posted on May 29, 2004 10:32:06 PM new
As Memorial Day approaches this is something that everyone should be concerned about because it's a serious problem. We all talk about supporting and honoring the troops but many are forgotten once they return home. I'll just post part of the article with a link if you wish to read why some of the men and women that return from war end up living on the streets.
From the Ranks to the Street
By Jocelyn Y. Stewart Times Staff Writer
After the homecomings are over and the yellow ribbons packed away, many who once served in America's armed forces may end up sleeping on sidewalks.
This is the often-unacknowledged postscript to military service. According to the federal government, veterans make up 9% of the U.S. population but 23% of the homeless population. Among homeless men, veterans make up 33%.
Their ranks included veterans like Peter Starks and Calvin Bennett, who spent nearly 30 years on the streets of Los Angeles, homeless and addicted.
Or Vannessa Turner of Boston, who returned from Iraq last summer, unable to find healthcare or a place to live.
Or Ken Saks, who lost his feet because of complications caused by Agent Orange, then lost his low-rent Santa Barbara apartment in an ordeal that began when a neighbor complained about his wheelchair ramp.
"I'm 56 years old," Saks said. "I don't want to die in the streets…. This is what our [soldiers in Iraq] are coming home to? They're going to live a life like I have? God bless them."
Studies indicate that some will live such a life. Male veterans are 1.3 times more likely to become homeless than non-veterans, women 3.6 times more likely. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs the estimated number of homeless Vietnam veterans is more than twice the number of soldiers, 58,000, who died in battle during that war.
Although 47% of homeless veterans served during the Vietnam era, the study found, soldiers from as far back as World War II and as recent as the Persian Gulf War also ended up homeless.
It is impossible to know exactly how many U.S. veterans are on the streets, but experts estimate that about 300,000 of them are homeless on any given night and that about half a million experience homelessness at some point during the year.
Now, as fighting continues in Iraq and Afghanistan social service providers wonder what will happen to this generation of service men and women returning home from war.
posted on May 30, 2004 12:16:37 AM new
This situation is absolutely pathetic!
True Americans do not exclude anybody. They recognize that everyone should have the same rights. Bigotry, intolerance and hatred are cancers of the mind.
posted on May 30, 2004 05:10:42 AM new
But remember there are 67% none veterans homeless. I agree it is a terrible thing but homelessness is their way of life and some don't want to change it. Veterans if they search can find almost free health care. In Wisconsin there are veterans clinics that will treat any veteran. My husband is a veteran started in the National Guard and was called up during the Bay of Pigs, but never say major battle. He goes to the veterans clinic free, Meds cost $7.00 Generic. See physicians at Great Lakes, free. Major surgery will cost him $100.00. Now I think that is a pretty good deal and I don't know for sure but probably the veterans that saw major battle go there free. Many homeless want that type of life and it is hard to change them. We have W2 in the state, not a failsafe program but something that the state will pay for education when that education is finished and they start their new job the state still provides health care and day care so that they can get ahead. Started when Tommy Thompson was governor. This seems like a good deal to me if someone wants to get off the streets. I am sure everyone knows homelessness is the pits but what else can we do for them. They have to do something for themselves also.
posted on May 30, 2004 05:46:33 AM new
you keep saying they want to be on the street??
The homeless shelter is full and not a pleasant place to be, may be thats why they are on the street.
have you ever visited any of the homeless shelter,have you ever studied why they are homeless??
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
posted on May 30, 2004 05:54:25 AM new
You're right, libra, they like the majority of homeless have to want to get help. Many don't.
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Department of Veteran Affairs
VA offers a wide array of special programs and initiatives specifically designed to help homeless veterans live as self-sufficiently and independently as possible.
In fact, VA is the only Federal agency that provides substantial hands-on assistance directly to homeless persons. Although limited to veterans and their dependents, VA's major homeless-specific programs constitute the largest integrated network of homeless treatment and assistance services in the country.
VA's specialized homeless veterans treatment programs have grown and developed since they were first authorized in 1987. The programs strive to offer a continuum of services that include:
aggressive outreach to those veterans living on streets and in shelters who otherwise would not seek assistance;
clinical assessment and referral to needed medical treatment for physical and psychiatric disorders, including substance abuse;
long-term sheltered transitional assistance, case management, and rehabilitation;
employment assistance and linkage with available income supports; and
supported permanent housing.
Libra, it's a myth that people want to be homeless. No one wants to sleep in a cardboard box when the temperature is below freezing. The lucky homeless may find a heating grate. In Washington D.C. the homeless sleep and some die of hypothermia in sight of the Presidents White House. There are, for example, over 6,500 homeless veterans and only funded beds for 175. Most have health and mental problems that would prevent regular employment even if it was available.
