Creating Homelessness in the Antelope Valley, Part 1
Speaking of veterans, there’s a guy named Joey Gallo, a disabled vet with three serious medical conditions. Up until recently, he was living on his own land, with his cat and dog, in a remote location in California’s Antelope Valley. Officials began to show up and order him to get rid of stuff — at first, trash and weeds. Next, it was a motor home they said he couldn’t keep. Then, they escalated their demands and made him demolish some sheds.
Finally, they came back and ordered him to tear down his home. You’ve heard of the Stand Down, an event where homeless veterans can get help. Adding outrageous insult to injury, one government minion presented him with a flyer giving the date and location of the next Stand Down — as if to say, “Welcome to your new life, loser.” Will Gallo’s next stop be Skid Row? If so, he may meet some neighbors there.
We have already offered (satiric) lessons on “How to Become Homeless.” One way is to be a resident of this high desert region which is, unfortunately, only an hour or so travel time from Los Angeles. The local administration is trying very hard to cause massive homelessness out there. The photo on this page gives an idea of the sparseness of the population in the high desert region. There might be half a mile between dwellings. Yet the authorities insist that anonymous neighbors are constantly making “eyesore” complaints about various structures and vehicles, many of which are only visible from the air.
Under the aegis of the L.A. Weekly, Mars Melnicoff devoted six weeks to investigating the horrifying situation, and accomplished what promises to be an award-winning piece of journalism, “L.A. County’s War on Desert Rats.” A message comes through loud and clear: the victims of the Antelope Valley Land Grab are living national treasures, the quintessence of all the qualities that made America great.
The writer shows how the rugged individualists at the hardscrabble butt-end of nowhere are being systematically removed from their homes for some murky, as-yet-unknown reason. It’s kind of like one of those “sweeps” of the homeless that cities do before the Olympics or the political convention. Except these folks are on their own land — or what used to be their land — so the process is taking just a bit longer.
Melnicoff says,
The government can define land on which residents have lived for years as ‘vacant’ if their cabins, homes and mobile homes are on parcels where the land use hasn’t been legally established. Some have been jailed for defying the officials in downtown Los Angeles, while others have lost their savings and belongings trying to meet the county’s ‘final zoning enforcement orders.’ Los Angeles County has left some residents, who appeared to be doing no harm, homeless.
Melnicoff tells their stories. Some are retired people, who thought they were finished with hard labor, and figured they had earned the right to enjoy the little corner of the world they had paid for and fixed up to their liking. She tells of people who live frugal, thrifty, minimalist lives, and sincerely practice recycling far beyond sorting trash into different-colored buckets.
They came here to get off the grid, practice “VONU,” make monumental art, race their dirt bikes, commune with the spirits of the ancestors, or whatever. That’s why people settle in environmentally inhospitable areas in the first place: they possess a fine willingness to trade the convenience and amenities of the city for the space and opportunity to do things their way. They are people who can’t afford lawyers when they’re being railroaded, hogtied, and hung out to dry. They came here to get away from the depredations of gang members, and ran afoul of a much more dangerous gang — the bureaucrats of Los Angeles County.
(To be continued.)
Source: “L.A. County’s Private Property War,” LA Weekly, 06/23/11
Image by AlishaV (Alisha Vargas), used under its Creative Commons license.
Brain Injury, Neglect, and Self-Destruction
When Andrea Ball recently wrote about Austin’s anti-homeless ordinance, a reader commented,
There is less sympathy for veterans as homeless. They were provided a job by the government, received training worth $thousand to $hundred thousands, have significant lifetime benefits and yet chose to make bad decisions. How much more investment in a specific individual is required?
Well… about that job training… many of the skills are not transferable. They are totally useless for any kind of a civilian career. Sure, a lot of vets come back and join up with the police, but how many SWAT teams can even an increasingly militarized police force use? As for the question about how much investment in one individual is required, the answer is: However much it takes to get the person functioning again.
ProPublica (Journalism in the Public Interest) did an exhaustive series called “Brain Wars: How the Military Is Failing Its Wounded.” Just reading the titles of some of the many articles, you get the gist:
‘More Than Half of Recent War Vets Treated by VA Are Struggling With Mental Health Problems’
‘New Survey: Few Troops Exposed to Bomb Blasts Are Screened For Concussion’
‘Critical Shortage of Army Neurologists for U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan’
‘Congress to Investigate Pentagon Decision to Deny Coverage for Brain Injured Troops’
‘Soldiers With Brain Trauma Denied Purple Hearts, Adding Insult to Injury’
So, we’ve got something like 8,000 veterans in Los Angeles who collectively own a chunk of prime downtown real estate, yet have nowhere to live. And maybe 150,000 disability claims coming in from the Vietnam-era vets, whose defoliant-related diseases were just last year recognized as also being service-related. And a new batch coming along, victims of the chemicals released into the air by burn pits.
