Imagine this: you have just served five years in the military. You listened to your superiors, you always worked hard, and you fought bravely in protection of your country. While you were overseas, you were faced with many hard days. You worked yourself to the brink of exhaustion and then continued to work even more.
After fighting for your country, imagine coming home with a possibility of either traumatic brain injuries or post traumatic stress disorder. You will also be coming home with an added likelihood that you may be homeless in the next few years. Should the people who risk their lives for us every day really be subjected to these grim odds?
Homelessness in the Veteran community is a serious problem that can be overshadowed easily. It is hard to think of brave soldiers living on the streets and struggling to survive, but to help them, we need to educate ourselves on this problem.
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Veterans are at a higher risk to experience homelessness than regular people. Of all homeless people in America, veterans make up about a third of the homeless population. Of these people, about seventy percent of them suffer from substance-abuse issues and about forty-five percent of them are plagued with mental illnesses, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
With this information, we have discovered that the number of homeless veterans who served in the Vietnam War, is greater than the number of veterans who died in the Vietnam War.
I think that as a community, if people band together and recognize that there is a problem, they will be able to take more steps to solve it.
There are lots of ways that you can try to help homeless veterans get back on their feet. You can raise money and awareness by fundraisers or dedicate a week of church collection money to a nonprofit charity that helps veterans. You can talk about the growing rate of homelessness in the veteran communities at your local memorial or veteran’s day programs and encourage people to donate to the cause.
If you want to take further steps to get involved, you can contact veteran and homeless organizations near you and see what steps you can take to help give back to veterans. Volunteering for an organization could include filling out paperwork to finding homeless veterans on the street and anything in between. Any help is appreciated.
The last step is to get involved with your government and contact your leaders about the problem of homeless veterans. Call, email, or write to officials and inform them about the harrowing statistics that our brave veterans must face once they come back home.
With these steps, America will be able to fight for those who fought for America. It has been said: No one who fights for this country, should have to fight for a job, a roof over their heads, and the care they need when they come home.
