Half a Million U.S. Veterans Homeless in 2006

Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US

LOS ANGELES, Nov 9 (OneWorld) - As Americans prepare to honor their military veterans with parades and patriotism this weekend, a new study shows that 494,500 U.S. war vets lived homeless on the street for at least part of last year. Close to 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. The study, by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, found that about half of homeless vets are Vietnam veterans and at least 1,500 are newly returned from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Among them is 23-year-old Jason Kelley. Kelley grew up in Tomahawk, Wisconsin, a small town of just 3,700 in the state's great Northwoods near the Canadian border. A strong man with a sharp face, he spent a year in the army guarding convoys on their 14-hour drive between Kuwait and Camp Anaconda in Balad, north of Baghdad. Kelley's convoys regularly came under attack and after a few months in Iraq he had a mental breakdown. Medically evacuated back to the United States because of severe post traumatic stress disorder, Kelley returned to Tomahawk but didn't fit in. "I was bored," he deadpanned, in a recent conversation with OneWorld. "There's not much to do there." Three months later, Kelley moved to Los Angeles. Almost immediately, he ended up on the streets.

"I got stuck in a little predicament where I couldn't get a job because I didn't have an apartment and I couldn't get an apartment because I didn't have a job," he said. "The money I saved up in Iraq ran down and I was living on the street." After just a few weeks on the street, Kelley brought himself into a residence hall run by U.S. Vets, the largest provider of services for homeless veterans in the country.

Such services are not readily accessible to most veterans, however. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the U.S. government provides only 15,000 shelter beds for homeless vets nationwide. Community-based non-profits provide another 8,000 beds. Collectively, the two systems meet only about 10 percent of the need. An even bigger problem, said John Driscoll of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, is that after finding space in a shelter and stabilizing themselves, many vets still can't afford permanent housing. "The VA programs go a long way in developing transitional assistance programs," he said. "The problem is that most of these programs only help the veteran for up to two years. Most veterans who successfully complete that program are not able to afford fair market rents in virtually any community in the country. Unless there are rental supports, that veteran is still at risk of being homeless after he gets out of that program."

Pentagon statistics show American soldiers are disproportionately recruited from poor, inner city, and rural areas. Many join the military primarily to get out of that environment. "What typically happens to young adults who go into the military at 17 or 18 [is that] when they return home, the same kind of economic conditions that forced them towards the military still exist or have gotten worse," Driscoll said.

The late Ricky Singh of Black Veterans for Social Justice believed veterans should be given special housing dispensation. Singh appears in the documentary film, "When I Came Home," which tells the story of Iraq war veteran Herold Noel, who had to live out of his jeep when he returned to New York with post traumatic stress disorder. "Every person in this country who is incarcerated is given a discharge plan, and part of that discharge plan is a housing plan," Singh said. "It should happen for soldiers too. If a soldier is returning to an unacceptable housing situation, that soldier should have in his hand as part of his discharge a Section 8 (federal housing voucher)."

VA representatives did not return repeated calls for comment on this story.

In September, former VA Secretary Jim Nicholson wrote to prominent senators warning that President Bush would veto key spending bills if Congress increased funding for veterans beyond the relatively modest budget Bush has suggested. The Senate ignored the warning, passing a larger VA budget by a vote of 92-1.

Vets looking for a place to turn can call the National Veterans Foundation's crisis hotline at 888-777-4443.

A major part of the problem with the VA today is the current nature of the present conflicts. In Vietnam, over 50,000 service men and women died partly due to the lack of or availability of immediate medical care. (58,249 Men and women died or missing) In todays conflicts the number of returning injured service men and women is approaching that number due to advanced and more immediate medical care. This fact coupled with the current administrations lack of support for all veterans is placing an extreme financial burden on the VA. The current administration and our representatives in Washington in their 'infinite wisdom' have placed more and more restrictions on eligibility for past veterans to receive benefits. I know, because as a veteran when trying to obtain help and benefits for my present journey and battle with cancer the most I could obtain was a small benefit with prescriptions and nothing else. I told them thanks, but no thanks (but not in those terms). I can get better benefits or discounts through Wal-Mart.