A large number of these disabled veterans are either already homeless, or are destined to experience homelessness, and the resources to provide what they need just aren’t there. But, not to worry. Some former military personnel have been helping to keep the homeless vet statistics down, by the simple expedient of removing themselves from the population.
In The Austin Chronicle, Michael Ventura recently mused on a news headline that caught his eye. “About 18 veterans commit suicide on an average day,” it said. It costs half a million dollars a year to keep a soldier on the ground in one of the current wars. But when they get home — nothing. Or very little. Or, as in the case of the Vietnam vets whose problems are just now being addressed, too little too late. It usually takes more than four years for the Department of Veterans Affairs to settle a mental health claim. And the appeal process is even more hellish than the original application.
Ventura says,
In neglect, many end their sufferings at the rate of about 18 a day — a toll, in one year, roughly twice that of those who died in the Twin Towers. This is called a ‘war on terror’? It is a war that terrorizes our veterans at a terrible cost to their sanity and their lives… Has there ever been a war in which a country lost more troops at home and by their own hands than on the battlefield? Tens of billions of dollars are spent on new weapons development while the Veterans Benefits Administration is understaffed and underfunded. What words could adequately describe such a measure of disgrace?
Reactions?
Source: “Brain Wars: How the Military Is Failing Its Wounded,” ProPublica
Source: “Letters at 3AM: About 18 a Day,” The Austin Chronicle, 07/01/11
Image by timstock_NYC (Tim Stock), used under its Creative Commons license.
The No Sit/No Lie Ordinance and the Americans with Disabilities Act
First tangent: Really, at this moment, the thing to pay attention to is the upcoming Tax Day Action. So, hop over to that page to find out what part you can play in making the Universal Living Wage a reality. Then come on back here, okay?
Second tangent: Did you ever accidentally run across some little tidbit of news or information that just makes your day? Sometimes it even does more than that — sometimes it lifts the heart and gives hope for the future. For instance, Nicole Pariser, having completed a combined honors degree in Global Studies and Anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University, is now at York University, in Toronto. These words are from her Graduate Student Profile:
In broad terms, my research focuses on migration and mobility; who is allowed to move and who is not, and how these choices are justified, particularly by nation states to their citizenry… My research has primarily focused on human trafficking, however following experiences in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, as well as San Francisco, specifically relating to homelessness and the passage of ‘no-sit-no-lie’ policies, my research interests have expanded to include the ways in which migration and mobility come to be constrained not only across national borders, but within them as well… I believe… in the transformative power of engaged anthropology and activism to expose, contest and change that which is unjust.
Now back to our regularly scheduled post. We’ve talked about Austin’s No Sit/No Lie Ordinance before, but not in as much detail as the subject deserves. Here is the background. In 1989, Richard R. Troxell created House the Homeless (HtH) and began challenging the No Camping ordinance that criminalized the homeless for their economic circumstances by fining them $500 for sleeping outdoors. He is still fighting for change in the rules of that excellent Texas city.
Being especially appalled by the treatment of people experiencing homelessness who are also disabled, HtH strives to banish ignorance by collecting facts. As Richard testified to the Health & Human Services Committee of the City Council in July 2010, the HtH surveys found that nearly half of the homeless have medical (including psychological) conditions that make them need to sit down from time to time. Sometimes it’s the effect of their medication that makes them need to sit down, but they’re on medication because they have medical problems, so it amounts to the same thing. But there were no exceptions for this group of people, not even if they were on crutches or wearing a leg brace. Sitting around in public was good for a fine or a jail sentence.
HtH took the position that Austin was out of compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one of the federal laws that states really are supposed to observe. Also, the ADA is not the Americans with Physical Disabilities Act.
