Susan Campbell
November 11, 2009
There it was, anchoring the tail end of Hartford's Veterans Day parade — a homeless-veterans float.
What do you say to that?
As the float rolled along the parade route — a flatbed truck decorated with benches, American flags, high-tech sleeping bags, and two orange buckets of candy to throw — parade-goers looked a little stunned before they burst into cheers.
It was a stark reminder of the men and women we're leaving behind. The Department of Veterans Affairs says there are roughly 131,000 homeless veterans in the U.S. About 5,000 of those are in Connecticut, says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Overall, homeless veterans make up about a quarter of the homeless population.
Yes, there are female homeless vets out there. The staff at the Hartford homeless shelter South Park Inn just helped one. The woman served two tours in Iraq, and came home with serious post-traumatic stress disorder. She was sleeping on her mother's couch with her 4-year-old.
"And what's coming?" asks Brian Baker, the tireless assistant director at South Park. How are we going to help the veterans churned out by our current wars? South Park has 10 beds set aside for veterans, and already, those beds are always full. The Hartford shelter's veterans' drop-in center, which opened a year and a half ago, has had 500 visits.
Those numbers don't begin to count the veterans — like the young woman — who couch-surf, or bounce from family member to friend, bumming a corner. Nor does that count the hard-cores, the homeless veterans who hide under the bridges and refuse all efforts to be brought inside for services.
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Homeless Veterans
Posted to Great Americans by NamGuardianAngel on September 10, 2009
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