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| Homeless Vets - 1,500 or 194,254 - Who Do You Believe? |
| 2007-11-08 |
| 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. The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans. In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000. Some advocates say the early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable. "We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous," said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa. While services to homeless veterans have improved in the past 20 years, advocates say more financial resources still are needed. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity. "When the Vietnam War ended, that was part of the problem. The war was over, it was off TV, nobody wanted to hear about it," said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which provides substance abuse help, job training and shelter to veterans. "I think they'll be forgotten," Keaveney said of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. "People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war." Keaveney said it's difficult for his group to persuade some homeless Iraq veterans to stay for treatment and help because they don't relate to the older veterans. Those who stayed have had success - one is now a stock broker and another is applying to be a police officer, he said. "They see guys that are their father's age and they don't understand, they don't know, that in a couple of years they'll be looking like them," he said. After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life. Kelley said he couldn't find a job because he didn't have an apartment, and he couldn't get an apartment because he didn't have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He's since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said. "The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon. The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness - mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA. Overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness and more than three out of four have a substance abuse problem, while 35 percent have both, Dougherty said. Historically, a number of fighters in U.S. wars have become homeless. In the post-Civil War era, homeless veterans sang old Army songs to dramatize their need for work and became known as "tramps," which had meant to march into war, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Penn State University's Beaver campus who wrote a book on the history of homelessness. After World War I, thousands of veterans - many of them homeless - camped in the nation's capital seeking bonus money. Their camps were destroyed by the government, creating a public relations disaster for President Herbert Hoover. The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a time of economic restructuring, and many of the same people who fought in Vietnam were also those most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs, DePastino said. Their entrance to the streets was traumatic and, as they aged, their problems became more chronic, recalled Sister Mary Scullion, who has worked with the homeless for 30 years and co-founded of the group Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia. "It takes more to address the needs because they are multiple needs that have been unattended," Scullion said. "Life on the street is brutal and I know many, many homeless veterans who have died from Vietnam." The VA started targeting homelessness in 1987, 12 years after the fall of Saigon. Today, the VA has, either on its own or through partnerships, more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. It spends about $265 million annually on homeless-specific programs and about $1.5 billion for all health care costs for homeless veterans. Because of these types of programs and because two years of free medical care is being offered to all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Dougherty said they hope many veterans from recent wars who are in need can be identified early. "Clearly, I don't think that's going to totally solve the problem, but I also don't think we're simply going to wait for 10 years until they show up," Dougherty said. "We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future." In all of 2006, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 495,400 veterans were homeless at some point during the year. The group recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years dedicated to the chronically homeless that would provide permanent housing linked to veterans' support systems. It also recommends funding an additional 20,000 housing vouchers exclusively for homeless veterans, and creating a program that helps bridge the gap between income and rent. Following those recommendations would cost billions of dollars, but there is some movement in Congress to increase the amount of money dedicated to homeless veterans programs. On a recent day in Philadelphia, case managers from Project H.O.M.E. and the VA picked up William Joyce, 60, a homeless Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair who said he'd been sleeping at a bus terminal. "You're an honorable veteran. You're going to get some services," outreach worker Mark Salvatore told Joyce. "You need to be connected. You don't need to be out here on the streets." |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #18 After living with Mrs. Bobby and me for five years, Bobby's brother got turned out - with six week's notice - and became a homeless person for a month. Then he got a job as a dorm monitor with a Christian college and seems quite happy now, thank you very much. He has since thanked me for helping him on his path, by the way. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2007-11-08 22:47 |
| #17 These numbers, even without the sympathy card for Vets, are WAY over-inflated. I go to work in downtown Atlanta (the Black "Mecca") and see what I used to think was a HUGE homeless problem. I'm in a newer Fed. gov't building (one of those "social experiments", where they plopped a whole bunch of Fed. employees in the most rundown part of town, hoping to "spruce it up."), at virtually "ground zero" for homelessness in Atlanta. And, on any given day, I recognize maybe 30-40 homeless folks walking around. Only 3-4 of them do I recognize as being there day-in/day-out, and all of those definitely have mental illness issues. I'd be willing to bet there aren't 194,254 homeless folks across this entire nation, especially if we mean truly homeless. |
| Posted by: BA 2007-11-08 21:10 |
| #16 FRONTPAGE MAGZ > LAMENTING THE SOVIET COLLAPSE. PProf argues that the post-USSR/COld War prob for the world is UNJUST RAPACIOUS CAPITALISM, ERGO ANSWER = PROPER RESPONSE TO COUNTER THE FORMER IS SOCIALISM. Move along boyz - clearly obviously NO FASCISTS-FOR-COMMUNISTS, LIBERTARIANS/ANARCHISTS-FOR GOVTISM, etc. HERE!? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-11-08 20:52 |
| #15 The local homeless advocates like to talk about how there are 2500 homeless people in a city of 95000. The mayor had the cops count all of the homeless in town and they came up with around 20 give or take. I guess it just depends on what your definition of "Homeless" is. |
| Posted by: Chedderhead 2007-11-08 19:16 |
| #14 According to my father, two of the favorite gags of the Missile Crews to play on the new guys was: 1. The PA Gurgle Test - Basically flush the toilet and count how many times it gurgles 2. Stuffing an old fashioned alarm clock behind an screwed on empty panel in the panel section for the silo/perimeter alarms. Always set for a nice time like 2-4 am. To even get at the thing, you had to figure out which blank panel it was behind and unscrew it. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2007-11-08 17:52 |
