As the second son to one of the most popular film stars of the 20th century beginning with the hit Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn, Stephen Peck was born into what he termed a wealthy family but one that was also deeply entrenched in public service and philanthropy. It led him to work towards eradicating homelessness.
“No one in my family had served, my dad had a back injury that kept him from serving during World War II. I graduated from high school in 1964 and a year later the Vietnam War kicked off. I got a deferment because I was in college at Northwestern but that meant that when I finished I’d be owned by Uncle Sam,” he explained.
To gain control of his future, Peck chose to join the PLC program for the Marine Corps.
“I went to boot camp after my junior year, came back to my senior year 10 pounds heavier, all muscle and no hair and everyone wondered what I did over the summer,” he laughed. “The day I graduated, I was also commissioned a second lieutenant. I went to the basic school after that, then artillery school and went to Vietnam in the spring of ‘69.”
He was a forward observer for India Company of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, stationed about 15 miles west of Da Nang.
“Our job was to keep the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army out of Da Nang, so we were west of the bank, so we continually patrol the mountains there, making sure that they didn’t, you know, sweep down the valley. Everyone’s experience in Vietnam was a little bit different, depending upon where you were. Our experience was a lot of ambushes and a lot of booby traps,” Peck recalled.
It would be the year that changed his entire life.
“I really wanted to put that experience behind me. I did not want to be defined by my military experience but certainly when I came back, I felt unmoored. I just didn’t know what to do, where to turn it. You know, it is such an intense experience and such a purposeful experience, right? You’re every minute you’re providing service and safety for your fellow Marines and there’s a mission,” he explained. “Every second coming back, you’re kind of disconnected from it and it’s like being unplugged. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, so I bounced around for a few years.”
He dug into his roots and went all in on filmmaking, specifically documentaries. When he got the opportunity to do a film on the homeless in the Venice Beach area of California, Peck said he was captured.
“It is a huge societal issue, and there’s so many things that we need to do and would need to do in order to solve that problem. So it was a real challenge. I felt really angry that there are people on the street without help,” he said. “Then I learned that 30% of the men on the street are veterans. It was something that I felt that I could do something about. So I did a film, a short film about homeless veterans. I did another film documentary about the Vietnam War combat experience and became an advocate, particularly for homeless veterans.”
He started with tackling the issue by working to establish a program in LA and spent time volunteering and running it, in between film projects. But in 1993 he realized he didn’t want to direct any longer.
“I switched careers and worked for the VA for a while in their homeless program, just an outreach worker. I would go out on the streets and in the soup kitchens and shelters to talk to people and help. I found that it was something that I was really pretty good at and felt good doing it,” Peck explained. “I worked for the VA homeless program for a little over three years and during that period of time is when US vets were just getting started and I was a VA outreach worker. I was assigned as the liaison to a brand new homeless program and got along with the guys who started it. I knew the board members and it was formed by a guy named Judge Harry Pregerson, an amazing guy. World War II Marine who got wounded in the South Pacific.”
It would be Pregerson’s passion and commitment which would inspire Peck to want to do every more for his fellow brothers and sisters. And a supervisor, who encouraged him to go back to school for his master’s degree in social work.
“In 1996 I jumped over to this new nonprofit as its Community Development Director and started our Long Beach program which is our largest homeless program for veterans in the country still to this day,” he shared.
That new nonprofit was U.S. Vets. Over time, the organization broadened its offerings from solely providing emergency housing to encompass a wide range of support programs. These include case management, mental health services, job training and placement, substance abuse treatment and financial literacy education. By 2005, Peck took on the role of CEO.
“What started as a program in the LA area morphed into 12 sites in multiple states. We house about 1000 veterans every night, reach out to another 2500 in the communities and provide homeless prevention services. We want to solve this problem by preventing veterans from becoming homeless in the first place,” Peck said. “About five years ago we were awarded the opportunity to build permanent housing for homeless veterans on the West Los Angeles, VA campus. It’s 80 acres of housing for buildings that have been largely deserted for many, many years.”
U.S. Vets has been providing services since 1993 and since then, veteran homelessness has been reduced by 83%. But for Peck, it’s not enough.
“The VA has really stepped up to fund a lot of these programs and what we’re doing is working. We just have to keep doing it,” he explained. “There’s still more than 30,000 veterans who are homeless. We have to keep doing what we’re doing and do more of it.”
In a year, he’ll hand the reins over to a new leader while remaining on the board as an advisor and plans to enjoy more hiking and camping with his wife.
“I have to stay busy or I’ll go stir crazy. I’ll stay on the coalition board and do work here locally for veterans in Bishop,” Peck shared. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better in my life; to be able to do this work and see the impact that we’ve made. But there’s still work to be done.”
To learn more about U.S. Vets and their work, click here.