Blogs by Mr. Ed
Veteran Chronicles, Chapter 10
12/11/2004 6:05:09 AM
Changes at VA, Homeless Veterans
Jim Nicholson has been nominated as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, to replace the resigning Anthony J. Principi in this important post.
The Department of Veteran Affairs administers health care and retirement benefits for 26 million former members of the U.S. military. It operates hospitals, clinics, and benefit offices nationwide, and spends over $60 billion a year.
But this gigantic agency has been criticized recently for the amount of time it takes to process veteran claims, and for severe cutbacks in some services provided to our veterans.
Officials of the two biggest veteran organizations praised Principi for his years of dedication and service to the nation's veterans and their families, and for his efforts to improve the heavily stressed VA health care system.
They also noted that Nicholson would face major challenges to manage the government's second largest department and to get the funding necessary to provide the benefits required for veterans of past wars, and the growing number of service members being disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan.
John Summers, executive director of the American Legion's Washington office, said Principi "worked hard to do what was needed, sometimes under the handicap of insufficient funding for health care."
That praise was echoed by John Furgess, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Both organizations noted Principi's efforts to reduce the massive backlogs in processing claims for VA benefits and the long waits for treatment in VA health care facilities.
But they also pointed out that a lot more needed to be done, which would present major challenges to Nicholson, who has no record of managing an operation the size of the VA.
Homeless Veterans
U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are slowly beginning to show up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates fear they are the leading edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since the Vietnam era.
"When we already have people from Iraq on the streets, my God," said Linda Boone, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. "I have talked to enough (shelters) to know we are now getting them. It is happening, and this nation is not prepared for that."
Nearly 300,000 U.S. veterans are homeless on any given night, and almost half served during the Vietnam era, according to the Homeless Veterans Coalition, a consortium of community-based homeless-veteran service providers.
While some experts have questioned the degree to which mental trauma from combat causes homelessness, a large number of veterans live with the long-term effects of post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse, according to the coalition.
Some homeless-veteran advocates fear that similar combat experiences in Vietnam and Iraq mean that these first few homeless veterans from Iraq are the crest of a new wave.
Data from the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that as of last July, nearly 28,000 veterans from Iraq sought health care from the VA. One out of every five of these veterans was diagnosed with a mental disorder, according to the VA.
An Army study in the New England Journal of Medicine in July 2004 showed that 17 percent of service members returning from Iraq met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, or PTSD.
Veteran advocates say seeing homeless veterans from Iraq should cause some alarm. Around one-fourth of all homeless Americans are veterans, and more than 75 percent of them have some sort of mental or substance abuse problem, often PTSD, according to the Homeless Veterans Coalition.
More troubling, experts say, is that mental problems are emerging as a major casualty cluster, particularly from the war in Iraq where the enemy is basically everywhere and blends in with the civilian population, and death can come from any direction at any time.
Interviews and visits to homeless shelters around the Unites States show the number of homeless veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan so far is limited.
Of the last 7,500 homeless veterans served by the VA, 50 had served in Iraq. New Directions in West Los Angeles, says they are treating two homeless veterans from the Army's elite Ranger battalion at their location. U.S.VETS, the largest organization in the country dedicated to helping homeless veterans, found nine veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan in a quick survey of nine shelters.
Others, like the Maryland Center for Veterans Education and Training in Baltimore, said they do not currently have any veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan in their 170 beds set aside for emergency or transitional housing.
But Roslyn Hannibal-Booker, director of development at this Maryland veterans’ center said her organization has begun to get inquiries from veterans from Iraq and their worried families.
"We are preparing for Iraq," Hannibal-Booker said.
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