Portage County Veterans Service Commission: Emergency Financial Assistance

The Portage County Veterans Service Commission is the county's commission under Revised Code chapter 5901; see the Ohio entry on county veterans service commissions. Its office is on the second floor of the Portage County Administration Building at 449 South Meridian Street, Ravenna 44266 (330-297-3545, fax 330-297-3544, [email protected]), weekdays 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The commission moved down from the third floor into a renovated suite with a grand opening in June 2025; its older checklist gives 466 South Chestnut Street. Executive Director Woody Truman leads nine full-time staff, with office manager Diane Haney, service officers Mitchell Cialella, Jeff Pickens, Chad Gimmi, Trevor Shires and Christine Pipic, finance officer James Wells and four drivers. The board - vice president Melissa Moore and commissioners Duane Funk, Frederick Mathews, David Walter and Martin Gilliland - meets about monthly, late in the month at 4:30 p.m., per the office's own calendar. What it pays. Rent, mortgage and security deposits, home repairs, food, clothing and shoes, personal hygiene items, utilities, dental care and medical complications, with other needs considered case by case. Applications are taken and processed daily and walk-in assistance is first come, first served. The dental scope grew in 2025: the office used to help with two pulled teeth and now pays for full removal and replacement; home repairs now extend to roofs and HVAC. The county's own service test, where the entry departs from the statute. The web page states the statute's test - a veteran discharged under honorable conditions with active duty other than training, an active-duty member, or a spouse, surviving spouse, dependent parent, minor child or ward of either, resident of Portage County for three months before applying. The printed checklist goes further: the applicant must have served on active duty a minimum of 90 days not counting training (unless the veteran has a VA-recognized service-connected disability) and must hold an honorable discharge, the most recent DD-214, and show an unforeseen financial expense from income against monthly bills. A veteran inside the statute but outside the 90-day test should say so and appeal to the board. What to bring. The checklist asks for the DD-214, marriage certificate, children's birth certificates and the family's Social Security numbers, plus 30 days of income for the veteran, spouse and children (wages, VA pension or compensation, retirement, SSI/SSD, child support, unemployment) and 30 days of activity on every bill and account - mortgage, rent, water and sewer, electric, gas, fuel oil and propane, trash, phone, cable and internet, loans, insurance, credit accounts, medical paid, child support and day care. No dollar caps are published; the board decides. The record. Director Truman's April 9, 2026 briefing to the commissioners: 758 claims approved in 2025, adding $3.8 million in retroactive payments to the county's veterans, with active clientele up from 3,120 to 3,500; the financial assistance programme helped over 200 veterans and their families with $228,000 of relief; more than 10 veterans were moved out of homelessness; the office did 120 outreach events. The commissioners' budget tables show the commission's fund at $726,324 of personal services and $374,449 of other expenses two budgets ago, rising to $1,133,052 and $1,109,906 in the current one, and the 2027 tax budget lets the commission ask up to $3,054,658; the office had asked for about a third of its allotment for years and added its first outreach line for 2027. Burial. No page of the county or the commission describes the indigent burial Revised Code 5901.25 requires, so call 330-297-3545 before signing a funeral contract; the commission's grave-marker work is in its own entry.