From War to Sleeping on the Street

On Friday afternoon, at two of the four corners at the intersection of 17th and K streets in downtown Washington, D.C., there was a street person asking for money. The two, both middle-aged men, one white and the other black, were war veterans, and declared so on posters and by calling out to some of the passersby. It is not a surprising vignette in the streets of the United States’ capital.

One of them is called Ben. He is around 40 years old and served eight years in the Army, split between the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In general, he is evasive and has little desire to tell his life story and the tragic journey that brought him to asking for money in the street. “War is never a good experience, nobody gives a shit about you,”* he spits when questioned about his experience. With a vacant stare, Ben explains that he attempted to turn to economic aid that the Department of Veterans Affairs offers, but that he realized “it wasn’t worth it” due to the excessive bureaucratic red tape that he expected. He finishes, “Most of us veterans with PTSD don’t have the patience to do it.”*

PTSD is the English acronym for post-traumatic stress disorder. Fifty percent of homeless veterans in the United States suffer from serious mental illnesses, according to data from the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), some without having served in combat. Seventy percent have substance abuse problems, either alcohol or drugs. Former soldiers make up 12 percent of total homeless adults in the nation. Among the male population, they represent 20 percent, and their poverty levels are higher than the average among more populated family units.

Ben is a couple of blocks from the White House and the headquarters of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and about seven blocks from the hotel where the NCHV closed its 17th annual meeting at noon on Friday. The star presenter that day was Eric Shinseki, who was still the secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs in the Obama administration at 1 o’clock Friday when he spoke, but was no longer so upon turning in his resignation in a meeting with the American president a few hours later. Shinseki, a four-star general with 38 years of experience in the Army, resigned as a victim of the scandal [that involves] the presumed death of 40 ex-servicemen while they were waiting to be seen at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Arizona.

Shinseki, whom nearly everyone at the meeting fell over themselves to praise, took advantage of his last public act to extol the programs implemented by his department since he assumed office in 2009 to improve the socioeconomic situation of former soldiers, a very venerated collective in American public opinion that is fought over by political parties. “Today, we better understand what factors contribute to homelessness: depression, insomnia, pain, substance use disorder and failed relationships. We can now begin to focus specific treatments to address each factor,” he asserted.

According to the official terminology, a homeless person in the U.S. is one who sleeps on the street or in shelters — in other words, who lacks their own housing. According to the estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, around 57,800 veterans are in that situation on any given night. In the entire U.S., there are some 22 million former soldiers out of a total population of 326 million people.

Although this is not a new problem, most major plans for combating this scourge have been launched in recent decades. The administration currently offers medical care to some 150,000 homeless veterans and economic assistance to some 40,000. At the same time, public-private partnerships have developed in order to grant housing which, according to NCHV, has contributed to reducing the number of homeless veterans by 70 percent since 2005. However, it is estimated that 1.4 million former soldiers run a risk of being homeless and falling into a downward spiral.

Undoubtedly, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade have had a clear effect on this tragedy and have placed it at the center of political debate as the number of suicides among former soldiers shoots up. According to the latest data available from 2010, some 12,700 homeless veterans had participated in those conflicts. Although it has climbed in recent years, the percentage of homeless young people (18-30 years old) only makes up 8.8 percent of the total. The majority, 41 percent, are people between 31 and 50 years old; sadly, as in many other spheres in the U.S., race is also a factor of inequality. Around 40 percent of homeless veterans are black or Hispanic, despite making up 10.4 percent and 3.4 percent of the ex-serviceman population, respectively.

A good number of the attendees for the three days of the NCHV meeting were persons, veterans or not, involved in associations of former soldiers or political leaders who were looking to make contacts and get to know the best practices for facing this challenge.

One of them was the photogenic Lester Abele (he served two years in the Vietnam War), who, dressed in military clothing, attended the forum in order to obtain loans from the government to be able to expand his veterans’ aid association, founded in the state of Ohio in 2005, throughout the United States. His association assists former soldiers in facing the abundant paperwork necessary to apply for some types of public aid. Abele receives a monthly benefit of $800 from the Department of Veterans Affairs for a minor chronic injury to the back, joined with another $1,200 from Social Security. Depending on the seriousness of the injury and other factors, the benefits range from $130 to $3,390 per month.

Another Vietnam veteran of 1 1/2 years, Darell Harbour, has another veterans’ aid program in Texas and attended the conference to learn the best practices, although some are intangible. “One of the biggest barriers to break is the pride that soldiers have after returning home. They’re afraid to ask for help,”* he said. In his case, he recalled, no one helped him prepare himself for returning to his civilian life. He criticized the fact that now, 40 years later, it is only done during a specific period [of soldier’s return home].

But although they may receive assistance of some kind, experts insist that the key is to continue [the support] — because a former soldier can collapse emotionally months or years after returning home. “Finding a job is not a problem, but how to help keep it,”* Brad Anderson, NCHV’s labor expert and presenter at one of the sessions, contended. “Having a job helps you improve your self-esteem, reinvest in your community and improve your safety net. But you can lose a job through psychological factors, substance abuse, or problems managing your life or health,”* he added. Although the figures are positive — as veterans’ unemployment rate is lower than the average — losing a job can rapidly lead to a descent into poverty and eventually to the loss of home. From what little Ben, the street person from the corner of 17th and K streets in Washington tells, it was only up until recently that he was still working.

*Editor’s note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.