It's a shame that these former troops are neglected all over the country. They need medical help for physical, mental and drug abuse problems and they need long term shelter while being rehabilitated so that they may be employed and transferred to supported permanent housing.
You may have heard that people would rather sleep on the street than in a shelter. Thats true because many of the shelters are rightly perceived as dangerous places by the homeless.
posted on May 30, 2004 06:33:07 AM new
Kiara, Memorial day is about the dead.
Tell me, how concerned are you about living veterens? Do you volunteer anywhere? Do you buy their .25 cent paper flowers,candies or greeting cards if you see them outside a shopping plaza? Where exactly does your concern take you? To posting a marring aside to an honorable American Holiday? (I really wonder how you get by - always focused on the negative. What a horrible way to live.)
Flanders Field the poem that started the poppie tradition:
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae, 1915.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
"I really wonder how you get by - always focused on the negative. What a horrible way to live."
In order to correct the negative, neroter, you must focus on it! This is an enormous problem that needs federal, state and community help. Buying cards and flowers will only serve to assuage guilt
Helen
[ edited by Helenjw on May 30, 2004 06:50 AM ]
posted on May 30, 2004 06:54:38 AM newthat needs Federal, state and community help.
and they get it...IF they want it.
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Another thing I think needs to be said and that is that 'homeless' doesn't necessarily mean 'out on the street'. It means no permanent residence of their own. They could be living with someone, renting a room from someone, be living in a community shared-housing complex, etc.
----------------------
Those who complain the loudest about what's wrong with American....at every opportunity they can are usually the ones that do the least to help the situations they complain about.
Those who stick their heads in the sand only insure their personal isolation and peace of mind and could care less about the troops. Cheer them on while you use them as fodder on the battle field and then when they need help, buy a flower.
posted on May 30, 2004 07:14:42 AM new
Helen, for you it might be about assuaging guilt. But maybe its about taking the time to stop and talk to them a few minutes so they dont have to sit there and feel like the discarded servants of this country.
If you are always looking for the negative there is no way you can envision the positive happening. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to turn something around and you have to start with a little bit.
Let people have their rituals and observe the dead for a day without trying to blame them for the current problems. God!
posted on May 30, 2004 07:31:52 AM new
Idle chat will not do much for what you call veterans who may feel like the discarded servants of this country. The truth is that they are among the discarded evidenced by the fact that they are homeless and without medical care.
Neroter, I don't begrudge anyone who needs to stroke or pamper themselves with fantasies. But we are discussing a real and shameful problem about the plight of mistreated American veterans. That, to me is a more important consideration than rituals for the dead. I like to focus on the living which I might remind you is a positive outlook.
posted on May 30, 2004 07:37:49 AM new
Do you know what they do at the "missions" here? They take all the belongings you are fortunate to have, put you in a room and lock you in. One homeless man told me it's like being put in jail and so he sleeps on the street. We had a building here that was unused, just sitting there empty. The homeless started using it. It was kept clean and our homeless organization visited it regularly. Once the company that owned it got wind of it, they tore the building down. Rather than fix it up and allow these people to have shelter, the owner preferred tearing down a perfectly sound building. What people fail to realize is that we are all but a step away from being in the same boat some of these people are. If not for the grace of God, you'd be living in a box.
posted on May 30, 2004 07:53:30 AM new
kiara
i mentioned this saddness in my early posts before the war started, that this existed and how government created this and then ignored the problem, which happens when you send young minds into war......
but alas people will ignore it......
blame this on the leadership and corperate world who use these kids in the meat grinder,
i mentioned how the VA hospitals treated the wounded of Veitnam and it sucked back then, and no one here listened to me
i said that the burden will fall upon the common citizen and the medical system will be overburdened
i mentioned that the government did not care for those who had not the strength to understand the horrors of war, and how many young veterans were ruined emtionally
and i mentioned that those who were thinking of joining the military go to a local VA hosipital and talk to the veterans...
posted on May 30, 2004 08:02:14 AM new
ah yes, Helen, do tell about the POSITIVE effects thats to be had sitting on one's fat azz on a computer and drooling bile about ceremonies that actually do something for the psyche for those who served and are still living. Just because you tout the cause doesnt mean your putting anything out there that helps anybody. I think you're in a fantasy because you have no clue about the traveling of energy between people and their thoughts.
That said, I am outta this thread because you ARE so negative and negative only begets negative.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:02:36 AM new
I truly think that some here get reality and negativity mixed up and they think if they bury their heads in the sand and don't think about certain issues that they will just go away. Out of sight, out of mind.