HtH garnered support from other organizations such as Mobile Loaves and Fishes; St. David’s Episcopal Church; Legal Aid for the Homeless; Advocacy, Inc.; and the National Coalition for the Homeless. They were asking for 20 exceptions to the harsh law, but the city would not consider any of them. Among those expected to stay on their feet at all times were people newly released from hospital treatment; people officially recognized as unable to work by the fact that they receive disability checks; patients waiting in line at health clinics; and disabled veterans. Particularly, the city seemed to target people with mental disabilities, who can be persecuted and prosecuted without very much complaint from the voting public. As Richard says,
…people suffering with mental health disorders are routinely treated with very powerful drugs that often cause them to become woozy and dizzy. They often have sunlight and heat sensitivity that depletes them of their energy and causes them to need to temporarily sit and rest.
A mentally ill, disabled person experiencing homelessness is particularly vulnerable to being punished for her or his condition. How does a person like this go to court and prove that they were, on a certain day, at a certain time, suffering from pain, weakness, nausea, faintness or dizziness? But the city insisted that the accused must “create an affirmative defense.” Richard met with various authorities, including the chief of police, but reports, “The Chief said that he simply did not want disabled homeless people sitting and lying down all over the city.”
So there you have it. You’d think the city was being invaded by commies or rabid biker gangs or Black Panthers or terroristic Islamists or interplanetary aliens. But no, it’s worse. It’s a bunch of people who are in the midst of being pretty badly beat up by life. And they have the gall to sit on the ground, or, worse yet, lie on the ground. That is the threat from which the police are happy to defend us.
Reactions?
Source: “Anthropology Graduate Student Profiles,” York University
Source: “Austin City Council Discriminates Against the Disabled,” housethehomeless.org, 01/19/11
Image by Kevin Wong (Marlith), used under its Creative Commons license.
Homeless Vets: Why We All Should Care
On Christmas weekend, Bob Woodruff of ABC News presented a report on homeless veterans, and cited the statistic that on any given day, 107,000 vets are homeless (including 9,000 from Iraq and Afghanistan). Women vets are homeless at twice the rate of men, proportionate to their total numbers. (Unfortunately, Woodruff repeats the old story of how Vietnam veterans were spat upon by civilians when they returned, an urban myth which Jerry Lembcke wrote an entire book to disprove, but these news guys keep perpetuating it anyway.)
Last time, we talked about the dispute over the exact number of people experiencing homelessness who are also military veterans. We understand that exactness in numbers is desirable for writing reports and apportioning tax dollars. Nobody here is anti-numbers. But it’s vital to remember that debating (or quibbling) over numbers can easily become an end in itself, and it can drain energy from our good intentions. We end up merely quantifying the world rather than changing it. We quoted Mary Cunningham of the Urban Institute, who said,
In general, it’s important to remember that there are far too many homeless who are veterans.
And there it is: Far. Too. Many. Thirty-three percent is too many, 23% is too many, 13% is too many, and 3% is too many.
Following are two messages for the two extreme types of Americans, and anybody else who is reading along can extrapolate themselves in between, wherever it’s appropriate.
Message #1 is for the enthusiastic patriot who fully endorses every military adventure the U.S. has ever involved itself in, who believes in maintaining military superiority and supporting the troops. This person is happy to know that U.S. military spending is more than the entire rest of the world combined.
Here’s the message: You, more than anybody, ought to be out there making sure the government keeps its promises to veterans. If you love seeing the red-white-&-blue flying over landscapes, how can you lose sight of the fact that these are the people who make it happen? Veterans are the ones who went to some miserable place and got wounded in various ways, and watched their friends fall victim to horrible fates. We won’t go into it all here, but the saying “War is hell” came into being for a reason.
So, never mind the yellow ribbons and the bumper stickers. Do something concrete. Support the troops by making sure they get everything they need once they are back in America. And that includes government recognition and acknowledgement of mysterious ailments caused by exposure to defoliants and depleted uranium, and whatever else was in the arsenal that was supposed to defeat the enemy, and defeated our own troops instead by making them sick.
People who are in favor of the military culture should not even need to be reminded that every veteran deserves the very best that the country can do for him or her. Now, the harder sell.
Message #2 is for the peace lovers who mistrust and resent every vestige of militarism. Here’s the message: It is possible to hate war and not hate veterans. Just because they wore a uniform, they do not deserve to be homeless pariahs. Some of them didn’t even go voluntarily. There are still Vietnam-era veterans around, including plenty of draftees.
People enlist for many different reasons. Some are idealists, whose beliefs about creating a good world are just as sincere as your own. Some joined up hoping for job training that would be applicable in civilian life, and weren’t taught anything except an obscure skill useful only to the military. Why blame them? They got screwed twice. No skill usable on the outside, plus they got so messed up, one way or another, that they couldn’t hold a job if somebody had offered them one.
