known someone from “the hut”, a series of quonset huts that housed artists live/work spaces.

Unarmed Underground Art Centre
Also known as the Unarmed Underground Art Centre (in a friendly, if somewhat harmless and dismissive nod to the Armory Art Centre, it’s more play-by-the-rules counterpart in the same area–Flamingo Park) and Flamingo Art Studios, the quonset huts was known for it’s renegade art shows, makeshift studios, and the interesting people who lived within the walls of this warehouse shelter some 50 feet west of the railroad tracks.

Alan Patrusevich
In the early 1990′s all the way into a few years shy of 2005, Alan Patrusevich, was the benevolent director of the Unarmed Underground Art Center (UUAC), an artists living/work space that inhabited a quonset hut at 502 Kanuga Street, in Flamingo Park, an historic district of West Palm Beach, Florida.

Patrusevich, a self described multimedia artist and entrepreneur, who also is an antiques restoration expert, engineer, and former machinist/steam propulsion engineer in the Navy, was the director of the Unarmed Underground Art Center (UUAC), also known as “the hut” and Flamingo Art Studios, up until the mid-2000′s.

The end of the hut
Over the years, pressure from the downtown West Palm Beach code enforcement, rumored complaints from Flamingo Park residents, and surprise visits from city officials mounted into a giant bureaucratic tsunami that, combined with several missed payments on the monthly mortgage, pushed Alan into selling the run down factory-of-dreams.

Eventually, the dust would settle. The artists, musicians, dreamers, drifters and slackers who had boarded this ship and set up residence, with Alan Patrusevich at the helm, one hand on the wheel, another hand holding a Lucky Strike, while he searched for the elusive whale called Freedom, in his own take on Captain Ahab, would go elsewhere looking for inspiration and shelter and connection in this world, a world of tears falling like raindrops into the oceans of our dreams.

The hut, the space
Soon after the hut fell from mounting pressure from the inside, and collapsed under its own weight from the inside turmoil. It’s no surprise that this collective living space ended, as it was a social engine, pushing out sparks, a byproduct of putting together 20 very different personalities inside a leaking warehouse. The physical space was an experiment itself, as it was held together by aluminum sheets and termite-ridden wood beams, arching overhead like ribs in the whale, and all of us, perhaps, inside the belly of this beached whale – rivers of water on the floor with boards laid down for makeshift walkways, dangling extension cords in all directions like drunken, rubber orange spider webs, extending from the few valuable and overloaded outlets, industrial machines, art supplies sitting next to half-eaten plates of food

Between then and now
A few years ago, Alan was in New Jersey, living with his parents. About a year or so ago, he returned to West Palm Beach, and was living with artist Jack Barry. At some point, due to a medical issue, Alan was put into the Veterans Administration center in West Palm Beach, Florida. A few months ago, he was transferred from there to Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility (VALF).

Out of respect for Alan’s kindness to me over the years, as well as others wanting to know how he is, I decided to visit Alan, interview him and take some pictures, in order to share them at this website.

Initially, the interview was intended as a way for Alan to express himself to those whose lives he’d touched over the years, since the Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility (VALF) does not have internet for it’s residents. This interview, however, turned into something else.

Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility
The Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility (VALF) is located at 1708 NE 4th Street, just south of Gateway Boulevard, in Boynton Beach, Florida. Usually, assisted living facilities are on main roads, with well-kept gardens out front, vast parking, and a big sign advertising their presence.

This is nothing like that. It’s appears to be in a residential/commercial mixed use zone, as residential houses line the west side of the street and commercial buildings, including the VALF line the other side of the street.

A veterans center or a low budget horror film?
From the outside the VALF looks like an abandoned train station, a one story building, run down, with a small parking lot. No well kept gardens. No big sign advertising what it is. When you enter the building, you’re greeted by a lobby with high ceilings, a dining room on the right, a TV room on your left, and directly ahead a counter with a sign in sheet. Imagine if the “The Shining” was done on a lower budget in a run-down section of Florida, this is the hotel they would use.

Parked in the TV room are people in wheelchairs, gazing at the glowing screen and others asleep, bundled under blankets, some standing, mumbling to themselves. It’s a scene out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.

The dining room has an assortment of tables with elderly people sitting at them, blank eyed, spooning their soup, looking lost, miserable, and unhappy. There’s no music nor joy in this place. Just despair and the smell of lemon polish mixed with the pungent odor of antiseptic.

Cigarettes and chocolate
My pockets are bulging. In my right pocket are two packs of Pall Mall Reds, cigarettes, that Alan requested on my next visit. In my left pocket is a digital camera, so I can document the interview with pictures.

I walk up to the front desk. A lady is on the phone. I look for the visitor’s sign in sheet on the clipboard. It’s not there, but I notice the patient’s sign out sheet, glance around, then walk down the hallway toward Alan’s room, number 435. He’s not in there. But his roommate is–Fish, a big man with pale ashen skin, who’s in the bed next to Alan’s, sleeping. The TV is on.

I leave the room and continue down the hall, then make a left down another hall toward the courtyard. Walking outside, I see Alan, sitting on a chair, chatting with other resident patients of this miserable kingdom. They’re smoking. Alan’s blue eyes sparkle with recognition as he sees me. “Kemp!” He says.

