Here's a shocking statistic I ran across today, in some material online provided by the veterans' charity, Swords to Plowshares:
"It took an average of 9 years post deployment for Vietnam and prior era veterans to fall into homelessness. Today, Swords to Plowshares and our homeless veteran service colleagues throughout the nation are seeing an alarming influx of homeless OIF/OEF veterans, sometimes just months after separating from the military..."
As you can well imagine, the 9 years must have involved a steady deterioration of resources and ability to cope. Unfortunately, today the problem is taking place at an even more accelerated rate -- hence the need for more awareness and more care to be taken with the topic.
As the foundation says, "We prepared the following paper for the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans to help decipher why this new generation are becoming homeless so quickly in the hope that, by understanding the issues, we may prevent or at least mitigate the kind of long suffering our older clients have endured. The paper looks at bureaucratic, social, economic, and physical and mental health issues impacting our new veterans. It is up to us, as providers, as neighbors, and as citizens to prevent homelessness and truly support our military and veterans with the services and support they have earned." The link to the presentation, in PDF form, is here.
Editor's note: For more posts where we've covered the topic of homelessness and veterans with PTSD, click here, which takes you to an index of posts on that subject.