| #13 E Larson - USAF gags include looking for 100 feet of flight line or asking Ops about B1-RDs (birds),GU-11s (Gulls),or a BA-1100N with ST-Rings (ballon with strings). |
| Posted by: Bangkok Billy 2007-11-08 15:52 |
| #12 I just watched an advertisement on CNBC for our local rescue mission. I missed the figures, but the text read one in X vets are homeless and had them standing around a trashcan fire, warming themselves as they sang the Star Spangled Banner. It was VERY offensive. It's funny, because I had one of their money solicitation envelopes on my bill pile as I was going to send a donation for Thanksgiving. I ripped it up. Jerks. I wonder if they paid for that commercial or if the dems gave them the air time for free. The rescue mission used to provide Christian services but they were forced to stop because they received govn't money. Nice to see that the tax money for the homeless is going for election propaganda instead. Even if the airtime was free, someone had to pay to produce it. Shameful. Sadly - the homeless will suffer from becoming political footballs for the dems. I'm sure they don't care, as long as they win. |
| Posted by: Glaling Turkeyneck1651 2007-11-08 14:47 |
| #11 The other thing is if you're talking Vietnam you have a draft army that is going to have a different disposition than the regular population (seeing that college deferments and such) you're gonna get higher stats than with a highly motivated voluntary military. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-11-08 14:41 |
| #10 If they had claimed Navy, I suppose you could have asked them if they remembered what a BT Punch looked like. Or the relative bearing grease. I never heard any good USAF gags. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2007-11-08 14:14 |
| #9 The following is about Viet Nam, but since the same meme is being crafted under your very eyes (not to think there aren't vets in very hard conditions, psychologically or materially, of course) : Dropping The Bomb on Vietnam Myths ... Widespread Vietnam Veteran homelessness is another myth. "Back, around the late 70's Teddy Kennedy had a $10 million government grant to have a building in Boston for all the homeless Vietnam veterans. Several of guys gave testimonies about how they ended up on the street after Vietnam, but I got the military records of those individuals and virtually none of them were Vietnam veterans," he said. Burkett said other investigations have shown that very few "homeless veterans" were in the military. Another myth he dispelled was the incarceration rate of Vietnam veterans. The prisons are not full of criminal veterans, Burkett said. "I went to the bureau of prisons and got the statistics, the demographics. At the time there were 1 million men in prison. 55% of those in prison are black, only 10.5% Vietnam Veterans are black. 80% of the incarcerated do not have a high school degree. As I mentioned 90% of Vietnam Veterans do have a high school degree. You can't get in the military with a felony conviction and 80% of the incarcerated have a felony conviction as a youth offender. About 75% came from broken homes, but about 80% of Vietnam Veterans came from a 2-parent home," he said. ... See also Statistics and Myths about the Vietnam War |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2007-11-08 14:14 |
| #8 I'd like to echo what Scotty said, a number of homeless panhandler types have discoverd claiming to be a veteran increases the amount of sympathy. Also the definition of homeless used by most orgnizations is not what we think. Something like 95% of all homeless are homeless for less than a week while they get into contact with someone or get back on their feet thus the line " on any given night were veterans." These are folks that hit a patch of bad luck, not folks that are pathetic the way we think of when we think of homeless. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-11-08 14:08 |
| #7 I got really close to punching a guy who claimed to be a Vietnam Vet, who I quickly calculated would have been 16 years old in 1972. It is very hard not to maim such people. And most real vets are too damn polite to them. Look what Kerry had to do before they finally lost patience. But if I EVER meet one that really pisses me off, like claiming to be a "Green Beret SEAL Medal of Honor 'winner'", I known of a small biker gang, all of whom have their service decorations tattooed on their arms and chest. I'm sure they will be more than glad to discuss the matter with the fraud. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-11-08 14:06 |
| #6 These numbers are probably based on many homeless self-identify as vets. I talked to two homeless "vets" when volunteering serving dinner at the local shelter...both claimed to be ex-USAF (I live near a major Air Force base). Turned out neither could identify what their AFSC had been or what units they were in. One said he had been a "bombadier" in Vietnam, the other said he had been a "mechanic", but couldn't tell me what kind (jet mech, airframe repair, hydraulic specialist, crew chief, etc.) I have no way to tell if what either of these gentlemen said was true or false. Neither showed me an ID card or DD-214, but they both were very sincere and seemed to truly believe what they said. |
| Posted by: Scotty 2007-11-08 13:49 |
| #5 No matter what number you believe, it will drop to zero if and when Hillary! is elected... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-11-08 11:48 |
| #4 "The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon. THE HORROR! This is as stupid as that family with three SUV's that the MSM used to highlight the plight of those without health insurance. Remember, lots of these kids joined the army because they didn't have a job in the first place. Now the kid can go to college on a GI bill and we are supposed to cry in our beers over his plight. |
| Posted by: Glaling Turkeyneck1651 2007-11-08 11:45 |
| #3 I have read a number of articles over the years, done by some actual investigative reporters (I'm sure they got shunned for it) and others who state that remaining homeless takes some serious effort. The vast amount of help available from govt and private charities, especially religious ones make it very easy to find at the very least shelter you can stay in, generally without any real effort. The articles point out the vast majority of homeless are mentally ill that do not accept help or desire to change due to their illness. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2007-11-08 11:11 |
| #2 I heard this on the radio and had the same reaction. It looks as legitimate as the polls the MSM uses to convince everybody the donks will win every election. Given that they don't have terrible casualties, military defeats or torture scandals to trumpet, they are sending this up as the new meme to show how terrible the war is. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2007-11-08 09:31 |
| #1 I really find it hard to believe the larger NAEH numbers. I also do not believe the VA numbers of 20 years ago (250K? give me a break). Sounds like the people who generated the old VA numbers migrated to NAEH. I am a vet. I am a Vietnam vet. I am a disabled vet. I see lots of vets. I don't see anything like the NAEH numbers. Shades of Stolen Valor. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2007-11-08 09:22 |