If Governor Eliot Spitzer visits Rochester as he travels the state promoting his budget, he might want to come prepared for a meeting with Thomas Cray and Ellen Warren, president and vice president of the Veterans Outreach Resource Center.

Spitzer's proposed budget eliminates state funding to the VOC, the oldest community-based veterans support agency in the country. And it's happening at a time when the need for services is increasing, Warren says. The VOC has been getting about $250,000 a year from the state for more than a decade, about 13 percent of its operating budget.

"I get so annoyed when people have all of these magnetic yellow ribbons on their cars saying they support the troops," Warren said in an interview last week. "Fine. Here is a real example of how you can support the troops, and our own governor is cutting the funding we need to help them. He didn't even have a veteran advocate as part of his transition team in a time of war."

Last year the VOC served more than 2,500 veterans, a 17 percent increase from the year before.

"The sad reality is that the VA [Veterans Administration] can't handle all of this," Warren said. "The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched their resources to the limit, and a lot of combat-related problems do not surface right away."

The VOC works with veterans from throughout the Greater Rochester region: Monroe, Livingston, Orleans, Wayne, and Ontario Counties. The majority served by the VOC are men who are homeless or disabled or are suffering from mental-health and substance-abuse problems. One full-time staff member deals solely with questions about benefits. The agency also provides career counseling, computer training, and job placement.

The VOC estimates that 20 percent of the area's homeless and nearly as large a percentage of cases assigned to Rochester's Drug Court are veterans.

"Homelessness occurs for a variety of reasons," said Warren. "Military maladies are not readily recognized, and many of the men begin to self-medicate. They lose the support of their families, they lose their jobs, and their lives just spiral downward."

The VOC receives money from city, county, and federal governments for emergency and transitional housing. The VOC also gets money from the Stars and Stripes Flag Store proceeds. But the state money pays for education and job training, said Warren, and it's crucial for the center to be able help veterans rejoin the work force. Unemployment destabilizes veterans' lives almost as much as disability due to amputated limbs and traumatic injuries, she said.

The VOC is also seeing an increasing number of women veterans, and that's a new development.

"The number of single mothers who have served in Iraq since 2002 is around 16,000, and we are seeing more and more of them," Warren said. "Many of these moms are coming back with PTS [post traumatic stress] disorders, and are self-medicating to the point where they can't take care of their children."

Warren has written Spitzer, hoping to restore the state funding.

"I can't help getting a little angry when veterans' needs are not given the respect and priority they deserve," she said. "It's really a disgrace."

"These men and women, many of them living in poverty, have nothing to show for their sacrifices," said Warren. "They're just trying to get from one day to the next. And services like this make a big difference in getting them back on their feet again."