John Herrick’s hands shook as he fought back the anger he felt at a state system that had promised him a lifeline, then failed to deliver.
He was standing in the small motel room in Southeast Portland where he was living with his two adult sons and his service dog. Herrick gripped a black notebook where he’d logged the legion of calls he’d made over eight months, trying to secure the rent assistance that he and thousands of others had been promised by the state but not received.
“As a veteran, I should not be here,” Herrick said of the motel room, paid for by the VA and crowded with duffel bags of clothes, boxes of groceries and even some of his furniture – a floor lamp stood against one wall. “We shouldn’t be here.”…