http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080120/ap_on_...n_the_homefront

I see more and more recent return vets getting into the homeless "category"- some because the call up of the NG simply killed thier finances (they made more money here than in Iraq in the military, causing them to get very behind on bills and lose thier house) and mental illness and other disabilities causing them to either make bad choices or costing any chance of financial freedom.

Questions are simple:

1) Are we, as a nation, doing enough to help them?

2) Should the goverment help them? i.e.- the idea that vets don't deserve "welfare" any more than anyone else?

3) Should the debate be about the vets themselves lack of personal responsibility be injected here- similar to the "welfare mom" debate?

4) Do you think it is a real problem at all?

5) Do you think blame should be laid upon any goverment agency or official for this homelessness issue?

1.) Private non-profit agencies can be established, or volunteer time could be increased, but keeping the capitalistic streak predominate in most Americans: What's the point and where's the profit in that? Simply put: No.

2.) Veterans helped the government by bolstering its ideological agenda in every conflict or period of this nation's history. It is the responsibility of the government once they return stateside to care or help support those willing to pay the ultimate price.

3.) I really don't think that's fair. Soldiers knew/know the risks of wearing a uniform and they bravely do so. I view it as a large-scale extortion if the government fails to provide or support once they return home.

4.) Groups like this make it easy to believe. I think as time continues to go by with our continued occupation, we'll see it become a more difficult issue to swallow.

5.) You mean The Department of Veterans Affairs?

Are you saying it is the veteran's administration that is at fault here? If so, why?

Certainly. The agency set up to provide health care, burial and funeral services assistance, and a whole host of other advocacy services cannot possibly reach the increasing number of veterans entering their jurisdiction. Ideally, we'd have no need for an organization such as this, but if we're going to have one, we may as well ante up and provide funding for the VA to make a real difference and help provide housing as well as health care and other benefits.

Having had some dealings with the VA, and having a next door nieghbor who does work for the VA, I have to say, the VA is both underfunded and thier hands are sometimes held when they want to help, or rather, the civil servant, non-appointed staff want to help.

So, who is to blame for the VA's problems in this? The employees are only allowed a certain budget, and have legal and policy contraints from helping in many areas.

I understand we are looking at over a trillion dollars in health care costs for the life of these vets with major injuries. That isn't exactly going to be the VAs fault, is it?

Well, if you want to bypass agency specifics, we could target the federal government which takes the money in the first place used later to provide health services.

It's all rather roundabout, but yes, the blame doesn't lay with the agency since it doesn't control its own budget. My anti-big government half of the brain must've been taking a nap.

Okay- but in this case- I would say this is a very legitmate spending of goverment money and utilizing a goverment solutions- because, technically, these vets ARE goverment problems by definition- unless you are the "no goverment entity" type- in other words- privatizing the military, making it an all mercenary force? - hey, there are some libertarians that really do believe that to be a good thing- that is one reason we have a hard time gettin' our folks elected sometimes.

The last thing I want to do is give a profit motive to caring for our troops. Privatizing some things have been an abject failure and completely corrupt, and horribly worse- the private prison system is a great example. When you need to make a profit off of public safety- you have problems.

If you privatize the VA- thier main job will be to deny benefits, and would devout massive resources to denying benefits- just like an insurance companies.

Are you saying there is a non-goverment solution to helping out goverment employees injured while in the service of the goverment?

I'm not certain if the man in this link example even qualifies for VA benefits, actually. He wasn't injured while on duty and it sounds like he has been out more than two years. He seems to have some residual mental problems that weren't addressed before he left the service. I'm not sure he can claim post-tramatic stress after discharge. I know medical is a large reason military folks stay on until retirement...when you get out you and the family aren't covered, but it isn't feasible to expect the government to take care of someone his/her whole life because he/she served a couple of years in the military (unless he/she was permanently disabled or officially medically retired during that time). If he was disabled, he would get disability compensation, but that doesn't sound like it is the case here.