Combat wound affects a life's journey

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer

STOCKTON, Calif. - The telegram that arrived on Nov. 15, 1969, was not pessimistic: "Private First Class Johnny O Brooks was slightly wounded in action."

It gave 20-year-old Flora Brooks, recently married, no hint of how much her life was about to change.

"Since he is not, repeat not seriously injured, no further reports will be furnished," the telegram concluded.

Today, they are growing old together, but not in the way either had envisioned. There were no children, no exotic vacations, not even any more of the simple fishing trips they had enjoyed before Johnny Brooks was drafted into the Army — three weeks after their wedding _and sent to Vietnam. He returned home without a leg and soon lost the other, along with his ability to speak and the use of his arms.

Today, Flora Brooks continues to serve as nursemaid and constant companion to a husband who is confined to a bed, unable to talk or move on his own. She never imagined any other way: "I'm so thankful that we were married," she said.

Flora Brooks, now 58, is a pillar of compassion and dedication, a model for others coping with spouses returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with missing limbs or damaged minds. Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops have been injured in Iraq alone; about 600 have lost at least one limb. Better armor and field medicine are keeping severely wounded troops alive at far higher rates than in previous wars, but their survival taxes the nation's medical systems and many families' ability to cope.

That has created financial and emotional burdens in families throughout the country, said Jim Weiskotf, a spokesman for Fisher House Foundation, which runs 38 homes where wounded veterans' family members can stay while they get medical treatment. "There's no doubt that that takes a significant toll. In an instant, your life is just changed and can never be changed back, when you get the phone call that your son or daughter's been severely wounded," he said.

Flora Brooks' advice to families of other severely injured veterans is simple: Just get through each day, because thinking about a whole lifetime is too daunting. "My heart goes out to them because they're just starting on this journey," she said. "If they don't have a family, I can't imagine having to go through it yourself." Despite the tone of the 1969 telegram, Johnny Brooks was wounded so severely by a mortar explosion that he lost most of his blood. While being prepared for skin graft surgery on his shredded back, he went into cardiac arrest and suffered serious brain damage. He was not expected to survive. Despite her reliance on family and close friends, Flora Brooks has cared for her husband mostly by herself. She leaves home only for brief outings and appointments.

She sleeps in a small bed in the living room, next to her husband's medical bed. Her days are spent almost entirely on his care: filling syringes with the liquid food she injects into his stomach tube every two hours, suctioning his mouth when he coughs, dispensing a small pharmacy of medications, draining catheters. She says she shares a rich, full life with her husband, who responds mostly through eye contact.

She reads Biblical scriptures to him, buys DVDs for them to watch together and talks to him while she does the intricate stitchwork on the patriotic quilts that adorn their home. Flora Brooks knows that many people in her position would have prayed for an easy death. Instead, she prayed for her high school sweetheart to live, regardless of what that life might hold. Johnny Brooks' mother, Ruth Brooks, still spends a lot of time visiting and helping her son and daughter-in-law. But even she depends on Flora.

"I still am not over it," she said. "She's so strong, and I'm not."

That resiliency has amazed Flora Brooks' family and friends, especially now that she also is caring for her mother, who suffers from dementia. She said she chooses not to dwell on her own twists of fate.

"I'm way thankful," she said. "I'm the one that's still saying 'Please God, please God, don't take him yet.'"

These stories are only two out of hundreds or even thousands affecting the lives of American service veterans. Shouldn't veterans of any war, of any conflict be able to obtain support and benefits from the VA without further hassles or sacrifice ? After all haven't they already sacrificed enough with their lives and their futures ? I know it would be futile to waste your time trying to convince the current administration that veterans deserve so much more. They are too busy spending our tax dollars enhancing and shoring up support for their political parties. You can however contact your states representatives in Congress and the Senate and convince them that if they want to keep their jobs they had better do something now. Isn't the sacrifice of so many men and women worth it to you ?

Thank you for your support.