25% of Homeless are Veterans

[Doug]

WASHINGTON - Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

See here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

This problem is going to get nothing but worse, when those "extended tour" kids finally come home. PTSD will have some of the older ones, who had jobs when they left, on the streets - but a big chunk of kids with no other training than "march, march, march" are going to be just plain lost. And the percentage of women who combine "sexual trauma" with PTSD - well, the suicide rates are already up. Nothing good about this war, unless you are a Bush buddy.

[Betsy]

Also, isn't it generally true that most kids who enlist in the military are from lower income families who can't afford to send them to college, or don't score well on SATs, etc.? Is it true that problem kids are often shuttled into the military (to try to straighten them out, etc.)? It seems like these factors lend more into the homelessness situation than the fact that they are veterans....

Regardless of the reason, our country should take better care of its veterans.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Betsy - military-type schools are where kids are sent to "straighten them out" - by the time they are old enough for the military they're either straigthened or they're not, but no longer the parents' problem. Our volunteer military was largely kids from lower income families who joined up to get education benefits. Unfortunately, to make their recruitment numbers in this long, dragged-out, occupation mislabeled a war the military has reduced both physical and mental standards - and has issued "ethics waivers" to permit ex-cons to enlist. Since many of those ex-cons were in for violent crimes and military training is largely made up of how to kill the most efficiently, I'd say we've got a real problem looming. So what else is new?

Still, you are right. We need to take better care of our vets.