1) Are we, as a nation, doing enough to help them?
This is always a problem during wartime. Consider that about a million people have served at one time or another in Afghanistan or Iraq during the past few years. It's hard on military families, too, because the resources are pooled towards the battlefield and it takes a long while for the equilibrium to set in (more hands are hired and trained to compensate, but it takes years and funding for that often isn't available).

2) Should the goverment help them? i.e.- the idea that vets don't deserve "welfare" any more than anyone else?
Well, the government DOES help them. Veterans receive first dibs on federal jobs, the GI bill, home loans, and medical care if the problem is related to something that happened during servicetime. Military benefits aren't as good as other comparable government job benefits, but they aren't bad. It just isn't feasible, resource-wise, to take care of any and every person who ever served for a short time, for the rest of their natural lives.

This link is helpful. Seems fair enough to me.



4) Do you think it is a real problem at all?

Yes, it is a real problem. We should take care of those who serve this country....particularly those who have combat-related issues. But, honestly, I'm not sure of the solution in a case like the one presented in the opening post, or even the personal anecdotal scenarios. I can tell you that we, as a family, have encountered numerous financial hardships related to my husband's employment. We move roughly every year and a half. Anyone who moves knows what a financial burden a move is. It's incredibly costly, even thought the government pays for movers and packers. He is deployed/TDY often. Obviously this effects us financially...but this is his chosen occupation We know, and knew, the drawbacks so we weigh the costs/gains and try to deal with it.

The only thing I truly find reprehensible is when the government outright breaks promises to its Veterans and denies them compensation or benefits that were promised and often even paid for out of the Veteran's own pocket. That happened to my father twice, with both his medical coverage and my mother's future spousal coverage (which they had paid into for over twenty-five years, and had to continue to pay into to keep, as the covreage changed to 33 percent from 50, or something like that..)....and that really torqued me off. Veterans always do seem to get the shaft when its time to cut funding.

Edited to add: I reread the article and it says the VA gets $265 million annually on programs targeting homeless veterans. Last year 66 billion went into funding for weapons research and development. It wasn't wasted, they did come up with important products that saved lives on the battlefield, but by putting only one half of one percent of this money into the VA, it would more than double the amount for homeless VA funding. I think that might be a worthwhile re-apportionment.

According to this link, there are 7 states with a homeless veterans problem. As reported by CNN here, there are around 50,000 veterans in the US that are "chronically homeless." While each one of these is a tragedy, 50,000 out of a US population of 300,000,000 doesn't strike me as an epidemic. In Nevada, the homeless rate is 0.68% of the population. If you extrapolated that percentage to the entire USA, we would have more than two million homeless people. Now that would be an epidemic. Of course, the real number is around 200,000, as noted by the census department. Other than the study linked at the top of this article, I haven't seen anything that shows vets are more likely to be homeless.

Without seeing the raw data, I would guess that veterans and homeless are both more likely to be male and of a certain age range, and that this correlation would have something to do with it.



Let's just ballpark and guess that one-half of homeless vets get some kind of aid already outside the VA - shelters, welfare, etc. Why doesn't the VA just give $10,000 to the 25,000 homeless vets for them to pay rent and buy food? Seems like this would be more efficient than spending a quarter of a billion dollars to fund another government program.

I think I have a very unique perspective on this matter, being the son of a veteran and a part-timer myself.

Over the past 15 or so years (Clinton and GW admins), benefits for retirees have been perpetually scaled back and changed ad hoc. The same actions in the private sector would result in suit. Medical care is the best example for retirees. Consider that when my father went to Vietnam he assumed that he'd be able to get care in an Army hospital until he died. I actually remember seeing many retirees in the hospital when I grew up. No more- most of what they get is via Tri Care and has large co-pays like civilian insurance.

Think about it. If you worked for IBM for 26 or 27 years (I can't remember), retired, and all of a sudden the plan changed. What would happen? It would be in court for years. That can't happen with the federal government.

