Homelessness Among Veterans
Homeless veterans have existed since the Peloponnesian War. A mental condition that many homeless veterans share is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which has also been known as shell shock, combat fatique, and during the Civil War, it was known as Soldier's Heart. The signature wound of Middle East conflicts in the 2000s is Traumatic Brain Injury, from which many homeless combat veterans are suffering.
Estimates of how many homeless veterans there currently are on the streets of the US vary because it is difficult to conduct a census of the homeless population. Dr. Jon Nachison, one of the original co-founders of the San Diego Stand Down, believes that "it's somewhere around 250,000." "Close to 40% of the homeless are veterans," according to Gary Parker, Program Director at VVSD (Veterans Village of San Diego). "With the influx of veterans coming back from the current conflicts, we expect those numbers to rise." Parker himself was a homeless veteran for a period of time and now works with homeless veterans who have committed to a one-year program onsite at the Veterans Village of San Diego, formerly known as Vietnam Veterans of San Diego.
Read more about this topic: National Coalition For Homeless Veterans
Famous quotes containing the word veterans:
“[Veterans] feel disappointed, not about the 1914-1918 war but about this war. They liked that war, it was a nice war, a real war a regular war, a commenced war and an ended war. It was a war, and veterans like a war to be a war. They do.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)