The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) provides free van rides to and from San Francisco VA Medical Center at San Francisco, CA to Veterans who don’t have other transportation options. Find out how to schedule a DAV van ride.

About DAV services

DAV van resources work with county Veterans Affairs directors to provide transportation for Veterans to and from Veteran health care centers for scheduled medical appointments.

These vans transport Veterans throughout San Francisco. Each month, between 1,500 and 1,700 Veterans receive DAV transportation.

Arrange a ride

If you’d like to schedule a DAV van ride, contact the Hospital Service Coordinator who serves your county.

San Francisco: Hospital Service Coordinator
Hannah Arabadjis
4150 Clement St
San Francisco, CA 94121
Map of San Francisco campus
phone: 415-379-5612 or 877-487-2838, ext. 25612

Please note that DAV vans can only provide rides to ambulance passengers (passengers who are able to move around without the driver’s help). For information on accessible transportation options, review our other Veteran shuttle services.

Other Veteran shuttle services

Veteran Transportation Service
4150 Clement St
San Francisco, CA 94121
Veteran Transportation Service

Other Veteran-specific transportation services, including buses, shuttles, and wheelchair-accessible transport, are available to patients. Please contact these providers directly to schedule a ride.

Contact:
Michael Gray
Email: Michael.Grauer@va.gov
Phone: 415-221-4810, ext. 25163

Alternate contact:
Ashley Downs
Email: Ashley.Downs@va.gov
Phone: 415-221-4810, ext. 25166

Local transportation options

Many medical centers and clinics are also served by other local transportation services. To find those, review the transportation services information for the facility you want to visit.

Guidelines for using DAV vans

DAV van passengers are expected to follow certain guidelines established by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the DAV National Headquarters. These guidelines include the following:

• All riders must be ambulatory (able to board and exit the van without the driver’s help).
• The DAV van driver is only allowed to stop the van for rest stops, emergencies, and to pick up and drop off passengers. Passengers should not ask the driver to make side trips to take care of their personal business.
• Passengers are not permitted to smoke, chew tobacco, drink alcohol, use foul language, or bring weapons, drugs, or any illegal substance on the van. Van drivers are not required to provide transportation to any Veteran who is intoxicated, abusive, or who poses a threat to the driver or other passengers.
• Passengers should not do anything to distract the driver.
• Passengers should wear seat belts at all times. Any passenger who refuses to wear a seatbelt will be denied transportation.
• If a Veteran needs another individual (for example, a caregiver) to ride in the van with them, they need to get authorization from their VA attending physician or VA-certified nurse practitioner.
• Veterans being discharged or granted passes can ride on a DAV van during the van’s trip back to its home county only if space is available. The veteran must be ready to leave when the van leaves the VA medical center.
• Veterans should be dressed and ready to leave for the hospital at the time specified. Drivers can’t wait for Veterans who aren’t ready to leave at the appointed time.
• Veterans can only bring with them items that they can hold on their lap or store under the seat.
• The DAV van is not an emergency vehicle. The driver may refuse to transport any Veteran who appears to be too ill to ride the van.
• Veterans who use the DAV Transportation Network will not be eligible to receive reimbursement for travel expenses.
  (M-1, Part 1, Chapter 25, July 8, 1991)

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Last week, the Census Bureau pushed out new population estimates for counties and metropolitan areas. Here’s the executive summary for Florida: A lot of people died; a lot of people arrived. A familiar story, to be sure.

Florida, from July 2020 to July 2021, grew by 211,196 people. A number that’s all the more remarkable given that 255,553 Floridians died and only 210,305 new native Floridians were born over that time.

Subtract deaths from births and you get what demographers call “natural population change,” which for Florida was negative 45,248 over that time. The greatest natural population deficit of any state.

Likewise, Volusia County’s natural population deficit was 3,873. Flagler County’s was 828. And St. Johns County’s was 528. Yet none of these three counties lost overall population. All had healthy – some would say more than healthy – growth.

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St. Johns County chalked up the title of fastest-growing county in Florida in percentage terms with a smoking 5.6% 12-month growth rate. Flagler County was not far behind in the third spot with 4.3% growth. Volusia County was in the middle of the pack at 29th with a 1.7% population increase.

Florida always has been a place that people move to rather than come from. As a result, all but nine Florida counties grew in population over those 12 months. The exceptions, however, were notable. Populous Miami-Dade, Broward, Pinellas and Orange counties all lost people over that time. This reflected a broader national pandemic trend of people leaving big cities. Census Bureau figures show New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco combined lost more than 700,000 residents over that time.

Florida traditionally has a less-than-zero natural growth rate, something that reflects its status as a place where people retire after the kids are grown. Sumter County, home of the Villages retirement communities, had a natural growth rate of 2,253 below zero, yet still ranks 6th in percentage growth because more than 7,000 people moved there. Here in the home of Margaritaville, similar forces are at work with less golf cart traffic.

Growth, growth and more growth

It takes a lot of moving vans rolling down here to grow even a little bit. And we’re growing by more than a little bit. More than a quarter-million people arrived in Florida over this time and an estimated 13,533 of them ended up in Volusia County, 16,349 in St. Johns, and 5,881 in Flagler.

We’re busy finding places for them. New construction is all over the place. When I drive on the edge of town, I’m often amazed at all the cranes and plywood I see in places that I used to regard as in the middle of nowhere. Apartment complexes rise above the tops of the slash pines.

My unscientific rule-of-thumb on yearly population change is that anything below 1% spells trouble for the local economy. Florida’s economy isn’t built for a stable population. But at somewhere just under 3%, things will overheat as the place deals with crowded roads, inadequate roads, infrastructure backlogs, government services stretched thin and environmental destruction.

Residents who had arrived in earlier waves will show up at local government meetings with signs and matching T-shirts. People who will no doubt be disappointed to learn that money from this round of growth is needed to pay for the previous round of growth, or maybe one before that, because that’s the Florida way. A way that sometimes is compared unfavorably to Ponzi schemes and perpetual motion machine designs. When things are running smoothly, we’re only one or two growth cycles behind.

So ask not for whom the U-Haul rolls, it’s rolling to you.

Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mark.lane@news-jrnl.com.

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