Philadelphia is the only county in Pa. without the mandated veterans affairs director. Vets want answers.

When Pennsylvania members of the armed services are discharged, the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs says there is one person in their area that they need to meet with as they make the transition to civilian life.

“One of their first tops should be to the local director of veterans affairs,” the DMVA states on its website.

Except, in Philadelphia that’s not possible.

State law requires every county in Pennsylvania to have such a director. They run offices that help veterans navigate the maze of local, state, and federal benefits and programs.

But while 66 of the state’s 67 counties have a veterans affairs director, no one in city government has much of an explanation why Philadelphia does not.

For nearly four years, the director’s position has remained vacant in the city’s Office of Veterans Affairs.

Veterans who go online looking for assistance from the city might land on a Facebook page for the office that hasn’t been updated since 2021. Or a city veterans website that no longer works.

In Philadelphia, the City Council president is responsible for hiring the director.

In 2022, Council announced that it was planning to hire a veterans affairs director to fill the vacancy from the year before.

But then-Council President Darrell L. Clarke’s office didn’t hire anyone before he left office in December 2023.

The next month, Councilperson Kenyatta Johnson took over as Council president. A year later, he hasn’t hired anyone, either.

A LinkedIn post says the city is no longer accepting applications for the position. But a spokesperson for Johnson said last week that his staff is, in fact, searching for a director.

For some Philadelphia veterans advocates, the yearslong vacancy has gone from an annoyance to an insult.

“It sends the message that they don’t care. It’s sad,” said Len Johnson, a U.S. Marine and commander of the American Legion Post in Juniata Park and a local chapter of Disabled American Veterans.

“I think it just got swept under the rug,” said Stephen Uchniat, a Vietnam Veterans of America chapter president. “It’s like it’s a forgotten position. But it’s important to the veterans in the city.”

Officials at the state DMVA say they don’t know why Philadelphia is lacking a state-mandated local director. The city is home to 52,518 veterans, second in Pennsylvania only to Allegheny County.

“We’re just as befuddled,” said DMVA spokesperson Angela Watson.

Robert Gurtcheff, a former U.S Army counterintelligence special agent, said he applied for the city position back in July 2022, went to three interviews, and was strung along for two years by staffers under Clarke, then Johnson.

“They would just kick the can down the road or not return calls,” Gurtcheff said. “I just wanted a yes or no.”

Gurtcheff, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the position might have meant a slight pay cut from his job as a fraud investigator, but he saw it as a “dream job” that would let him help fellow veterans. He had some ideas on helping them find civilian jobs and having a permanent representative in veterans court.

Last summer, after his last contact with Kenyatta Johnson’s chief of staff, Gurtcheff said he was left with the impression that Johnson might not be interested in hiring anyone as director.

“It could be the fact that they don’t care. I don’t know,” Gurtcheff said. “Maybe veterans aren’t that high of a priority for them.”

Johnson spokesperson Vincent Thompson said Johnson is “continuing his search to find the right person for the position and he has not set a deadline” for making a hire.

The four-person office is managed by Wanda Pate, a former constituent-services specialist who was hired in 2012 by Clarke. She is not a veteran, but the three other staffers, Thompson said, are U.S. Army veterans.

“The hardworking staff in the Veterans Affairs Office continues every day to educate, advocate, and provide high-quality customer service to veterans and their families regarding a wide range of veterans’ benefits, entitlements, and services,” Thompson said in a statement.

Last year, he said, the office provided services to more than 13,000 veterans, including help with benefit claims, property tax exemptions, burials, and housing for homeless veterans.

Still, Philadelphia’s Office of Veterans Affairs runs on a shoestring budget: $205,300 in the current fiscal year.

By comparison, Montgomery County’s veterans office has a 10-person staff and a budget of $787,558, despite having 20,000 fewer veterans in that county than Philadelphia.

Cathy Bennett-Santos, who served in the U.S. Army and founded the National Alliance of Women Veterans, said City Council has for years failed to fully staff the veterans affairs office, and largely ignored advocates who brought it to their attention.

“They refuse to participate in what is legally mandated for this office,” Bennett-Santos, of Strawberry Mansion, said of the failure to hire a director. “It makes no sense whatsoever.”

Clarke, the former Council President, did make some changes more than a decade ago, including increasing the office’s visibility by moving it to a space next to the City Hall courtyard. But it remains a relatively obscure office, and there have been times over the years when no one on the staff has been a veteran.

“That’s like having an office for women with not one woman in it,” said David Oh, an Army veteran who served on City Council as a Republican from 2012 to 2023.

Clarke could not be reached for comment last week.

In 2017, the District Attorney’s Office seized a computer from the veterans office, which was then called the veterans advisory commission. The head of the office, Scott Brown, was quietly fired. No charges were filed. Brown now runs the Mummer’s Museum.

Later that year, Clarke hired Carlo Aragoncillo, a U.S. Army veteran from South Philadelphia, to replace Brown as director of veterans affairs.

Aragoncillo, who served in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, said in a recent interview that he was optimistic about being able to reform the office after Brown’s departure.

“The general guidance was, ‘Be there for veterans. Take care of them,’” Aragoncillo said. “It was a position where I could make some change. Or, at least I thought I could make some change.”

Aragoncillo soon realized that the office did not appear to be a priority for City Council: Poor organization. Extremely small staff. No marketing or outreach budget. Most city residents didn’t even know it existed.

“It was honestly just chaos … I wasn’t getting support,” said Aragoncillo, who for most of his tenure was the only veteran on staff.

No one in city government seemed to have any interest in fixing it, he said.

“At the end of the day, if the budget or staffing is not there, it’s like, ‘What are we doing there?’” Aragoncillo asked. “You’re kind of just marking time, as we call it in military. It’s just there to exist.”

Aragoncillo left in 2021. The director’s position has remained vacant since.

“That sends a message on its own,” he said. “Not making a decision is also making a decision — for folks to not have anyone there leading it for almost four years.”

State Rep. Jared Solomon, who chairs the House Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, said his staff has had to pick up some of the slack in Philadelphia to help vets directly.

“It’s a really frustrating issue that we’ve been trying to navigate,” said Solomon, a former Army Reserve JAG officer from Northeast Philadelphia. “Some counties have really good veterans offices. Unfortunately, in Philly, we have to navigate around the city instead of working with the city.”

Oh, the former Councilperson, and Aragoncillo both said the veterans office should be moved out the City Council President’s Office and be made part of the mayor’s administration like other city departments. Oh said that would allow for more transparency and continuity, and a clearer mission.

Len Johnson, of Disabled American Veterans, said he believes there are plenty of capable veterans in the city who’d be interested in the job — if the city only reached out.

“We’d appreciate it if they would stop making it a political thing, a patronage thing, like my favorite ward leader or something,” he said. “Put it out to the veterans community and get some more applications in.”

Uchniat agreed. He said City Council just needs to ask for some candidates.

“They’re out there,” he said. “Believe me, they’re out there.”