Last evening I was reading stories about Memorial Day and the veterans and this was one of the main stories and I just wondered how many were aware of it. It's especially bad in California because rents are so high and it's difficult for some of the men to find housing. Some Veterans die on the streets. Perhaps those that are so quick to knock me and blame me didn't click the link and read the full article. Then you may understand that help for these guys isn't always so easy to come by.
Diane Sawyer recently did a segment on Veterans Hospitals and the poor care some of them receive and the terrible conditions there and how some die because of it or how they live constantly in pain because they don't get the proper care. Not negativity, it's reality.
Like Helen said, it's okay to honor the dead but it's more important to focus on the living.
Nero, you still seem to be holding a grudge because of a certain incident in the Outlook but it's time to move on. I've reached a point in my life where I care about others more than I ever have and I don't need some to sit back in their chairs and play judge and jury about my personal beliefs or what I do in my life. Don't ask what I'm doing, ask yourself what you're doing, that's much more important I would think.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:29:00 AM new
What about the homeless women?/
The so called shopping bag ladies in new york city.i think some are mentally disturbed.
-sig file -------we eat to live,not live to eat.
Benjamin Franklin
posted on May 30, 2004 08:36:05 AM new
stopwhining, Maybe neroter will want to chat with them.
That's funny, neroter. You have reduced your usual inane comments to personal attacks concerning your fantasy of the size of my beautiful ass.
I can't determine the size of your ass and since it doesn't interest me I'll not consider that possibly negative feature of you. I could however, based on your comments, specualte on the size of your brain but that doesn't interest me now either.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:37:55 AM new
Kiara - I think you and other Canadians need to get your own 'house' in order before you criticize ours.
Mission impossible: The crisis of Canada's military
By Jackson Murphy
web posted April 12, 2004
There are scarcely 3,500 Canadian troops serving on various missions around the planet currently. There are about 1,800 in Afghanistan, about 750 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 425 in Haiti, another 250 fighting in the War on Terror, and the rest scattered on 10 other missions around the globe.
Yet the Canadian Prime Minister has just informed the public that because of those commitments, "our forces are stretched very very thin" and likely won't be able to help protect the United Nations in Iraq as the country transitions to civilian rule.
Dying from neglect The problem is that Canada's military has been so run down, for so long, that managing even the most basic contributions to worthy international missions is becoming increasingly a "Mission Impossible".
On the one hand it should be commended that Mr. Martin won't write checks that our military cannot cash. On the other hand the situation and state of affairs in our armed forces has become one so embarrassing that it cannot simply be ignored. This is not to say that our troops aren't professional and able soldiers. Far from it, but it is true that our political leadership has spent the better part of the last quarter century sending them on missions without properly equipping them-continually asking them to do more with less.
Now, in Prime Minister Martin's defense, he is quite right not to commit troops to another mission at this time. It is almost refreshing to see the leadership admit when it can no longer commit troops, however troubling that realization may be. And judging by the situation in Iraq right now the mission wouldn't be an easy one anyway.
The government's latest budget makes no foreword thinking attempt to imagine that anything new might come on the horizon. It outlays cash for maintaining the current operations in Afghanistan and Haiti but little else. The world is arguably more dangerous than it was five years ago, and Canada has failed to spend even the bare minimum to deal with a changing world.
As J.L. Granatstein notes in his new book, Who Killed the Canadian Military? the Canadian Forces simply cannot keep up with the "operational tempo" that the government has demanded in the past decade. "In 1999, before the Afghanistan operation, Canada had some 4,500 troops abroad, or some 7 percent of the force's nominal strength of 60,000 and 8.25 percent of its actual trained strength of just under 54,000," writes Granatstein. "By the beginning of 2002 the Canadian Forces had 1,600 troops in Bosnia and more than 2.500 in Operation Apollo, the Afghanistan mission."
No wonder a Senate committee in 2002 recommended that Canada recall all of its soldiers for two years and infuse the military with an immediate $4 billion to revive the forces. What this tells us is that in the past five years with a relatively consistent amount of troops in the field, Canada has been and remains completely incapable of dealing with any potential crisis.
Previous and current governments expanding Canada's role in the world while simultaneously eroding the resources given, now find the Canadian Forces, and Canada itself, completely unprepared and unprotected.
The story of the deteriorating Canadian Military doesn't end there. Members of our top special forces unit, the JTF 2, are leaving the forces to join lucrative private security firms now at work in Iraq.
The National Post splashes juicy front page headlines declaring, "Petite, aggressive European nation dares fly its flag over Hans Island" which tell of the problems Canada has exerting even the simplest amount of sovereignty over our sprawling territory. It is discomforting that we can't even stare down a smaller nation like Denmark over a deserted northern island. But it is down right scary that Denmark can send a ship into our waters, lay claim to that island, and we don't even know about until much later.