Who knows what recruiters are promising these days, but there was a time when a stint in the military looked quite attractive to an awful lot of people, for a multitude of reasons. It might have been the only way out from an intolerable home situation. If a boy’s father made drill sergeants seem warm and cuddly by comparison, the Army was an acceptable escape. And to parentless kids who age out of group homes or foster care, in many cases the security offered by another institution, even the army, could look pretty good.
Whether or not one personally agrees, it is a fact that many a judge has offered a juvenile delinquent the choice between enlistment and jail. A lot of people ended up in the military that way. Not because they wanted to slaughter foreigners, but because they didn’t want to be locked up or acquire a criminal record. I knew a guy who joined up because his parents raided his college fund to buy his brother an expensive toy. That left the G. I. Bill as his only hope for pursuing higher education. He didn’t want to go kill babies. He wanted to get a degree.
Here’s one for the spiritual descendents of hippies and flower children. Often, the most gentle and tender-hearted of the recruits become the veterans with the most severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They couldn’t successfully be turned into the kind of people who can stomach doing the things that soldiers sometimes do. They came back and went all dysfunctional. They need treatment, and if they can’t get it, they at least need some compassion and a new pair of socks now and then. Anybody who cracked up because he or she didn’t “have what it takes” to enjoy being a professional soldier is a person worth saving.
Moving on to libertarians, the attitude about militarism varies, but one thing is clear: Since World War II, every conflict we’ve been involved in was undertaken without a constitutionally-mandated declaration of war. Still, it isn’t the veterans’ fault. Probably any libertarian would agree that any contract made by a government with a member of its armed services should definitely be lived up to by that government.
Currently, many libertarians are angry because the federal government is profiling Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as potential terrorists. No kidding. Here is Paul Joseph Watson on the subject:
The government seems to be obsessed with targeting disgruntled veterans with pre-crime and other unconstitutional forms of surveillance, demonization and harassment… The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Mind Machine Project… is primarily aimed at weeding out ‘troubled veterans’ who may be planning to commit terrorist bombings or political assassinations, by illegally wiretapping their phone calls and Internet communications in order to build psychological profiles.
No matter where you are on the political spectrum or what your feelings are about war and the military, every last American has sufficient reasons to be incensed about the homeless veterans, and ought to be.
Reactions?
Source: “Fighting Abroad, Homeless at Home — ABC News,” ABC News, 12/26/10
Source: “Spitting on the Troops: Old Myth, New Rumors,” VVAW.org
Source: “Veterans commission representative says one in three homeless men is a veteran,” PolitiFact.com, 01/10/11
Source: “Feds Use Pre-Crime To Target Disgruntled Veterans,” MilitantLibertarian.org, 10/01/10
Image by Basterous, used under its Creative Commons license.
Homeless Vets — Does It Matter How Many?
Of the total number of men experiencing homelessness in the United States, one out of three is a veteran. Ericka Walmsley of the Texas Veterans Commission gave this often-repeated statistic to a reporter in early December, and a controversy began.
The Austin American-Statesman has a regular column called PolitiFact, which is like Snopes.com without the humor. PolitiFact looks at claims made by journalists and government agencies (and promises made by politicians) and evaluates them, separating rhetoric from truth. In 2009, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, for its coverage of the 2008 election.
This particular column was meticulously researched and written by W. Gardner Selby, who consulted more than a dozen sources to determine where the one-in-three assertion came from. Selby’s conclusion:
Bottom line: Experts outside Texas agree the claim that one-third of homeless men are veterans is based on obsolete data, though some cautioned that it’s hard to pinpoint how many homeless men are veterans, and one sorting of the data appears to justify the claim. We rate the statement Barely True.
Ericka Walmsley’s source was HelpUSA, which based its figure on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) homelessness data gathered in 1996. Lawrence Cann of HelpUSA told Selby that it’s hard to tell because a lot of homeless veterans may not identify themselves as veterans when questioned by the volunteers who go out and count the homeless, and may not show up in the system in any other way if they don’t seek shelter or other services. Still, HelpUSA subsequently changed its webpage to read, “around one out of every four homeless men is a veteran.” Though, further down the page, it still says 30% (or about one in three.)
National Coalition for the Homeless director Neil Donovan told Selby his organization used the same HUD figures, and a January 2009 one-night “snapshot” revealed that of all the homeless people, sheltered or not, who could be contacted on that date, 13% were veterans. That number had previously been 15%. Donovan also noted that not many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have shown up in the homeless population yet because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder often takes years to fully manifest. So he’s suggesting that the number of homeless veterans in our future will indeed increase.
