In 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available, around 15,000 Iraq/ Afghanistan veterans were homeless, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.The Homeless Veterans coalition estimates that nearly 500,000 veterans are homeless at some point in a given year. Almost half served during the Vietnam era.Homeless HeroesPaul Rieckhoff | May 04, 2006
The next generation of American Veterans is on its way home. Over 1.3 million American troops have already served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and tens of thousands more will return from combat over the years to come. After these young men and women put away their uniforms, they will still be coping with the consequences of years spent at war. When these conflicts have faded from the headlines, will we, as Americans, continue to honor our yellow-ribbon commitment to “Support the Troops”? Already there are many disturbing signs that we are not prepared to meet that obligation.
More than a year ago, I met my first homeless Iraq Vet. Only months after her return from combat, former Army Specialist Nicole Goodwin, 24, was staying in New York City shelters with her infant daughter. Just a few days later, I met former Private First Class Herold Noel. Herold had driven fuel trucks to the front lines during the invasion of Iraq, but when I met him, Herold was on three kinds of medication for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and living in his car with his son, a shy two-year-old named Anthony.
Herold and Nicole are not isolated cases. Ricky Singh, of the Brooklyn-based veterans' service organization Black Veterans for Social Justice does outreach in some of the toughest parts of New York. Mr. Singh, on the front lines of the new battle against homelessness, says he has seen the dozens of homeless Iraq War veterans, “and we know that this is only the tip of the iceberg.”
http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,96237,00.html New Generation of Homeless Vets EmergesBy Erin McClam
The Associated Press
Saturday 19 January 2008
Peter Mohan traces the path from the Iraqi battlefield to this lifeless conference room, where he sits in a kilt and a Camp Kill Yourself T-shirt and calmly describes how he became a sad cliche: a homeless veteran.
There was a happy homecoming, but then an accident - car crash, broken collarbone. And then a move east, close to his wife's new job but away from his best friends.
And then self-destruction: He would gun his motorcycle to 100 mph and try to stand on the seat. He would wait for his wife to leave in the morning, draw the blinds and open up whatever bottle of booze was closest. He would pull out his gun, a .45-caliber, semiautomatic pistol. He would lovingly clean it, or just look at it and put it away. Sometimes place it in his mouth.
http://www.truthout.org/article/new-generation-homeless-vets-emerges Surge Seen in Number of Homeless VeteransBy Erik Eckholm
The New York Times
Experts who work with veterans say it often takes several years after leaving military service for veterans' accumulating problems to push them into the streets. But some aid workers say the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans appear to be turning up sooner than the Vietnam veterans did.
"We're beginning to see, across the country, the first trickle of this generation of warriors in homeless shelters," said Phil Landis, chairman of Veterans Village of San Diego, a residence and counseling center. "But we anticipate that it's going to be a tsunami."
With more women serving in combat zones, the current wars are already resulting in a higher share of homeless women as well. They have an added risk factor: roughly 40 percent of the hundreds of homeless female veterans of recent wars have said they were sexually assaulted by American soldiers while in the military, officials said.
http://www.truthout.org/article/surge-seen-number-homeless-veterans. Do these articles strike you as sad or unfair?
Perhaps the saddest commentary of all is that 2006 was the most recent survey on homeless Iraq/ Afghanistan veterans.