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Manuel Gomez

Manuel Gomez

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Join date: Aug 13, 2026

About

Manuel Gomez is a U.S. Navy veteran, a Certified Peer Specialist, and the founder of VetPhoenix, a nonprofit providing supportive housing and peer-led reentry services for justice-involved veterans in Southern California. A former senior executive in Los Angeles County government, he created the nation’s first Justice-Involved Veteran Division built by and for impacted veterans. He holds a Doctor of Social Work degree, serves as a national veteran advocate with IAVA’s Cavalry, and his story has been featured on CBS Los Angeles and in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Make the Connection mental health campaign. His scholarship centres lived experience as a form of expertise. He and his wife co-founded VetPhoenix in 2024, and fatherhood grounds his commitment to generational change.

Posts (1)

Aug 24, 2026 ∙ 6 min
The Gold in the Cracks
I learned to live two lives before I learned much else. My mother had schizophrenia. I was a child and did not know what the word meant. What I knew was that some months she did not get out of bed, and I fed myself. My dad drank his sorrows away. I remember him coming home drunk, and my brothers and I learning to disappear. In that house, invisibility was how you stayed safe. That was the first life.
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