How Do We Help Our Homeless Veterans?

Check into Veterans on Patrol out in Arizona.. They have a better idea how to help. Boots on the ground, community helping it's self. Would like to see that start all over the US..

After trying to talk to some of them, offering help to get to the VA center and being turned down I stopped trying to help someone who stated they were a vet and were panhandling. In retrospect, I should have kept on offering. Locally, we have programs to assist homeless veterans but not all apply.

One idea I just saw on the news this weekend a city here in Florida is deciding to starting building small little huts with electricity and water for the homeless, this would be a good idea across the board for homeless vets as well.

This topic has been worked on for a very long time. many here have participated in some way to help ease the burden of so many veterans being in this situation. Is there a better way to help? The only way I know of is to start at the local level, keep doing all the things you know help those who are in that situation, and keep this issue in the 'public' eye and on the minds of everyone you interact with. It is not a simple problem and it will not go away anytime soon. This is a daily battle and struggle we have to stay focused on. I honestly don't know if we can defeat this issue, but we can participate and do what we are able to minimize it.
There are so many here who have contributed something in one form or fashion that we have to believe in the end we will win this fight.

My emotions say "I'd give them the shirt off my back, a couch in my home, they're my brothers in arms and we take care of our own."

However, graphic speaks volumes.
15% disabled
50% mental illness
70% Substance abuse.

Now if you have a disabled veteran, or a mental illness... there's programs for that, what am I missing, why aren't they getting help?!

Substance abuse is disturbing for me though... obviously there's some overlap in the numbers, but if someone is living on the streets so they can spend the rent money to get high? Sorry, I'm gonna go all hard nosed on that... make a treatment center available, sleep on the streets until you're ready to go to it. It's called personal responsibility. I don't even care if someone is getting high, if you can get stoned and hold a job more power to you... just don't ask me to write checks for your chemical entertainment.

The next thing that bothers me is how we're defining "veteran" in this case. The mental image I get whe you say "homeless veteran" is a guy that a war chewed up and spit out, left him with PTSD and no skills other than kicking in doors, but "Veteran" can also be "Specialist Bob" that I worked with, who did nothing but break things and put flight crews in danger, beat his wife and got weekend jail time for it... Call me an ass, but if he was on fire I wouldn't piss on him to put the fire out.

I said in the beginning that I would give them the shirt off my back, but really I'd like to believe that I'd help anyone in need if I thought it was help and not enabling... helping someone get comfortable in a cesspool is not doing them any favors, give them a rope and help them out of the crap. Yes, there's an even softer spot in my heart for my brothers in arms.

Best way is helping the homeless veteran like myself is put in training at HR level from the federal agencies and the civilian goes to nearest military and observe the military as they work. the civilian refuse to accept military as a real job and they refuse to treat military transcripts like a college transcripts. one excuse they can not understand the military transcripts. the military spell it out on teh right side of the military mos in the civilian world.
Bottom line they think they military is not a real job no experience.

As a homeless veteran i get 16 dollars a month for food stamps and be forced to live with aging parents and don't have a job because the civilians refuse to accept military as real job only civilian jobs experience and that included federal agencies

Easy..... Give them the same type of benefits and housing the POTUS and his administration want to give the Syrian refugees.

NO DD214. No matter what I did in uniform, no matter how many ass kickings I took, NO matter how often I was doing hazardous duties, NO matter how often I was deployed on a COMBAT NAVAL SHIP in 100% operational MODE in the hardest of hard departments DECK, NO MATTER that I am Legally Termed a VET, No Matter that I did all this I do not get a DD214?! They put an arbitrary number of days needed to be completed in succession of 180. I give you a boat load more then 180 just broken up over a full 8yrs that I was a deployable war asset trained and ready for deployment on a PHONE CALL.

It was not my fault 18-26 years Old I was not recalled after bootcamp to be deployed for longer then 180 days at any given time. It was not my fault. But they trained me the days that I was there to go all out and be ready full stress less time to get as good as everyone else who were always prior serviice or current service members on that ship. I was the only true Non-Prior Service Member signing my enlistment before I even graduated High School. This Reserve Term the R word has haunted and basically left me hanging and fragmented for the rest of my life.

They trained me hard expected the most loyalty and everything else ready for deployement at a moments notice for over 2900 days 18-26 for very few benefits and at the end I do not get a DD214 even. Of course I did not know the ramifications of a DD214 until the last year when the VET CENTER who actually diagnosed me with a written PTSD diagnosis confirming I am ill, then droppped me like hot sack cold as ice no other reason I do not have a dd214, something they can not take back, it is archived medical history. The assault did happen, the Operational Combat Stress in my unit did happen, I was serving during 9-11 and was in hi alert status and as gun ho as anyone else, I have a written diagnosis of PTSD VET CENTER from ARMY OFFICER who has been deployed AFGHANISTAN. I tell the truth. When does my courage and my valor and my honor and my sacrifice and my ills find comort from the greatest nation one if not the richest nation in the world. The 1 I was born in went to high school in was a varsity athlete in joined the milittary in and did everything asked and commanded unflitchingly and still that does not matter I did not do enough they say now somehow. And my injuries are my fault. But all that does not matter without a DD214 and I get denied or threatend with denail for everything. The VET Center diagnosed me with a Humanitarian Waiver for PTSD and treated me for 1 year straight then 1 odd day stopped treating me and notated they stopped for 1 reason despite my notated displeasure I do not have a dd214. Do you you know what can happen in a uniform in 1 minute that can alter your life let alone what I did over 8 years?



Can someone please help me and write me and say you will be an advocate so I can go to my SENATOR or CONGRESSMAN and show the Veteran REP I am supported? or help me request a RECORDS change in SERVICE for a DD214 or Get a SERVICE CONNECTION Service Record Change sooner then later?


I am living the life of what is TERMED a VETERAN Honorably Discharged 8 yr enlistment 5 yrs on a OPERATIONAL COMBAT SHIP deployed here and there. 5 different Annual Physicals would prove the doctors were better note takers then health providers because no matter what I marked or whatever I said would not get me a second checkup or follow up. Yes I was suffering from Operational Combat Stress and in service physical assaults, death threats, and sexual perversion harrasment from other sailors on the same ship in different incidences some reported some not but I was never offered mental health counseling. I made it to the end limping. I was Not given a Separation Physical. Honorably Discharged. 15 years of homelessness and joblessness and not talking about my time in uniform. 2011 I am on SSDI for anxiety mood disorder still not recalling military experiences and not discussing or talking about them. 2013 I find VBA-21-0781a-Service Connection for PTSD Secondary Personal Assault. Indeed all my memories came rusing back and my whole life made sense. I actually had untreated undiagnlosed PTSD. I seeked treatment at a VET CENTER and was actually diagnosed with PTSD from Assaultin Service. But they stopped treating me because they found I do not have a DD214. I I seeked HUDVASH homeles Veteran Voucher and I qualified with a very LOW intake application score but in the end denied no DD214.

If they are truly a veteran I will go out of my way to help them.
Sadly here in California we have so many fake veterans its enough to make you sick.
Most every day you seem them on the corner somewhere with a scrawled sign saying "Veteran, please help" usually they expand a bit more but just depends on how much they are seeking sympathy.
And while it might sound rude, you cannot help anyone who doesn't want help and doesn't want to improve themselves. A lot of these real veterans who are homeless have given up because its so hard to fight the system to get their entitlements. We need to fix the broken system and once fixed I would hope that there would be less homeless issues for veterans.