The plight of homeless veterans may not be making the news right now as it did around Thanksgiving -- but one thing's for certain: they haven't stopped being homeless in the meantime.
Recently, Homeless Veteran Provider Technical Assistance Center listed our blog as an excellent resource -- thank you. Note the wonderful illustration at left, done by veteran activist and artist John Paul Hornbeck, creator of the "Shattered Soldier" lifesize sculpture about PTSD, blogged about earlier, here. John's revisions to the famous POW/MIA flag says quite kindly about the homeless veterans among us, "You Are Not Forgotten Either." If only that were really the case -- perhaps over time we as a society can make it so. (He's also cleverly changed "MIA" to mean, "Missing in America," pretty much the same as, "missing in plain sight" -- since clearly the homeless, and homeless veterans in particular, are everywhere, whether we choose to tune in and notice, or not. (To see more about John Paul Hornbeck's "Shattered Soldier" sculpture, click here, here or here.)
If you want to learn more about the plight of homeless veterans in America, start here, with the Homeless Veterans Fact Sheet, produced by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. The fact sheet discusses statistics for both homeless veterans and incarcerated veterans. And the statistics paint a grim and sorrowful picture. According to statistics supplied by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the nation's homeless veterans have been historically mostly males (though those figures are likely to change, with the advent of more women serving in the military).
The vast majority are single, most come from poor, disadvantaged communities, 45% suffer from mental illness, and half have substance abuse problems. America’s homeless veterans have served in World War II, Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), Operation Iraqi Freedom, or the military’s anti-drug cultivation efforts in South America. Forty-seven percent of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam Era. More than 67% served our country for at least three years and 33% were stationed in a war zone. (Editor's Note: observe the connection between substance abuse and/or mental illness and homelessness. More work needs to be done to study other predisposing factors to homelessness, including PTSD and Military Sexual Trauma.)
The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans also has a good, web-based list of service providers -- programs that are geared towards homeless veterans. Click here for that link. They say they periodically update their website by adding more programs as information becomes available, but right now you'll only find organizations listed in the following handful of states: California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota and New York. (Click on any of those states' names to go right to the information available on their site.)
