They Deserve Better

According to figures released today by the Alliance to End Homelessness, 1 in 4 homeless persons are war veterans! Veterans may only be 11% of the total U.S. population, but they comprise 25% of America's homeless. And a growing number of them are from the most recent wars.

According to a review last year of the nearly 39,000 vets who participated in the VA's homeless programs:

4.9% served before the Viet Nam War.
42.5% served during the Viet Nam War.
41.9% served after Vietnam and before the Persian Gulf War.
10.6% served after the Persian Gulf war began, including vets of the Iraq and Afghan wars.
(Source Dept. of Veteran Affairs)

Out of uniform and on the streets these brave men and women who served their country valiantly and voluntarily are in great need and the statistics seem to indicate it's only going to get worse. Pennsylvania's director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Daniel Tooth said in an AP interview: "We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous."

Our veterans deserve better! They deserve better healthcare, greater mental or emotional health attention and a reasonable amount of time and assistance in returning to society upon their re-entry to the States. Not to mention affordable housing. My goodness, if we can close so many of our military facilities, surely we can designate a few of them as re-entry transition and support centers for those who return without family, mental health issues, or no specific job skill. We owe them a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid, but we need to begin making a downpayment by insuring that not one single vet ends up sleeping on concrete. If we can slowly resurrect New Orleans, and provide reasonable housing through Habitat, surely we can house, feed and cloth those who insured our freedom to pursue a career, education, home ownership, family, etc.