Home from Wars and Homeless

Veterans make up 43 % of all homeless males over 25.  

That is not a typo!  See the proof here and the data here.  The story below is about John McCarthy, but he is just one of the latest to join the ranks of homeless veterans in this country.    There are more than 200,000 homeless veterans on the street in any one night, more than 400,000 are homeless during any one year.   Among the critically homeless, veterans make up the majority.

The problem is due in large part to the VA’s almost criminal slowness in recognizing mental illness and alcohol/drug abuse among returning warriors.   Mental illness including PTSD are often misdiagnosed, apparently by design, as being preconditions or else not related to military service.    Now I ask you, if our soldiers are mentally ill prior to going into service, why were they accepted?   If they have it now, why aren’t we fixing it? If it is not related then why are our veterans so overrepresented among the homeless.   Why are we dragging our feet while our returning war heroes are losing families and homes due to no credible help?

The other part of the problem is the gross underfunding of programs designed to help our homeless heroes.   Total VA funding is only $1.37 per homeless vet per day.
VA funded beds provide for only 1 of every 26 homeless vets.  Much of this funding goes to just a few states and for transitional housing that serve only a few at a time.   Recent funding is even worse, see this headline: VA Announces 33 cent per day Grants for Homeless Vets. 

Our veterans make up 27% of the male population but 43% of the male homeless that are old enough to have served.   Why are our homeless veterans so overrepresented among the homeless?  What is going on?    Half of our homeless veterans are mentally ill, 40% suffer from alcohol and drug abuse.  This far exceeds the normal homeless population.  

These are our Heroes! 

They need to be treated like Heroes!  

They served our country, we need to serve them now!

Consider this:  If we fix this problem, the adult male homeless population in this country would decrease by 43% overnight! 

Oldtimer

Home from wars, yet homeless

By Connie Paige, Globe Correspondent | August 12, 2007

BEDFORD — John McCarthy hails from a proud military family. He was named after a great-uncle gassed by the Germans in World War I. Both his grandfather and father fought in World War II.

But recently the 46-year-old found himself homeless, with little to show for his military career.

“I’m trying to get totally back on my feet and back into the swing of things — which is easier said than done when you’re starting from scratch and have no resources,” said McCarthy, when he was enrolled last month in a 40-bed shelter for homeless veterans at the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford.

McCarthy is one of a significant number of homeless veterans living in shadows in the suburbs, navigating a revolving door between shelters, temporary homes, and the street. Some advocates say the ranks of homeless vets may soon grow with troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious health and mental health problems needing care not available.

“Basically, we’re very concerned that the condition is going to get worse,” said Raymond O’Brien of Stoneham, national chairman of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Homeless Veterans and Rehabilitation Committee and on the new Governor’s Advisory Council on Veterans’ Services.

O’Brien is among those attempting to address the issue now. He said the council will work with the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs in coming months to try to ensure that a safety net is in place in time.

(…) 

At the 90-bed Lowell Transitional Living Center, where clients sit outside at makeshift tables in a gritty concrete pen surrounded by chain-link fence, executive director Joseph Tucker says the facility has taken in veterans. He says he cannot give firm numbers because clients do not always identify themselves as former military.

Such veterans become homeless for many reasons, said Deborah Outing, a spokeswoman for the Bedford veterans hospital. Many have drug- and alcohol-abuse, marital, or unemployment problems. Others suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder — a belated reaction to combat causing behavioral problems, making it impossible to hold a job. The syndrome can take years — to develop.

Click here to see the more than 50 Homeless Veteran articles.  Help our Heroes.

Habitat Build June 15, 2007

We had not expected to be working today, Friday, the last day before landscaping, but it was on the schedule just-in-case, and here we are, working.    Unfortunately the word had gotten around that we were probably not working today and many took it simply without the “probably” – not working.   Nine showed up.   That is ok, as we still accomplished what we wanted to do.  Have it ready for landscaping Saturday when lots of people show up – usually.   The goal was to finish the second coat of the inside and outside painting.   We did that.   Work continued on the soffit and aluminum fascia.   The reduced work crew slowed that down but progress was made.  It can be finished Saturday while others landscape.

Concrete Contractors

The poor concrete contractors had another bad day.  The first thing that happened was the gas company came in to install their line to the house.  So naturally the form left for the rest of the sidewalk came down.  The gas company backhoe quickly dug the trench and the line was installed, but the forms remained down. 

Later in the day, the graders came in to prep the lot for the volunteers.  That meant another trek across the area for the sidewalk with heavy equipment and the rest of the forms came down.   Now there is no trace of the sidewalk forms and the ground has been filled in too high so it needs to be dug out again.  The concrete contractor was not around to see the damage.  I feel pretty certain that Rickey, the contractor, has seen all this many times and allows for it.

Then the sod came and again the area was breached as pallets of sod were placed around the lot.    Let’s see:  Electrical, gas, grading, and sod across their forms.  Four times is the charm. 

 Once again I was an outside trim painter and managed to get the second coat of paint all around the house.  Looking good.   Some of the women worked both inside and outside to finish up the second coats on each.   “Pretty Boy” aka “Nine Fingers” aka “Rock Doctor” Miller put on the front shutters and did some of the cutting for the soffit installation among other things.  He is an all around can and will do whatever is needed person.

Gray Ghosts

 Jim Miller is one of the Gray Ghosts – an organization of mostly retired contractors and experienced builders.  The volunteers usually work Saturdays, and then the Site Project Manager puts in a call to the unofficial scheduler of the Gray Ghosts, asking if they can put them on their schedule to fix things that some volunteer didn’t do quite right, or to complete a job that must be done in order to meet inspections or to put the house back on schedule.   These men and women volunteers usually work on Wednesdays and slip in, fix things and slip back out without volunteers seeing them.  Thus when the volunteers show up again the next weekend and wonder how that wall, porch or roof got fixed, the answer is “it must have been a ghost”.

SPM’s work on one house at a time, but the Gray Ghosts work on any house that needs it, so sometimes they split up and work on several different homes and sometimes they finish one job and then start on another house.   The Ghosts work on a purely volunteer basis.   If one has something else pressing on a particular Wednesday, he or she simply doesn’t show up and no call is made and no excuses needed.  Yet there always seem to have enough.   The Ghosts do not answer to the Habitat for Humanity organization, but are so well respected and so useful to the cause, that one can call for a door or other supply need and someone from Habitat will bring it right out.  They usually have access to anything they need and often buy lumber or other material and submit receipts for reimbursement without question.

Many of the Gray Ghosts are SPMs themselves both here in Cobb and also in the surrounding counties.  Jim has built so many Habitat houses, he likely doesn’t know  the count.  They are truly dedicated special people.

The slide show for today is here or click on any picture above.

Tomorrow:  Landscaping!