That being said, I wanted to establish that I do understand that benefits have been slashed and there are HUGE gaps. I think that it began with Clinton, and as much as I'd love to blame him no one ever reversed the trend. In fact, it's probably gone further down hill.

Ok- now, I will say unequivocally that a number of vets that I know believe wholeheartedly that they should be taken care of eternally... like their 3-6 year hitch gives them unfettered access to federal "care". It's absurd.

What REALLY happens in many soldiers cases is that they join the military right out of high school due their inability or indecisiveness to find gainful employment elsewhere. I've seen it a thousand times. They graduate HS, work at Quicky-Lube for a few months, and go to the Army/Marine Corp recruiter.

Ok- they do a 6 year hitch (or whatever) in the Corps. They were artillery Sgt's or Infantry Platoon leaders or something else seemingly important with a half way decent comp plan (considering their free housing, uniforms, mess hall priveledges, etc).

Now- they get out, and whammo- NOTHING HAS CHANGED. They're still just as "unmarketable" as before they joined. Unfortunately, I hate to admit it, but 90% + of military jobs don't equate to marketable skills. How many infantry men can go to Goldman Sachs (or wherever) and say that they can equate shooting things and/or people to real-world knowledge?

Ok- that being said, how many of your "Homeless Vets" fit into this description? How many can't make ends meet because nothing changed, excepting now they have their hand out to the government?

Something to note is that a large portion of people with ailments caused by war (loss of limb) are compensated by diability payments and have the ability to go to college for free, etc.

It's not perfect, and as I said, many DO fall through the cracks, but I wonder what that percentage really is. How many of veterans have issues caused by their service and not themselves?

Edited to add final note***-
I don't really have any sympathy for reservists/guard members. They knew what they were getting into when they signed on the line. Many of them received free educations, were overpaid for playing basketball on the weekends (*I've been there for this*), etc. They never complained then. All of a sudden the USA wants them to "anty up" and there's outrage. It's disgusting to me.

If the US wants to help reservists with income gaps, start a fund. Our church does things like this to the tune of $1M+ for things just like this. That's what we're there for. It's not the USMC's or Army's job to fill in the gaps.

I just went back and re-read the "homeless vets" article, and I think that some of these guys had a few problems before, during and after their service.
Sure, the guy was a pathetic drunk, but it's the ambulance job that put him over the edge. I thought reporters were supposed to be skeptical? Not when they have a axe to grind story to tell, I guess.

Well, the extra funding I'm suggesting would go towards a program that is already in place. I doubt that there is any easy way to "just distribute" a quarter of a billion federal dollars evenly the way you describe. The VA cannot just take some money and spend it as it wishes, these programs are apportioned through Congress during the budget approval process. They'd have to set up a new program to oversee that idea, and a lot of the money would get siphoned out in the process. I think just increased funding for a program that is already there would be more helpful.

Exactly, it is the responsibility of the Congress [sometimes Office of the Vice-President] to approve funding for federal agencies such as the VA. Nothing can be accomplished with the money in place despite the fact that other agencies in the government still manage to maintain a war and be in a defecit... That's neither here nor there.

If enough voices come together and shout loudly enough, proper management will emerge. It'll take time and perhaps this could be the impetus to approve more federal funding, though probably not under this current administration will it be done.

I'm familiar with the process for funding Cabinet departments; however, I have ask you -- Which federal department seeking to alleviate a social ill has achieved "proper management" in your view? "This administration" is not unique in its failure to cure the ills of mankind. I humbly propose direct financial grants to vets rather than creation or expansion of any program.

See, that would be acceptable; but since most people expect governmental favor towards retired servicemen in light of their service to protect the government, funding is the natural answer. But you're correct, throwing money at the problem never really solves anything. We've seen the wonders it works in Africa.

