When Rainer, a US Air Force veteran, was laid off from his job working on satellite communications for a major U.S. aerospace company, he did what most of us would do. He filed for unemployment, he updated his resume, and he started applying for every job he could find. With a spouse and three teenage daughters to support, the oldest of whom was applying to colleges for next fall, there was no time to lose.
Like more and more people today, Rainer had moved several times for work: once to southern California and again to northern Virginia. This meant he was far away from either his family in upstate New York or his wife’s family in Georgia. Without any nearby relatives to help them, Rainer and his wife had to start making some hard decisions about how to get by.
“That was the biggest thing,” he said, “We didn’t have any kind of support system.”
To be closer to family and to escape the high cost of living in the Washington, DC metro area, Rainer and his family moved to Georgia, where they rented a house near his wife’s mother. Rainer kept applying for every job he could find, but the offers weren’t coming.
“I kept doing job interview after job interview,” he said. “I must have done hundreds of them. But I wasn’t getting anything.”
Housing Instability Can Affect Anyone
When we imagine someone experiencing homelessness or at risk of losing their place to live, people typically think there must be an extreme explanation for how it happened. People often assume that person must be struggling with addiction, severe mental illness, or chronic unemployment.
The difficult truth, however, is that housing instability can affect anyone, and it often arises from a complex set of circumstances, limited resources, or gaps in vital support. You can do everything “right”—serve your country, build a career in an in-demand and technologically sophisticated field, pursue every opportunity you can—and still find yourself in free fall if there are no safety nets there to catch you.
Originally from outside Syracuse, New York, Rainer joined the U.S. Air Force in 1995 and served for 10 years at bases in Phoenix, AZ, Houston County, GA, and South Korea. Since 2005, he’s worked in satellite communications technology, the same area he specialized in during his military service. Over the past 20 years, he’s developed systems that allow passengers on commercial airliners to access the internet while in flight, and he’s worked on satellites that use lasers to measure ocean temperatures and forestation levels on the Earth’s surface.
Rainer’s experience is a powerful reminder that economic hardship spares no one. It can impact even those with years of experience and high-level skills. All it takes is one unlucky break, one unexpected crisis, one prolonged job search in a sluggish market.
Turning the Page with Help from VOA Southeast
Rainer was initially hesitant to ask for help.
“I’ve always felt I’m supposed to take care of stuff,” he said. “With my job, with my family: if something comes up, I always say, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ I know I’ll figure out a way.”
But after months of job searches with no luck and on the verge of his unemployment insurance running out, Rainer reached out to the Veterans Affairs (VA) in Georgia, which put him in contact with VOA Southeast. Right away, things started to turn around.
“When we got accepted and approved for the program, the case manager at VOA Southeast started acting as our advocate. It was a relief.”
Rainer received support through VOA Southeast’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program, administered in coordination with the VA. The program provides case management and temporary financial assistance to veterans who are homeless or at imminent risk of homelessness.
Once Rainer and his family were getting the help they needed to secure their housing situation, VOA Southeast put him in touch with a vocational counselor, who helped him find ways to tailor his resume and make a stronger case for himself to potential employers.
“With my resume, I was really just reading off a list of qualifications instead of making a sales pitch,” Rainer said. “When I started doing that I started getting a lot more interest and a lot more call-backs after interviews.”
VOA Southeast provides support services for hundreds of veterans throughout Georgia and Alabama. Our programs help veterans in need receive health and medical benefits, get job training and vocational counseling, and stabilize their housing situation through financial support and transitional housing opportunities.
In May, 2025, after 10 months out of work, Rainer found a new job working for a commercial satellite provider based out of Atlanta. Despite a rocky transition for his children moving suddenly from Virginia to Georgia, his daughter has been accepted to college and is starting at the Savannah College of Art and Design in August.
Rainer said he was shocked by how much the case workers at VOA Southeast stood up for him and his family as he worked to get back on his feet.
“They were really great,” Rainer said. “I hadn’t even realized this kind of help was available.” Had it not been for VOA Southeast, he and his family could have lost their place to live.
Support Veterans in Your Community
At VOA Southeast, we help veterans experiencing or threatened by homelessness―and countless other people in need―return to a life of stability, safety, and community. Our organization positively impacts the lives of over 56,000 people throughout Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
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