USA Today picks up our Booyah Veteran Bus Project story "Hike Across America!"

Shane Johnson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is hiking across the country to raise awareness about his nonprofit BOOYAH Veteran Bus Project, speaks with Kearney Center resident Catherine Williams' son, Terry Richmond, Jr. His grandfather was a Vietnam War veteran.(Photo: Nada Hassanein/Democrat)

Marine Corps vet hikes across the country to raise awareness about veteran homelessness 

USA Today: Nada Hassanein, Democrat staff writer

Marine Corps veteran Shane Johnson didn’t imagine he’d become homeless.

After all, he owned his own mortgage company and made close to seven figures, he said.

But then the recession hit. His business crumbled, taking with it the life he built. He was homeless for two years and lived out of a car. During that time, he also was reeling from his veteran brother-in-law's suicide.

"We're all one crisis away from being homeless,” Johnson said.

That’s why he wants to help empower other struggling veterans and their families. He stopped in Tallahassee's Kearney Center Tuesday as part of his project Hike Across America. He's stopping at 20 cities across the nation to raise awareness about veteran homelessness and connect with veterans at local shelters.

“Everybody's got a plan until they get hit,” Johnson said.

Hike Across America is part of Johnson’s BOOYAH Veteran Bus Project, which guts old transit buses and transforms them into portable showers and bathrooms for homeless veterans. Hike Across America also is partnering with Clean the World to distribute 10,000 hygiene kits to homeless veterans.

He started the project after hearing about a veteran who had to walk 15 miles a day to get to a shuttle bus just to get to the VA Hospital. That story was his “A-ha” moment.

He knew he had to help.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, there are 39,471 homeless veterans in the U.S. on any given night.

During his stop at the Kearney Center Johnson met Catherine Williams.

The 47-year-old resident's father was a Vietnam war veteran. He’s paralyzed, struggles with PTSD and lives in a condo in Broward County, she said.

Despite being in a wheelchair due to osteo-arthritis, her bubbly personality shined through. Williams stationed herself by the button-powered handicapped door to open it for other residents. She'd suddenly break into song, her rendition of  Whitney Houston’s “Count on Me” echoing throughout the center’s patio.

It’s one of her favorite songs. “It inspires me,” she said.

As do people like Johnson and like her father, who’ve been in the trenches and risen to give back.

For Johnson, that's a way of life.

“The important thing is to give," he said, "you'll get a lot more back if you do that."

Johnson says along with helping shelter veterans, his focus is on helping to prevent them from becoming homeless in the first place. The Veteran Bus Project gives entrepreneurship programs for veterans.

The key, he said, is to “band together.”

“To take a veteran and put them in a facility is to provide them cover… but that doesn’t stop what’s on the inside,” Johnson said. “We’re missing the key ingredient of that, which is giving them (veterans) that comradery.”

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.