There are social scientists who argue [perhaps rightly so given the results in post-Katrina New Orleans] that direct grants get misappropriated as the iPod suddenly becomes a lot shiner than it was pre-grant. A case can be made both ways that one is as inefficient as the other.

1) Are we, as a nation, doing enough to help them?

2) Should the government help them? i.e. - the idea that vets don't deserve "welfare" any more than anyone else?

These two questions cut both ways. Clearly the Veterans Affairs Administration, like any other government agency, could stand some reform, streamlining and upgrading. And like other Americans, veterans aren’t unique in lack of financial and educational planning. Many vets don’t plan for next week much less next year.

Additionally, there are several categories of veterans, and a graduated scale of benefits and options that apply to each.
You have your joe that serves a hitch during peacetime and leaves service. The guy that does the same during combat but doesn’t enter the combat theater. The next guy who does enter theater. The guy who does any of the above and is injured or wounded. The guy who screws up and receives a Bad Conduct, General or Less Than Honorable discharge. The guy who serves but is medically retired. The guy who serves, but is forced out of service under the Qualitative Management Program. The guy who serves until retirement seeing no combat. The guy who retires who does see combat. The guy who upon retirement receives disability for a service related injury.

I’m not going to lie, I would have to crack open the Big Book O’Benefits to even grasp the intricacies of them all.

Speaking for the Army, there is a boatload of services available concerning education, medical, family and career transition benefits. This is an area I’m becoming quite familiar with, as I retire this fall. The Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP) offers a wide variety of counseling, classes, workshops and briefings.
The VA offers home loan guarantees, employment assistance, medical care to veterans who qualify, prescription drug benefits, vocational rehabilitation for disabled veterans, life insurance options, the Veterans Employment Opportunity Act [for employment preferences], online management for disabled and retired pay, and burial options to name a few.

The VA anticipates around 5.5 million veterans seeking medical care this year. In response, they have extended the hours of all clinics and has opened 38 new clinics nation-wide.

3) Should the debate be about the vets themselves lack of personal responsibility be injected here- similar to the "welfare mom" debate?

5) Do you think blame should be laid upon any government agency or official for this homelessness issue?

By and large I believe that most people end up in dire straits due to poor planning and poor decision making. I believe that tools should be offered to honorably discharged veterans when they leave service [as they are] and that they should be allowed to use these tools for life [currently not the case].

Yes, and it's not exactly a new idea. Note how the size of the welfare state has increased since 1964, the year this speech was delivered.



All the way back in 1964, one Ronald Wilson Reagan recognized how welfare was destroying the family, how government spending was out of control, and how financial aid doesn't really get to needy recipients without the government draining most of it for administration. So, it's not a new argument.

Link doesn’t work and I have heard there are none. Post article that gives names and places please.

You've "heard" there are no homeless veterans? Is that what you're saying? If so, wow.


- from the Department of Labor


- from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.

Maybe I misunderstood you. Because finding out about homeless vets is pretty darn easy on this here new-fangled internet thingy. But I couldn't find the names and specific street corners where these guys are, so it's probably - heck, it's most likely - that Bush's Labor Department, and these so-called homeless vet groups are all part of the vast liberal conspiracy.

Homelessness? In these here United States? Perish the thought!

Yes, there is a lot of work that could be done for these men and women. Many have severe mental distress that could in most cases be cured with the proper treatment. Medical attention is one of the very basest things we could do for these people, and the government has programs in place to do it. Private donations or increased state funding oftentimes has reduced the homeless situation.

To clarify – I meant the current war. Obviously we have homeless vets.

Ah. My apologies. Once again, a quick google search:





That do it for ya?

Homeless OEF/OIF Vets



On a somewhat related note...

When my dh was arriving in Iraq in August 2005, his unit was replacing a reserve unit from Louisiana. They were getting ready to leave Iraq at the end of September and were set to return home at the beginning of October. Of course, we all know what happened in September 2005 in Louisiana. DH was really troubled by just how many of the men and women who had been away for a year...anxious to go home and now had no homes of which to speak. He listened as they told him stories about not knowing where family members were and how to contact them...not knowing if they had a house or not. Granted, it's a bit of a different circumstance, but many of these men and women were indeed homeless for quite some time.

