America's Homeless Veterans Need Our Help

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) states that the nation’s homeless veterans are mostly male, with 8% being female. They are single, live in cities, and suffer from mental illness, alcohol and/or substance abuse, or co-occurring disorders. Homeless veterans represent 12% of the adult homeless population. Roughly 40% of all homeless veterans are African American or Hispanic, despite being only 10.4% and 3.4% of the US veteran population, respectively. Homeless veterans are younger than the total veteran population. Approximately 9% are aged 18 to 30, and 41% are aged 31 to 50 -- compare this to the total veteran population where only 5% are aged 18 to 30, and less than 23% are aged 31 to 50. America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq, and the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Nearly half of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam era. Two-thirds served America for at least three years, and one-third were stationed in a war zone. About 1.4 million other veterans, meanwhile, are considered at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks, and dismal living conditions in overcrowded or substandard housing. How many homeless veterans are there? The US Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that 49,933 veterans are homeless on any given night. Why are veterans homeless? In addition to the complex set of factors influencing all homelessness - extreme shortage of affordable housing, livable income and access to health care - a large number of displaced and at-risk veterans live with lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance abuse, which are compounded by a lack of family and social support networks. Additionally, military occupations and training are not always transferable to the civilian workforce, placing some veterans at a disadvantage when competing for employment. A top priority for homeless veterans is secure, safe, clean housing that offers a supportive environment free of drugs and alcohol. Doesn’t VA take care of homeless veterans? Each year, VA’s specialized homelessness programs provide health care to almost 150,000 homeless veterans and other services to more than 112,000 veterans. Additionally, more than 40,000 homeless veterans receive compensation or pension benefits each month. Since 1987, VA’s programs for homeless veterans, using its own resources or in partnerships with others, has secured nearly 15,000 residential rehabilitative and transitional beds and more than 30,000 permanent beds for homeless veterans throughout the nation. These partnerships are credited with reducing the number of homeless veterans by 70% since 2005. That's what the VA says. ~~~~~ Tom Brokaw has done a TV special report on homeless veterans in Los Angeles, which has the largest community of them. It made me realize, after also watching the latest Director of the VA explain to Meet the Press today how hard the VA is working to help homeless veterans, that once more the government is the problem. The VA has an annual budget of $160 billion, yet it can't run its VA hospitals or solve the homeless veteran problem. It can investigate, analyze, eventuallly fire the incompetent, prepare budgets, talk to congressional committees -- but the VA is incompetent when it comes to solving the homeless veteran problem. ~~~~~ The questions are simple but wrenchingly disturbing. Why is there even one homeless American veteran? Why does the government care so little about the men and women whose health or psyche was broken in the service of our country? Who can help end this shame that should haunt every American day and night? ~~~~~ Who can help? -- I, and most Americans, know that giving money to the government is a waste of time. But there is one person who could lead the effort to end the homelessness of America's veterans. President George W. Bush. ~~~~~ Dear readers, would every American who has a living or dead veteran in their family, or who is a veteran, send $10 - or what they can afford - to President Bush? Would President Bush accept the money and set in motion the means to actually provide homes for these broken veterans? Would corporations and banks and wealthy Americans join in with contributions? I think we and they would. We know what needs to be done. We know that the government has failed to do it. Can America do it? Send this blog to President Bush (Office of George W. Bush, PO Box 259000, Dallas, Texas 75225 or Info@OGWB.org). Tell him you will contribute. Send the blog to your friends and ask them to contact President Bush. Post the blog on your Facebook page. Ask your pastor, priest or rabbi to print it in your weekly newsletter. Send it as a letter to the editor in your local paper. Do whatever you can to spread the word. Let us end this stain on America's soul.