Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless

The Dom in Orlando VA Hospital is one place taking care of veterans like Todd Hill. I've visited there a few times and each time as I looked at the "residents" all I could see was the fact they all were willing to risk their lives for this country, home of the brave, but ended up having to call a shelter home. Just doesn't seem right.

Back in Boston, the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans is an amazingly large building with several floors housing male and female veterans. The cafeteria is filled with veterans from all generations.

While I feel for all our homeless men, women and yes, we even have whole families homeless, it is the veterans tugging at my heart the most. I think of it as if we can't take care of the people willing to defend this nation, the odds of taking care of the civilians is not very good at all. There has got to be a better way.

Mental illness is a huge part of the homelessness in this country. There was a time when they were sent to secure hospitals until they were able to stand on their own two feet. While there were many problems with these hospitals, at least they had a place to live. When they were closed across the nation, it left them all out to fend for themselves, unable to be taken care of by their families or abandoned by them, they had no place to go. If you go to see the movie The Soloist, keep that in mind and remember there are homeless people in every state.

When it comes to homeless veterans, there are many reasons they are homeless. For most their plight can be directly linked to PTSD. They sought drugs and alcohol to kill off feelings they could no longer cope with. Some are alcoholics on top of having PTSD, which is a deadly mixture.

These men and women are viewed as heroes when they serve but when they need the nation, they are forgotten about simply because they survived war but could not survive coming home.

How is it that this nation cannot or will not take care of the "least among" us when we talk so much about being a "Christian nation" when it suits our desires but we never seem to live as if the vast majority of us are Christians, supposedly following the teachings of Christ?

Support your local veterans shelter and if you do not have a veterans shelter, support the homeless shelters for all of our countrymen. If you happen to be a veteran standing in judgment of the homeless remember that "There but for the grace of God go I."

Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless
Posted on April 29, 2009 by assteditor
By ERICK GALINDO

MIAMI — Lured by sunshine and balmy seas, Todd Hill came to Miami from his native Oregon three years ago looking for a fresh start.

After battling homelessness for 10 years, Hill, 41, a decorated Marine who fought in the first Gulf War, found an apartment and a job as a security guard. But his newfound stability did not last. Eight months after receiving a promotion, he was back on the streets. And on Nov. 26, on the bench he had come to call home, he was beaten severely with a tire iron, and pronounced dead at the hospital.

Hill lived his last moments surrounded by junkies sleeping on used garbage bags, in the shadow of the condominiums he’d helped build as a homeless laborer.

“Todd didn’t deserve to die like that,” said former Marine Samuel Hall, 62, who lived on the streets with Hill. “It was just senseless. He was homeless, but he always was willing to help others out.”

Hill was one of two homeless veterans recently beaten to death here. Ernest Holman, 67, a Vietnam veteran, was killed two weeks after Hill. No arrests have been made in his death. Secrecy Singleton, 29, also homeless, was charged in Hill’s murder.

The killings have heightened concern among the more than 250 homeless veterans in Miami-Dade, representatives for the local Veteran Affairs office said, and prompted a demonstration by dozens of homeless veterans in downtown Miami on New Year’s Eve.

Charles Buford, founder of VetsUnited.org, which is dedicated to feeding and rehabilitating homeless veterans, led the protesters in their demand for more federal money for homeless programs and shelters. There are an estimated 200,000 homeless veterans around the country, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. At least 400 are new veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Murder of Former Marine Sparks Anxiety Among the Homeless