Bastion is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that builds communities of connection and person centered care to empower veterans and their families to achieve resilience and whole health.
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Our community stretches all across New Orleans and beyond, fueled by meaningful veteran relationships that are changing lives. Bolstered by our transformative programs and cost-free wellness resources, these relationships empower veterans to build independence, discover new identities, and serve others while protecting them from epidemics of loneliness and isolation.
Our nation loses 44 veterans per day to suicide and other self-inflicted causes. Bastion aims to combat this devastating reality by offering veterans a community of support where they can feel seen, accepted, and understood.
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Using occupational therapy, social work, and mind-body skills, we offer evidence-based interventions to support holistic wellness. Veterans are empowered with tools and strategies for practical, everyday progress, helping them build independence while improving their own long-term quality of life.
With this kind of sustainable support, veterans build stronger relationships in the community, healthier relationships at home, and a stronger overall care plan that maximizes each veteran’s network of support
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Post-9/11 veteran with complex wounds, low-income veterans, veterans of color, women, LGBTQ+ veterans, and anyone navigating layered or invisible challenges. We don’t offer red tape—we offer relationships.
Whether you join a program, get referred to a trusted partner, or simply show up for a moment of connection, you’re part of our community. Bastion meets you where you are—and walks with you as far as you want to go.
Healing is not linear and care is never one-size-fits-all. Our person-centered model helps veterans stabilize, engage, connect, and—ultimately—serve, creating a living cycle of growth and reciprocity.
Click below to explore Bastion’s model of care.
Stabilize: Initially, it is our goal to create immediate stability for the veteran. At the outset of engagement, or when a veteran is in crisis, we leverage our flexibility, accessibility, and a robust network of specialized partners to create immediate stability with respect to the veteran’s most destabilizing and acute issues, including housing, access to food, mental health crisis, major family systems disruption, and significant legal issues.
Engage: Once a foundation of stability has been built, we turn our focus to establish sustained engagement from the veteran into Bastion’s programs and/or activities (e.g. enrollment in a program, identification of a recurring event to attend).
Connect: As an outcome of sustained engagement, we seek to facilitate the veteran’s connection to a growing circle of peers through meaningful relationships contextualized in recovery and wellness, building a network of support. “Growing the number of people you can count on.”
Serve: The goal of a veteran’s sustained participation with Bastion is the cultivation of capacity and willingness to serve others. In doing so, the internal growth the veteran has achieved through other domains is converted into external change in the lives of others, empowering the veteran with purpose, identity, and pride.
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Not a curriculum to finish, but a lifelong ecosystem where recovery deepens through relationships and service becomes the summit. Using community as the healing ground, we help restore the identity, belonging, and purpose every veteran deserves.
We forge connections as the catalyst for healing. Genuine relationships built on trust, camaraderie, and shared experiences show us the real power of human connection. By rebuilding the unity veterans once knew in uniform, we create daily rhythms of acceptance and accountability that spark purpose and belonging. Then, they become strong enough to serve others again.
We re-imagine care so veterans can reclaim autonomy and chart their course. Healing starts within, restoring identity and self-worth. From there, it radiates outward, first into taking charge of one’s health and then into acts of reciprocity that lift others. We use creative, flexible approaches—focusing on occupational therapy, social work, and mind-body skills—to support veterans in navigating their unique paths.
We honor every step on each veteran’s path to belonging and purpose. Recovery is rarely linear and never identical. Small victories, setbacks, brave restarts—all are markers of progress. From veterans relearning functional skills after a TBI to those learning healthy conflict resolution with PTSD, we celebrate the courage it takes to keep showing up and hold space for healing to unfold in its own time.
We protect the dignity and safety of every member of our community. We lead with equity, empathy, and integrity from the smallest interactions to the most challenging conversations. Too many veterans have been reduced to paperwork, visible injuries, and past identities. At Bastion, they are heard, supported, and considered worthy of a fulfilling life.
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After returning home from Iraq, West Point graduate and former Army Combat Officer Dylan Tete volunteered at a summer adventure camp for Gold Star youth who had lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan. As the fighting continued overseas, more troops returned home carrying both visible and invisible wounds.
These included traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, moral injury, military sexual trauma, substance use disorders, and other psychological, emotional, and cognitive conditions collectively known as the invisible wounds of war. Bastion was created to support this population, supporting individual veterans through our comprehensive and compassionate approach to rehabilitation and community integration.
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Bastion exists just steps away from the site of the London Avenue Canal levee breach. During Hurricane Katrina, the area where Bastion stands today was completely destroyed. Across the street from Bastion, you can visit the Flooded House Museum which serves as a reminder of the devastation that this neighborhood experienced in 2005. These markers and memorials from Hurricane Katrina serve to remind us of the resilience that New Orleanians demonstrated to survive, help their neighbors survive and rebuild together in the face of inconceivable loss. Many of our Bastion community members grew up in this neighborhood, had family here, or experienced Hurricane Katrina here, and even more are native New Orleanians from other parts of the city. The resilience of this city inspired Bastion’s belief that meaningful relationships – whether those be between neighbors, veterans, or other New Orleanians – have the power to heal communities.
Although Bastion’s community today stretches far beyond the bounds of our intentionally designed neighborhood, this location remains an important hub for our veterans. Phase Three, our Veteran Wellness Center project, creates a bigger, better space for our growing community to gather, connect, and access life-changing resources. The programs we’ve developed over the years, like our CARF-accredited Headway brain injury program, will now have the capacity to serve more veterans and operate multiple cohorts.
Our tagline today captures what we’ve witnessed at Bastion since its inception: No Veteran Heals Alone. Bastion continues to serve as a beacon of hope, connection, and community for New Orleans veterans, helping those veterans heal, grow, and thrive in their post-military lives.
THE NEXT PHASE: San Antonio and beyond
Every veteran deserves the community of care and support we offer at Bastion. That’s why in 2025, we launched our first Bastion satellite location, providing Bastion’s Headway program to the veterans of San Antonio, aka “Military City USA.” We’re working to bring Bastion’s model of care to more veterans hubs around the country. Together, we can set a new standard for community-based veteran care, creating a world where no veteran heals alone.
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