It was there for a week or two apparently before you joined the party. If you are going to come late to the game, do some research on your own, mmkay?

The Christian science monitor was the source for the original article posted on Yahoo. It was a lead story, BTW.

Do try to keep up.

Check out this story. Not all you read is real.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,328067,00.html

Um, what the hell does fox have to do with this debate?

And posting fox as a source is like using Bahgdad Bob as truthful commentary on the Iraq war.

Do try to keep up mmkay?

Um, what the hell does fox have to do with this debate?


You could try reading it – and the part where they admit there are no homeless Iraq vets in NY – naa don’t bother CR – might confuse you..

OH, so you are saying there are no homeless vets in the US from the Iraq war until now?

And, no, I will not bother to read a fox link or a freerepublic link- there are not reliable sites for anything useful.

I will not usually even open the site, much less read it- there is no point. If there is a reference to something as a first person author of some study- open it from the fox site and post that one- otherwise, Fox is a completely worthless site.

Who is this 'they' of which you are speaking? I read the article, three times in fact, and nowhere do I see anyone "admitting" there are no homeless vets in NY. I see the transcript of a video referring to O'Reilly saying there were no homeless vets in NY, but I frankly have no idea what this article has to do with whether or not these vets exist (and there are no 'facts' of which to speak in this article, unlike data from a link I posted above).

Color me confused.

As the only homeless vet on , I am uniquely qualified to answer.

Questions are simple:

1) Are we, as a nation, doing enough to help them?
Yes and no. As "a nation", we are doing more than enough in general. As individuals dealing with other particular individuals, sometimes we are not doing enough.

2) Should the goverment help them? i.e.- the idea that vets don't deserve "welfare" any more than anyone else?
Setting aside those who've suffered real injuries, no the gov't shouldn't help them. Individual Americans should. Looking to the government to help them is the same as saying "somebody should do something"...

3) Should the debate be about the vets themselves lack of personal responsibility be injected here- similar to the "welfare mom" debate? Yes. Many of the homeless vets lack personal responsibility, just like many welfare mom's. Others are truly the victims of transitory bad circumstances, and a very small number are long term, legitimate cases deserving of assistance.

4) Do you think it is a real problem at all?
A "real problem"? Yes, just not nearly of the scope that its being made out to be.

5) Do you think blame should be laid upon any goverment agency or official for this homelessness issue?
Generalized blame for encouraging a victim mentality, occasional particular blame for failing to respond appropriately in the aformentioned rare legitimate cases.

The philosophical argument made here against government assistance in general bothers me, because it is also an argument against individual charity. We hear talk of "victim mentality," how assistance makes people dependent, encourages a lack of personal responsibility. Well, if this is true, it would hold true for private charity as well, so... we may as well not have any assistance, public or private.

Question. What do you consider "real injuries?" Would PTSD count? When you say that "Many of the homeless vets lack personal responsibility," what exactly do you mean? How did you test this? How is that measured? What does it really even mean? Do they lack such responsibility because they are the inevitable product of the big bang playing out according to deterministic natural laws? Or are human beings born in a natural state of total responsibility?

You seem to want to base policy decisions on a philosophical principle which in 100,000 years of essential modern humans has never been answered. The problems of free will and determinism are no clearer today than they were in the days of Aristotle. And yet in your hefty analysis of the problem, you toss it all in as an aside, as a though it were some tested and true sure thing.

The numbers don't add up, though. Since the start of government-led assistance, the percentage of people in poverty has dropped significantly. Correlation is not causation, but there's a lot of correlating data there. Throughout the period when AFDC was in place - the bread and butter of what we generally call real welfare - the average stay on it was under two years. Only a very small percentage of welfare recipients were on longer than ten years, and even fewer longer than 20. One would think that, if this type of assistance caused dependence and lack of personal responsibility - whatever that is - that the average stay would be much longer.

