Recent surveys have painted an appalling picture. Almost half a million of the nation’s 24 million veterans were homeless at some point during 2006, and while only a few hundred from Iraq or Afghanistan have turned up homeless so far, aid groups are bracing themselves for a tsunamilike upsurge in coming years.
Tens of thousands of reservists and National Guard troops, whose jobs were supposedly protected while they were at war, were denied prompt re-employment upon their return or else lost seniority, pay and other benefits. Some 1.8 million veterans were unable to get care in veterans’ facilities in 2004 and lacked health insurance to pay for care elsewhere. Meanwhile, veterans seeking disability payments faced huge backlogs and inordinate delays in getting claims and appeals processed.
The biggest stain this year was the scandalous neglect of outpatients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and a sluggish response to the needs of wounded soldiers at veterans clinics and hospitals. Much of this neglect stemmed from the Bush administration’s failure to plan for a long war with mounting casualties and over-long tours of duty to compensate for a shortage of troops.
Thus far, more than 4,000 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, many more than died in the almost-bloodless Persian Gulf war, but only a fraction of the body counts in Vietnam (58,000) or Korea (36,000). A higher percentage of wounded soldiers are surviving the current conflicts with grievous injuries, their lives saved by body armor, advances in battlefield medicine and prompt evacuation. A study issued last week estimated that the long-term costs of their medical care and disability benefits could exceed the amount spent so far in prosecuting the war in Iraq.
“Almost half a million of the nation’s 24 million veterans were homeless at some point during 2006” —NYT
That really is appalling.
How can we let this happen?
Irenaeus, be wary of such un-sources statistics. Homeless figures are notoriously unreliable, and have been shown so, and those in the media who wish for political reasons to believe such startling statistics rarely check them out before printing them. Most of these stats are extrapolations from discrete homeless populations, or even guesses, and often are based on self-reporting of the homeless, many of whom claim veteran’s status they never had. Those who are veterans are often those who have been discharged for criminal conduct, most especially substance abuse, or who were let out because of mental illness. For those there is VA care available (assuming there wasn’t a dishonorable discharge), but owing to their mental illness they, like their non-vet associates, simply refuse the care and take to the street. NONE of this is to say there isn’t a real problem: homelessness is awful whether it’s a vet or not. But it is to say there is often a very political axe to grind in stories that report or over-report homelessness among vets. Certainly there’s no evidence for a “tsunamilike upsurge.” among the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, all of whom were volunteers and vetted much more thoroughly than their drafted Vietnam counterparts.
And one more thing. There is embedded in the faux concern often shown for homeless vets an insult to vets: an implication that vets are somehow all from the lowest strata of society, incapable of holding a job or making it on their own once cut off from Uncle Sam, and prone to failure. This is such a distortion, given all that vets have given this country at every level. Furthermore, this faux concern is also a way pundits on the left can show that they really, really care about vets, when in fact they undercut them at every turn when they are wearing the uniform, defame their leaders, and tell outright falsehoods about their conduct. I suppose we should all coo over the New York Times finally saying something nice about those who claim to have worn the uniform. It’s a pity that paper is so relentlessly anti-military otherwise, and so willing to do that which places the troops who are still under arms in harm’s way. I’m sorry, of all those who could express outrage about homeless vets, the New York Times is dead last in credibility.
“How can we let this happen,” you ask? Try a parsimonious Congress on for size. Try uncaring and self-centered citizens on for size. Try the people who say “Not in MY back yard!” You know, the NIMBY crowd? Try the people…..and believe me, there are a LOT of them……in our society…….who hate the military and call veterans suckers for joining! I’ve “been there” and experienced that first-hand following Vietnam.
This is the same sort of statistic, from the same sort of people, who advanced the idea that 900 homeless people were dying every day, or hour, I forget which. Either way the numbers were absurd.
Want to get a more accurate figure about the number of homeless veterans? Go online to the Disabled American Veterans (I’m a Life Member) at dav.org, or contact any of the other veterans’ organizations such as the American Legion or AMVETS. You won’t get any government hype there!
Cennydd, I’m a member of one of the organizations you cited, and think the world of them. But they, too, benefit from inflated homeless numbers: a sense of outrage and alarm and urgency helps any organization like that in raising funds and membership. And they, too, simply cite statistics (which they admit are extrapolations) from other sources–they don’t do their own studies. There’s no denying there are homeless vets worthy of better treatment. But one must take with a grain of salt statistics that are simply asserted based on studies with methodology their authors even admit depends on speculation and supposition.
I am an Anglican and a director at a Rescue Mission and I have extensively tracked our case management statistics for almost seven years. Many of these numbers can be portrayed differently to different audiences just by how they are arranged and what is included and what is not included. There is always an inherently sinful temptation to get the most out of them for fundraising, but I have humbly found that God blesses the truth so I make every effort to be righteous in our statistics. We are a small shelter (we only shelter around 1500 people a year), but I think we represent an average section of the homeless in our region. When I first started tracking the numbers we had many people who claimed to be veterans. A local Veterans organization started sending volunteers to help get each vet signed up for a local grant project for homeless vets. It is an amazing project that provides extensive, wonderful services for homeless vets including vocational assistance. So purely by accident we started notifying each person who checked in that we would have a volunteer help each vet get discharge papers together, etc. Suddenly the number of actual homeless vets drastically dropped when it became known that we had access to resources to help them verify their service. I could tell some hilarious stories of a few who had told amazing war stories that turned out to be total fabrications. One young man had obviously read extensively about service in Iraq, but had never actually even graduated from high school. I also found it to be very offensive and dishonoring to those who had actuallly sacrificed and served our country. I cannot help but wonder how many such unverified claims made it into this story.
Whether the numbers are inflated or not, homeless veterans is indeed a fact. It is true they are often aflicted by drugs and alcohol, beset by family and social problems, and off their meds. But every one of them has a time when they call out for help; in fact most of them go in a cycle between calling out for help and dissolving into hopelessness. I have a statistic. The statistic is “1”. That one was Ed, who was terrified that he had sold himself to Satan. I have another statistic. The statistic is “1”. That one was Steven, who physically [i]had to[/i] have a drink each day to ward off a bout of Delerium Tremens, and who was terrified he might die during the DT’s if he tried to stop drinking. Working these men, each a certified Veteran, through the VA system was no piece of cake. Helping homeless vets is not an issue for a mass program designed for a mass of people. It is an issue for one person at a time who can be helped by one person at a time, if that person is willing to love the unlovable.
Have you ever been unlovable? Did Jesus stop loving you? Each disciple who learns becomes like the master, pulling out new gems of love as well as old.
I agree with everything that Br_er Rabbit so eloquently says when describing all homeless people. I am in daily engaged in that ministry of loving the “unlovable” because Christ has done so for me. Homeless ministry is to one person at a time and it cannot be reduced to an abstraction. There are homeless people in concrete crises, not abstractions like “homelessness”. I certainly mean no disrespect to homeless veterans by my comments or to imply that there are not many homeless veterans in America. I have known far too many in my years of minstry to doubt that. I have even known a couple to die very tragically in homeless crises. I just sincerely think that it is not right to inflate numbers like the ones in this article even if done in service to the most noble causes. The truth is always the friend of justice.