What Probably Most Accounts for the Number of Homeless Vets?

Question

Some examples:

Post traumatic stress
Lack of government help
Financial trouble

Answer 1

IMO it's a mixture of things. Obviously PTSD plays a heavy part as those returning vets are left with virtually no help in coping with things and atrocities they have seen and then are no longer amongst their 'own' to aid them.

Also I would guess that returning for vets can be much like being released from prison...here's one outfit, and your muster out papers - yet no new job that comports with skills used in the military and no housing [if one is without family support] .

All the above combine to produce severe financial constraints. Add to that an environment though their 'own' - so totally removed from what they have lived in for so long. That HAS to create a feeling of dissassociation.

Many also have developed substance abuse issues which serves as a triple whammy.

It is so different today than post WWI and WWII when returning military men and women and were feted and funds were available to help them. Not to mention while they were in combat they firmly believed [as did the country] that what they were doing was not just duty but was honorable!

I have worked with Vets before [mostly Viet Nam vets] and it is so sad to watch them wait for months just to get a med appt at the VA hospital! When I left government and later community based non profits, over 33% of the homeless were addicted to alcohol or drugs; 35% were vets; and 38% had mental illness of some sort. It is a problem this country has YET to come to grips with.

It would seem to me that a program of re-entry should begin even BEFORE the vets return with follow up supportive programming once they return. They need to have a place to GO when they get back with avenues and options for rebuilding their lives.

Answer 2

Lack of government help with PTS a very close second. I have friends who have jobs but varying illnesses who must find a way to get an hour and a half to the Vet Hospital. Some of them get their meds through the mail. One in particular has raised 4 sons. 2 in Ramadi now. When ths guy was in Viet Nam with 3 of his brothers none of them thought about being abandoned by the government.

Answer 3

Mostly it's bad reporting by the media. I worked as a VISTA volunteer dealing with the homeless in my community. I interviewed a lot of "homeless vets" in the process. Few of them were even veterans of the armed forces. They were lying through their teeth! None could even use the simplest military terms, they had the wrong units, etc. Those who were "veterans" had been (by and large) discharged from the armed forces for mental and other conditions which existed prior to their entry into the armed forces.
No one is checking these guys out! Not even the VA. The VA put a guy in a grave in Long Island who didn't serve one day. The real veteran's family is getting that body exhumed so the real veteran can go to his grave. In Arizona the VA gave over 25 years of medical care, including nursing home care, and burial to a guy who had never served one day.
Sorry. But, the members of the media are mostly graduates of university-based schools of journalism. All they learn in four years is how to read and write a press release. And that is precisely what they did in this case. They accepted a press release from a special interest group and never questioned the data contained in the release. They had forgotten the first rule of good reporting: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out!".

Answer 4

Ron Paul, a former VietNam era Air stress Captain, has promised to help the Vets & up grade the V.A. hospitals, by ability of use-ing the money saved from the present conflict attempt, {2 billion in line with day} to help pay for the badly necessary scientific interest most of the vets opt for. He pronounced this on a DVD I watched which became filmed in New Hampshire. regrettably, the MSM won't publicise something Ron Paul says & the brave Vets finally end up suffering. in my view that's a shame!!!! i don't think of any of the different applicants have discovered precisely the place the money could come from to help the vets. A vote for Ron Paul is a vote to help vets!!! **************************************...

Answer 5

Compared to your war veterans ours are looked after slightly better but there are still problems here in the UK. A lot of our guys and girls have mysterious illnesses that the Government and the Military are denying as having anything to do with the countless injections they received. None of the troops get the proper care and respect they deserve when they come home and more should be done.

Answer 6

,Most of those homeless Vets were probably "troubled" before they entered the military. Going through a war on top of that, may have just been too much for them to handle so they abused drugs and alcohol, which made them unemployable.

Answer 7

they come back with addictions and cannot hold a job. PTS is often the big cause. They need job training to become productive again. Many enter service right out of school and have no work experience. Then most of the production jobs are now overseas. They go in young and booze and other drugs are there to take away the fears and lonliness.

Answer 8

Strong family ties. Have you noticed Wickwire, that families don't stick together anymore. Years ago it was normal to have several generations living under the same roof. Now most families don't even live in the same state. Where we used to stay together and support each other, now folks can hardly be bothered to call family members unless it's a birthday or holiday. Such a shame, everyone just seems to be very self-involved these days. Do you think that might be part of it?

Answer 9

Back in the old days, any returning vet received priority
for any job. Employers were
proud to hire a returning vet.
All state,local and federal
govt. jobs gave priority hiring
to returning vets.
All landlords were proud to
rent to a vet and their families.
America has never backed
this war and has never backed the men who fought
in it. There are no funds for
education/medical care/ PTSS
and mustering out pay.
There are no returning parades to welcome home the
vets. We are not proud of
what they did. Their coffins are offloaded at secret airfields and noone is even allowed to photograph them.
It's like they never existed. It started with
Vietnam, those men are still
floundering ditto the Gulf
war. It is reprehensible how
the American Government
treats their military.
At least in UK and EU, they
still hold their military in
esteem and make all kinds
of provisions to help them
readjust. I am no longer proud of America.

Answer 10

Inability to cope well enough to take life back up in a dependable, reliable, scheduled manner; either defiant about seeking help or help didn't help; letting whatever happens, happen, and not caring how bad it gets. Disillusionment with realities of and motives for war, and a resultant mistrust of everything governmental, including professiona and financial help. That's just another way of agreeing with all three of your examples. Also, the helplessness of those who love the veteran.