And so for vets, what's different? I'm all for individual Americans lending a hand. But the end of that thinking is some community where none of the individuals choose to help those in need. Suddenly these folks are at the whims of whatever people they find themselves to be near. Government assistance is individual Americans deciding to help those in need using the tool of government, which is what government is for. We get together and decide we will pool our resources (taxes) to form an organization that will protect us. We decide to pool some resources to provide assistance for those in real poverty. Again, that is what our government is. Just a fancy tool for us to use.

Therein lies the argument from people like me that say it's best for people who feel the warm fuzzies to donate and provide if they so choose rather than the government stipulate it as mandatory. The argument has been made that sometimes social programs just don't work. I'm a huge fan of privatizing these programs because they shouldn't exist in the first place according to the strictest letter of the law. Let those who wish to comfort comfort and let those of us who want to roast on a spit for all eternity for not shelling out a percentage of annual income do so.

It is not an argument against individual charity, any more than yours is an argument for individual charity. It is an argument against most public charity because the inexorable dynamics of public charity drive it to consistently lower the bar of "need."

Why, that's easy. "real injuries" are those injuries that would move the compassion in my hear[t/b] to open [b]my wallet and spend my time and resources to help.

Sometimes.

All I can do in answering you here echo something I recently saw somewhere or other on the web....

You seem to want to base policy decisions on a philosophical principle which in 100,000 years of essential modern humans has never been answered. The problems of free will and determinism are no clearer today than they were in the days of Aristotle. And yet in your hefty analysis of the problem, you toss it all in as an aside, as a though it were some tested and true sure thing.

The key difference between how you and I seek to answer this question is that I choose to link the responsibility for answering the question with the responsibility for paying the freight. I believe that the person paying for the charity should be answering the question, you believe that it should be answered by a third party (in this instance a constellation of public charity functionaries) who bears no burden, and who often finds it personally beneficial to be as charitable as possible with Other People's Money.

Imposing, at the end of a gun, obligations upon other people, in the essence of tyranny. The best of motives does nothing to change that.

Oh, so what DOES the goverment spend money on that is allowable? Roads for instance? how about fire stations? Should business have any regulation at all, and should there be any fine on them when thier actions harm others?

Those that want to end charitable issues regarding goverment programs usually cry the loudest when it harms them as well.

I mean, let's end all social programs, entirely- where do you think that would lead? Do you think we would remain a free country? Do you think we would devolve into a third world country with armed camps holding off starving hoards?

Yup. Roads are the most efficient means for the postman to deliver the mail, and that's a Constitutionally authorized Federal function.

Sure, because fire stations protect the general welfare. Skeptical? Just ask Chicagoans about that crazy Irish lady's cow...

uh, what's that got to do with charity?


huh? Well, as the self-admitted only homeless vet here on , I guess I must be the unusual one.

Probably, but perhaps not. It really depends on whether or not enough people believe they are entitled to the fruits of other folks labor, and how vigourously the "other folks" are willing to contest the matter.

I doubt it. Before we had massive social programs, heck, before we had any, we didna look like your apocalyptic boogieman, so why should we devolve into one?

Still, CR, let's apply the same extremity factor to Quarkhead's formulation of the function of government. What is there that people do that they can't use government as a tool to address? Bad hair day? Government stylists will help you out. What about cleaning your house? There are gov't maids for that. Perhaps you are experiencing a spiritual crisis. Government gurus will point you to Nirvana. Oops, sorry, perhaps Valhalla? Darn, it can be such a bother matching the spiritually needy with the right guru, but hey, we'll just gather all the gurus together and have them follow you around, kinda like the Verizon Network crowd. We'll have the Hare Krishnas chant "we're from the government, and we're here to help"

Simple truth: Not every tool is a match for every task.