While the Post may have overblown the Hans Island situation, the paper rightly exposed that the military, already strapped for cash by the tune of $635 million this year alone, has to spend some $50 million on various projects including a soil erosion investigation at one particular Canadian Forces base. And then there is the question of the Canadian citizen being held hostage in Iraq? Canada is currently negotiating his safe release but what, if anything, could Canada realistically do about it, or heaven forbid if there was ever a larger more complex crisis?
These problems underscore a tragic new reality, one where Canada's international irrelevance is both shocking and inevitable.
"Today, Canada has proportionately the smallest, least well-equipped army in the developed world," writes Peter Worthington in the Toronto Sun. "As far as our national security is concerned, the anti-militarists are right - we don't need a military. If we face grave danger from some alien invader, the Americans will protect us for their own security reasons."
If the Canadian Forces are incapable of addressing immediately a dispute in our own back yard then it is inconceivable that simply because we have 3,500 troops overseas we can't participate in anything else regardless of want or necessity.
Undoubtedly Canada doesn't have enough men and women in uniform, and worse it lacks the equipment and resources to participate in any meaningful way abroad. This story isn't something new, but an increasingly dangerous world may have finally helped to expose the continuing crisis in Canada's military. The answer to this problem isn't to shrug our shoulders and stop participating in world affairs. The answer is to quickly rebuild the military and retake our position as a leading nation.
Jackson Murphy is a commentator from Vancouver, Canada. He a senior writer at Enter Stage Right and the editor of "Dispatches" a website that serves up political commentary 24-7.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:39:56 AM new
Obviously they have opted to live in the great outdoors. Probably tired of continually having to vacuum their homes, cook for their families etc.
A dose of reality; to believe that anyone would opt to live on the streets is so ridiculous it defies logic.
In our society once one falls through the cracks there is no safety net, just a freefall to rock bottom.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:47:52 AM newKiara - I think you and other Canadians need to get your own 'house' in order before you criticize ours.
You may not realize that I'm in a position where I can criticize both "houses".
The state of Canada's military isn't really the subject of this thread but you've brought it up to see if you can personally bash me. Just so you know, I am aware of the situation and I know things are far from perfect in Canada and I will always be the first to admit it. I'm also aware that Canada recently cut some of the Veterans widow's pensions.
Canada is not a war-mongering country and has focused more on peace keeping in recent years.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:50:49 AM new
Now, I think THIS is a very serious problem.
Cdn. military near collapse: Report
By JOHN WARD - 12-03
OTTAWA (CP) - Years of penny-pinching have left the Canadian Forces on the brink of collapse and it could take an entire generation to recover, a bleak Queen's University study warns.
The document tells the incoming Paul Martin government that it is about to walk into a disaster, with a military that can't be used because of shortages of people and equipment. "The problem will rapidly disarm foreign policy as Canada repeatedly backs away from international commitments because it lacks adequate military forces," said the report, entitled Canada Without Armed Forces?, released Wednesday.
It says the problems can't be solved overnight, because it takes years to purchase major weapons systems and years to train combat-ready soldiers, sailors and flyers.
posted on May 30, 2004 08:52:29 AM new
hey linda, you coward,
before you critize canadians about the USA you seem to forget that many Canadians fought in Vietnam..............
were you in Vietnam, were you ?????
it's typical a warmonger like you who has no understanding about battlefield conditions would be gung-ho sending young kids into the meat grinder....
your kind makes me sick, your so called patriotic clap trap is sickening when you yourselve have never scarificed much...what have you scarificed Linda, WHAT.......
and here you are now wrapping yourself in the flag, and praising the dead, when you are so gung ho in killing the living
it's your kind and that attitude that makes hell for many on this planet......
posted on May 30, 2004 08:58:16 AM new
And as usual, Linda flies off on a tangent and tries to divert the main issue because she can't deal with the reality of her own little world and prefers to think it's all la la land.
Hey, Linda. Do you just write with this or do you also take a daily dose of it?
That's one of the best posts that I have read here, skylite. As I learned in art school, it's almost impossible to create an outstanding piece of artwork without an emotional connection to the subject. The same is true with words as evidenced by your profoundly moving comment.
posted on May 30, 2004 09:08:27 AM new
Kiara - Oh yes you're free to....I, like many Americans, just resent those of you who enjoy nothing more than continually pointing out everything that's wrong with my country when you don't have your own house in order - and I'll say so.
You, helen and others like you who are anti-militarists - anti-war supporters - socialists - wouldn't care if we let our Armed Forces get in the deplorable condition your's is in now....where you couldn't defend yourselves if you wanted to. But you'd rather focus on how badly we do EVERYTHING here in the USA rather including taking care of our own.....when you can't even support your own military.
