Study: 1 out of 4 homeless are veterans

Submitted by anthony on Thu, 2007-11-08 12:35

Article here.

The word "veterans" could easily replaced by simply stating men. Most of these homeless men are Vietnam Vets. Many of these men suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. Now the Iraq war is contributing to this crisis. These men are not properly treated and live a life on the streets eating out of garbage cans. I suspect with the increasing number of female military personnel, this issue will become a serious topic. Society will never tolerate homeless female veterans. A military clerical position held by a woman would probably be more of a priority than the man who served in heavy combat. I would not be surprised if the victim industry pushes for a Congressional bill preventing any female vet. from becoming homeless. Such a bill would probably be initiated by man hater, Joe Biden. As for the men, find a warm spot on the streets during the winter and good luck! Excerpt:

'Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.'

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Just let all of the innocent men out of prison and there will be plenty of room to put the vets up for the night.

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Submitted by Sosickoftheirlies on Fri, 2007-11-09 02:26

A lot of you guys may not know or remember, but at first, when it was all men, they were just called "bums" or "beggars". Then when women started appearing on the scene in the later 70's, the term "bag ladies" came to be used (thus at least giving these women an identity as women).
Shortly thereafter, when women started to become a definite though small proportion, the term "homeless" was adopted. Gee, which sounds better: "homeless" or "bums"?
Another indication that men are considered by society to be expendable.

As an aside, I have experience with the VA health and disability compensation system. One thing that appears to be going on, is that soldiers from Iraq who about to be discharged due to disability, for example with brain injuries, are not treated fairly by the system. They are systematically assigned low (either 10% or "non-service connected") disability ratings, so that they cannot get any more than $120 per month in compensation once discharged. Or worse, many are assigned NO rating. One reason is to avoid adding to the burden of the VA health system, which is already over-loaded with thousands of existing claims ,which are thus taking too long to be decided (over one year in many cases).

Also this system has come under recent scrutiny by an entity called the VDBC (Veteran's Disability Benefits Commission), a committee created by Bush 2 or 3 years ago (and consisting of 9 Republicans and only 4 Democrats), to supposedly make recommendations to improve the system, but looked at askance by many veterans who see it as the typical Republican administration's attempts to lower compensation rates and other benefits for Veterans. I read the VDBC's final report and recommendations last month, and from what I can tell they are going to make it harder for a vetearn to obtain, or maintain existing, 100% compensation ratings due to being unemployable. Also the way the recommendations are worded, they are leaving it wide open to the White House and Congress to review and change benefits at any time in the future; as opposed to the system being relatively constant from World War II until now.

Basically Republicans like to start wars, then when guys get their legs blown off and get discharged, tough shit..suffer. If you don't believe me, look at the voting records and party affiliations of members of Congress.

-ax

P.S. VA medical facilities are staffed by rude disgusting pigs, whose attitude toward Veterans is very condescending - as in "fuck off".

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Submitted by axolotl on Sat, 2007-11-10 22:04