Veterans Zone We're not the only ones with veteran homeless problems

Discussion in 'Veterans Zone' started by Greywolf, Feb 10, 2016.

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  1. Greywolf Vet Zone Staff Alumni Founding Member

    ~See this video from the UK:



    There are follow on videos that say a great deal more - it's heartbreaking, but what can you do?

    What can we do in the USA? All of it is pointing towards a lack of rewards for those who "Wrote That Blank Check". But without them, where in all hell would we be?

    There needs to be a future for these people to prove to them and everyone that their sacrifice is worth it.

    I mean, what that guy is saying is right and comes from a depth of military culture much older than ours. That we must NEVER abandon our own - even afterwards

    USE ME
    TRASH ME
    LEAVE ME WITH NOTHING
    ~And then expect me to buy it when you thank me for my service...

    And new troops shall come from where, when people see the embarrassing conditions in which we are left?
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2016
    Greywolf, Feb 10, 2016
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  2. FTZ HAIC Staff Member Oregon Chapter Founding Member

    I was looking at stats after you brought this up and something struck me.... something very odd.

    It seems the numbers are being manipulated! I'm guessing most likely by bureaucrats who run homeless programs. They compare the numbers of the entire vet population (92% male) to the entire population (49% male). If we accounted for gender, and compared male vets to the male population, suddenly the numbers aren't really all that much different than the average person. I believe it might actually be lower for vets, but I haven't broken out the calculator. When you account for race, since minorities are over represented in veteran populations, and since minorities are more likely to be homeless.... then it seems that vets might even be under represented in homeless populations.

    Let me put this another way....

    Say someone said "veterans are more likely to die of heart attacks, something ought to be done!"
    Then you remember that veterans are more likely to be men, and men are more likely to die of heart attacks than women. That's when you realize the higher rate isn't because they are vets, it's because they are mostly men!

    So, vets are more likely to be homeless not because they are vets, but because they are mostly men, along with higher than average numbers of minorities.

    Does that make sense, the way I explained it? That's the way the numbers seem to work (roughly, I didn't sit down with pen and paper and work out the exact figures).

    To me this is good news, if means accounting for race and gender veterans are doing much better than a generation ago after Vietnam.
     
    FTZ HAIC, Feb 10, 2016
    #2

  3. Greywolf Vet Zone Staff Alumni Founding Member

    I wonder...

    Take a percentage of a target population, and compare them across - as in what percentage of (the group of all veterans) are homeless, compared to what percentage of (the group of all non-veterans) for a given country.

    Which do you suppose might be the smaller percentage?

    I'm inclined to think that most people who have had military training would strongly resist becoming homeless, because the mentality and training would predispose them to see homelessness as a personal defeat. You have to be smarter and in better shape physically than the average bear to even join up (at least in the USA), although there are countries where new troops are more or less rounded up off the streets.
     
    Greywolf, Feb 10, 2016
    #3

  4. FTZ HAIC Staff Member Oregon Chapter Founding Member

    I think part of that good news might be from what I just read: programs in the past several years have resulted in the number of homeless vets dropping 33% since 2010. That's phenomenal gains in the right direction. (LOL, Obama is actually trying to take credit for it!)

    But there still is an issue that hasn't gotten better... vets who are homeless tend to stay homeless longer. I wonder if that's due to a higher number suffering from mental illness brought on by PSTD. I have no answers, just observing from the outside looking in, conversations with the family and other family members since I'm not a vet myself.

    The country spends a boat load on the VA and other benefits, but I think there is so much abuse of the money plus bureaucracy and inefficiency.... good people get swallowed up in a bad system until they give up and just stop caring so much of the money gets wasted away. My mother fought tool and nail for my step-father's care especially his last couple of years, and by golly the VA gave it to him. But she had to keep on top of it. Sadly not everyone has someone who can to advocate for them when they are too sick to advocate for themselves. That's something I think places like the VFW and DVA could really help if they put their minds to it.
     
    FTZ HAIC, Feb 10, 2016
    #4

  5. Greywolf Vet Zone Staff Alumni Founding Member

    I will try very hard not to let my gonads muddy my comment here, but I had a good older friend who passed on not long ago who swore up and down that the VA was doing great things for him. When his place above my friends (his son) garage was cleaned out we found almost a full drugstore of things they had given him to treat all sorts of things - and what Don (my friend) remarked, and his wife too, was that he was healthy as a horse until he let the VA Docs have at him. It was almost as if he was being experimented on...

    As for mental illness, PTSD, and just plain social and mental disorders of all sorts - anyone who goes into the military no matter who they are, has to adjust to a lifestyle that is not truly reflective of what it is like in the civilian community around them.

    When you get out - a lot of times you just want to go and explore everything that you missed because you could not do many kinds of things. It's like a big red carpet was rolled out - but the money you had when you were on active duty is gone, and any savings dry up quick. You do not have, for example, a basic allowance for housing to live off of the base you were stationed at. What is called "COMMUTED RATIONS" goes away, which is an allowance to buy food if you don't eat at the local galley. And if you retire at twenty, whatever your basic pay was is cut in half. That's where I am at.

    1/2 of an E-6 basic with no allowances.


    For those who get out short of retirement of any kind, unless you got a medical discharge you have nothing but a handful of thanks. Disability is helpful in such circumstances. What's the old saying? Wish in one hand, poop in the other. Good question which hand fills up.

    Appreciation doesn't pay the bills...

    Getting up and standing up does, however. And if you can do that my position is that you should stay the course to begin with. It worked for me
     
    Greywolf, Feb 11, 2016
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  6. FTZ HAIC Staff Member Oregon Chapter Founding Member

    Out in 20, in their 40s, retirement pay for the rest of their lives, VA benefits, education benefits, mortgage loan advantages, military discounts, and a host of other benefits. Those who don't put in 20 come out with several benefits earned after only 2 years, which give them some real opportunity to kick start the rest of their lives. That's not mere verbal appreciation, that's the American public actually reaching into it's pockets, and it's a huge advantage (as it should be) over other Americans at the same age. Most vets go on to become thriving, productive members of society, on average out earning fellow Americans of the same age and having better than average health.

    Your friend's experience at the VA actually isn't all that much different than private medicine. There are a lot of deaths that occur under the care of a doctor which shouldn't happen. Question everything a doctor tells you... they are still human and prone to mistakes. In the past 10 years I've lost 3 friends to shoddy medical care, inexcusable things like too much morphine killing one of them.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
    FTZ HAIC, Feb 11, 2016
    #6

  7. Greywolf Vet Zone Staff Alumni Founding Member

    Sooo...

    I guess, why do we see so much about thousands of vets down on their luck? Is it inflated numbers to keep politically advantageous programs going, or are those big numbers the result of a much larger number who have just plain been in and out of the services over time? Another slant is that veterans aid programs are big business with gov't bennies of their own, sound real?

    And if a 20 year vet decided to just bum around, they could be a bum with a lifetime $400+ per week subsidy to keep them going in whatever style they liked.

    I've often thought about that, if I had ditched everything and maybe decided to travel with a band or something (given my electronics background) I bet I'd have been happier than Ozzy Osbourne...

    However, I have a thing about growing plants and sitting on my backside. You can't really have a garden if you're out on the road. :D
     
    Greywolf, Feb 12, 2016
    #7
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