I pull out the cigarettes, and a small Mounds bar, along with some Fox mints my sister, Kim, purchased from a British import store on Dixie the day before, and Alan and I start talking.

Interview with Alan Patrusevich (and others) – Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility (VALF)

How did you get here?

In October of 2009, I went into the Veterans Hospital of West Palm Beach. I had just came back from New Jersey where I was visiting, working. I arrived at the VALF March 10, 2011. Before that, I was in the VA hospital of West Palm.

What’s it like living here?

It’s easy to make friends. Easy to make enemies. It’s like a hellhole in Guatemala. Once you’re in, you can never get out. They have no reason to because they’re making money off of you to stay. There’s no treatment here. They just give you placebos, vitamins, a tylenol. There’s no internet. They don’t even have newspapers here. And they go through your mail, too.

How is that legal?

It’s not.

Isn’t that a felony?

Yes. They don’t care. There’s no oversight here. When you get a card, it’s opened. If there’s any money in it, you don’t know, because it’s opened before it gets to you.

Have you complained?

To who? Who am I gonna complain to? What are they going to do?

Isn’t there any oversight?

No. Exactly. There’s no oversight. That’s the problem. They’re happy to keep us here, as many as they can. Herd us into here because as long as we’re here, they’re getting paid. They’re sucking off the tit of the U.S. government.

At this point, a lady (Barbara), sitting beside Alan, asks: What are you writing, an article?

Alan replies: He’s doing an interview for The Palm Beach Post. (I’m doing the interview to post it at this blog.) A guy comes up and says: Oh, you work at The Palm Beach Post? I reply: I’m a free lancer.

You have a girlfriend here?

Yeah, but they shipped her out the day before yesterday to Bethesda, something for her heart. She has heart issues. She may or may not be back.

Do you have regular visitors here?

My son-in-law comes by. I had more visitors at West Palm. I was closer to everybody. Here, it’s different. It’s out in the sticks. So, it takes more for people to come visit. When you’re stuck here, having visits is more tease than fruit. Ultimately, you’re going to leave and I’m not.

How’s the staff here?

The wrong tools in the wrong hands. They are what they are. I guess they got the credentials to prove it.

Another lady (Alison) sitting nearby: What is he writing?
Alan: An article for The Palm Beach Post.
Alison: It’ll make the news?
Alan: The Palm Beach Post is the news.
Alison: It’s shitty here. It’s terrible.

Here is the bizarre part. American veterans are being supervised by a Pakistani national.

It’s a warehouse for veterans. Minimal care. Marginal food.

Do you get mail here?

Barbara: It goes through 3 different people before you get it. First, front desk. Then, secretary. Then, Ram (Mr. Rammy – owner of Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility). Then you get it and it’s opened. I’ve had mail stolen.

Alan: I had a get well card from cousin in New Jersey and it was opened.

Alison: They look through your bags when you come in here to make sure you don’t have any beer or drugs.

Barbara: It’s horrible here. People walking around wearing the same clothes 2 to 3 weeks. Soaking diapers. A lot of people can’t take showers themselves and the CPA’s don’t help them, so they walk around wearing filthy clothes. They’re giving people nighttime medication at 6:45 so people are out like a light at 9. They’re drugging people with psychoactive drugs who don’t need it. And then there’s people getting sick from the food. There’s one lady, Joy, in the hospital, sick with ecoli. In the last 3 days, there was 3 people deathly ill, vomiting. They’re not fully cooking the chicken.

Alan: The food is just filler. Basically, they just fill you up to shut you up.

Barbara: They had a brand new psychiatrist. He fucked me up with these new medications. My boyfriend, John, he’s as normal as they come. He’s from Brazil. He has 5 children. He visits the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist gives him Haledol, the psychoactive drug. He slept for 2 days. The psychiatrist tells him that his time in Brazil and his children are an hallucination, that neither were real.

John: Came back from Brazil four-and-a-half years ago. Was homeless, so they put me here. Mr. Ram (the manager). I used to go to the Post Office, cash checks, and pay Mr. Ram.

What happened?

John: Sometime back is he got me to sign a form and I didn’t realize that that turned over my checks to him.

So, there’s no source of cash for you?

John: No.

Barbara: We get OSS checks from Children & Family Services, that’s for our hygiene and needs. We’re given by the state $54 a month. Mr. Ram turns around and says you’re not paying your rent. I’m taking half your OSS check. That’s illegal. When social security came here to look into what was going on, Rammy said “go to your room”. He didn’t allow us to talk to social security.

Alan: That’s how it’s operated, like a prison.

Contact Alan
Alan Patrusevich would like to hear from you. Call him at: 561-542-2880.

summary
Alan Patrusevich is a former Navy steam propulsion/hydraulics engineer who was the director of the hut, an underground artist’s live/work space in downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Currently, he’s at Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility (VALF) at 1708 NE 4th Street, Boynton Beach, Florida. Initially, I intended to interview Alan alone, however, soon found myself surrounded by a small crowd of VALF residents who wanted to air their complaints about abuses at this center to someone they thought was a reporter from The Palm Beach Post.

Visiting this veterans center was an informative and sad experience. If you can, visit Alan. Call him first to see if he needs anything. The Boynton Beach Veterans Assisted Living Facility needs to be investigated, cleaned up, and if possible, shut down.