Homeless Vets Need Assistance
by Ralph Stone‚ Dec. 05‚ 2007
"Support our troops." How often have we heard this Bush administration mantra whenever Congress or the public demands Iraq funding accountability or an Iraq withdrawal timeline? Yet, once the troops become veterans, too often they are woefully neglected. In a 2006 survey, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that 26% of homeless people are veterans. VA further estimates that at least 195,827 veterans are homeless in the United States, a conservative estimate, 49,724 in California, and 3,000 in San Francisco, with 1,356 of these 3,000 classified as "chronically homeless." The VA defines "chronically homeless" as an individual with a disabling condition who has been continually homeless for a year or more or has had four or more episodes of homelessness over the past three years.
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Of course this is unacceptable. With this war, there appears to be far more awareness of the plight of veterans, once the military is through using them.
ReplyDeleteWhat disturbs me is that, rather than to show how even veterans can end up homeless, subject to the contempt (at best) of the public in general, the issue appears to be used to both factionalize and marginalize our homeless crisis. Most of the homeless today are women and children, a tremendously vulnerable segment of the population, but it is very, very rare to hear mention of them. Most of the organizations that once helped homeless women and children disappeared when welfare was repealed; their very existence, after all, is contrary to the official justification for raiding the funds once used to help our poor (i.e., end welfare, and we will end poverty). This year has been especially striking in the scarcity of Christmas toy/food drives for impoverished children.
Turning our attention to veterans
TO THE EXCLUSION of impoverished women and children both misses the point of using our resources to meet the needs of humans instead of just corporations, and distracts us from dealing with the core issue of homelessness and a nation that so easily turns its back on those in need.
We cannot solve all the problems at the same time, but if no one puts a human face on any of these problems, no one will ever care enough to try to solve the problems. My heart breaks for all the homeless but my goal is to have all veterans have a place to call home. I understand the problem of homeless veterans and they are the ones who tug at my heart more.
ReplyDeleteAll homeless need help just as all people with mental or emotional wounds need help. There are a lot of hurting people in this country and a lot of people trying to help them. It seems as if you are trying to help all the homeless and that is wonderful. My focus is as it always has been, with the veterans who were willing to lay down their lives for this country and should not have to suffer for doing it. There are many reasons people in general become homeless, but for the combat veterans, it usually is linked to their service. There are homeless veterans in this country with families and even homeless female veterans with children who cannot get into the veteran's shelters trained to take on their unique issues. Half of them have PTSD and to put them into a shelter without addressing their wound does them no good and increases the number of people living on the streets. I would love for all our homeless to be taken care of, but this whole country has to have a major attitude switch for that to happen. If it's this bad for veterans, think of how bad it is for regular citizens.