Homeless Veterans in America In the United States, there are more than enough resources to serve all of the people of this country, but we still have homeless citizens that are trying to survive. They have the same living conditions as of those in developing countries. As of 2003, more than 275,000 veterans were sleeping under bridges and now the amount is definitely still on a bit of a rise. There is a pretty high amount of homeless veterans for the century that we live in and an endless amount of ideal opportunities that are offered.
If there is help out there for such citizens, then why is there still a rise of homeless people and veterans especially? The issues having to do with homelessness in America is that, there is so much money to benefit the costs of guns and armor for the military, but then when veterans come back from being deployed, many of them still go homeless. The reason for this is that many veterans enter the military at such a young age, being that they are recruited right after high school or possibly during high school.
In this day and age, aside from the experience and certificates received in the military branch that they join; degrees and job training is what is required to get a decent paying job. Also, there are people that do not have high school diplomas at all. These people could have lived through the time when just having a high school diploma could offer more when searching for a job. There are a variety of reasons behind Veterans becoming homeless. Some just fall in to unfortunate situations such as, becoming drug addicts, alcoholics, or if they don’t search for help in time they could possibly die.
As there was a disproportionately large amount of homeless veterans, many of these people came out with a popular mental stress disorder called Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, or even worst. So medication was involved and many couldn’t afford that. The cause of this is separation anxiety or mostly the combat trials that they went through. So, for another family member to care for that person there would be so many circumstances such as, money, patience, time and love. Some people do not have those things to help their family member out.
According to Gamache, G. , Rosenheck, R. , & Tessler, R. (2001)P. 1 Non-homeless veterans have more of a connection with their childhood and how they were brought up. They cause to their effect is to either you’re born poor and you stay poor or, you’re raised poor and you don’t know how to get out of poverty for your own several reasons. Some have mental illnesses, or just weren’t taught well. The homeless veteran is homeless because when you come out, you either just have high school diploma and maybe some certifications or maybe nothing but training.
In this day and age, to find a decent paying job, at least a bachelor’s degree is necessary. Two of the most helpful programs that I heard about through, ‘Who is helping America’s homeless veterans? “(2008)p. 1 that help veterans in modern day society are the “The National Coalition for homeless Veterans (NVHV)” and the “Veteran Affairs” The (NVHV) was made in 1990 by a smaller communitybased service provider that has an enormous amount of veterans in their program. The people in this program needed integrity and true help offered there, because without it they really would not be able to survive in America.
The U. S. Department of Veteran Affairs is a rapidly considered leader in psychosocial rehabilitations. The point of the program is to support the unfortunate veterans and offer respect and encouragement so that those people can somehow better themselves with the benefits that are offered. According to the Veteran Affairs a wide range of educational and employment opportunities are offered. One of the greatest outcomes of the “Veteran Affairs Centers” is the heath program that they link for veterans.
The military authorities know how many come back disabled mentally or physically so they help them with either therapy, free appointments or some sort of new insurance “A previous study of homeless veterans participating in an outreach program based on collaboration between the staff of the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) found that those who reported disability and poor to fair health were more likely to be awarded benefits. ” In other words, as a veteran you have to really have come out sick or disabled in some way to really receive the benefits.
It is a bit unbalanced because if you come out fine, you should still be able to receive benefits for having the title of being a veteran. Now, you may be asking yourself at this point, if such resources are told to be “the best” for veterans then why are there still an extensive amount of homeless veterans? Well, there is always a science and business part behind any negotiation made in America. Studies were done to find out if health, demographics, or military-related characteristics are related to the acceptance into the program to being able to receive benefits that they offer.
What was founded was that many of the people coming out of deployment are unemployed for several reasons, such as Post-traumatic stress disorder, or they don’t have enough experience to follow the criteria of applying of a job. PTSD wasn’t exactly “associated with any employment status post service”. What that means is that at that time it wasn’t considered enough of an issue to receive a pension for having that medical condition. Another medical condition stated was depression or anxiety. These two issues are exactly associated with unemployment and receiving a pension.
The Veteran Affairs also does screenings to make sure that those who come to them for help are validly issued with those medical conditions. If they don’t do this enough, funds can be falsely used to hand out to people that do not actually need it. Another topic brought up about PTSD by John Rio( 2007)pp. was that it wasn’t exactly “associated with any employment status post service” What that means is, at the time being, not enough research was done to prove the fact that PTSD can effect someone’s ability to work or attend school. In the article, Veteran Homelessness in the US” by Carlson, the author states it herself that: “She came to the conclusion that, “Post-traumatic symptoms and military and civilian traumatic Stressors of all types should be assessed in homeless veterans because they may be contributing to poor social and occupational functioning. “” Through that conclusion she implies that there is a general fact that homeless people in general need to be assessed but veterans should have the opportunity to have benefits that are given back to them since they served our country.
A topic that takes a huge standpoint in all of this is the economy, financial help and issues, and the government system. Research was done to find out information upon the topic of veteran benefits and compensation by the Veteran Affairs programs in the United States. There was an experiment done by Greenberg, G. , Chen, J. H. , Rosenheck, R. A. , & Kasprow, W. J. (2007) pp. for 5,731 veterans that were not receiving what the veteran affairs say that they offer. These were veterans that contacted the Veteran Affairs during the first year of 2003 and only 15% were awarded compensation.
So the question is, what happened to the other 85% and why didn’t they receive an award? One of the studies “showed that veterans who were awarded benefits had a higher quality of life 3 months after receiving benefits than did those who were not and had higher total income, allowing greater expenditures on transportation, necessities, and tobacco but not on alcohol or drug use. A major difference between homeless people with mental illness and non homeless people with mental illness is their access to public support payments.
That says enough about what is happening with the system of receiving and giving or offering benefits. If people are living a better life after they receive their compensation then it could possibly mean that they are getting more than enough and it’s unfair for the others that are struggling. Those who are of military and/or government authority should know and realize that veterans don’t always have the required necessities for our modern day job requirements.
These necessities mean, a high school diploma, knowing English, having a bachelors or masters degree, experience or a resume. All homeless people should not be homeless in general but, knowing how people are in our society, not many people have the reaching hands to let a person stay in their home, donate some money or feed the poor. It’s as if, the American value taught to many people in kindergarten “sharing is caring”, was completely forgotten. Many people just think that they should care or share with others that just like them and that is not the correct thing to do.