Of course, Selby also checked with HUD, the original source of the figures, and with Project CHALENG, whose report is available as a PDF file. According to CHALENG, in 1990, there were 27.5 million veterans (3 million of them poor), and 10 years later there were 23 million veterans (1.8 million of them poor), and…
[…] it does appear that a significant, long-term reduction in the numbers of homeless veterans has occurred.
A person could also interpret that as meaning there are fewer homeless veterans than 10 years ago because a lot of them have died in the meantime. This is not exactly the ideal way to make homelessness statistics go down. In December of 2010, the U.S. Secretary of veterans affairs estimated that there were 107,000 homeless veterans. After consulting Duncan McGhee, of the Texas Veterans Commission (where the statement that started this whole thing came from), Selby wrote,
Using U.S. Census Bureau statistics to extrapolate the percentage of males among veterans (93 percent), McGhee comes up with a figure of 99,720 homeless male veterans — slightly more than one-third of the total number of adult homeless people calculated from the January 2009 one-night survey.
So we’re back to approximately one-third again. Perhaps the most important quotation here came from Mary Cunningham of the Urban Institute, who told Selby that although the one-in-three figure might be outdated, all such numbers should be considered rough estimates, adding,
In general, it’s important to remember that there are far too many homeless who are veterans.
And that is the real bottom line.
Reactions?
Source: “Veterans commission representative says one in three homeless men is aveteran,” PolitiFact.com, 01/10/11
Source: “Veteran Services,” HelpUSA.com
Image by The National Guard, used under its Creative Commons license.
Veterans Seen as High Priority
At Stone Soup Station, we find an eloquent description of compassion fatigue, which anybody who helps the homeless is prone to. It’s written by Veteran’s Services Coordinator Steven Samra, who puts together Operation Stand Down Nashville. Here it is:
The rate of burnout for those of us in street outreach and case management is high, and a large part of the responsibility of this is vicarious trauma; that is, suffering trauma from hearing, feeling and dealing with the trauma of our clients, consumers, customers, fellow human beings. It takes its toll on the soul, the psyche and the spirit, chipping steadily away until one day you awaken with irreversible compassion fatigue and basically, you just can’t take any more trauma.
There is a good reason why the average person can benefit from hearing about this. The reason is, it enables us to realize what it means when we send in a check, or donate a pair of socks, or volunteer for a shift at the soup kitchen. See, we’re used to thinking, “I’m glad my donation could help that vet,” or, “It’s not much, but at least some homeless person got a meal.”
But there’s more to it than that. Every time we pitch in to help, even if the contribution seems small, keep this in mind, and don’t forget it. Our contribution doesn’t only help a person experiencing homelessness, or even a whole bunch of them. It also helps the people who do this work full-time. Every kind of social services worker, whether paid or volunteer, is a soldier at the front. They are in the line of fire, day after day, week after week.
Any little bit that we can help, it removes part of the burden from the people whose lives are immersed in helping. It takes some of the weight from a compassionate, hard-trying person who wants to hang in there but fears the approach of the breaking point.
Samra talks about the frustration of having to tell needy people that you just can’t do anything for them because the resources simply are not there. And even worse is knowing — absolutely without a doubt — that just a small amount of help could get this person’s life back on track.
Fortunately, now there is a program that looks promising, SSVF or Supportive Services for Veteran Families. The details are on the website, and there’s also a link to the same information in a PDF file. Here is what Steven Samra says about it:
I’m holding my breath and crossing my fingers that those holding the purse strings have finally figured out what those of us in the field have known for a long time now; help those folks before they are considered ‘chronically homeless’ and once they get back on their feet, just get outta their way…
Meanwhile, we learn from Alexandra Zavis that veterans are one of the major subgroups of people experiencing homelessness that the city of Los Angeles is determined to help. Government and private enterprise have gotten together and come up with a five-year plan. The chronically homeless and homeless veterans, two groups that have a large overlap factor, are the focus of this effort.
Their plan seems to involve reallocating existing funds, and that type of decision must be so hard to make. When there are only x dollars, who gets them? The person in worst shape, who has been suffering the longest? Or the person who is just on the verge of losing his or her dwelling place and belongings, and could be saved by the application of some ready cash? The word “reallocate” is a scary one. Reallocate from where? Being in charge of decisions like that could give you a pretty good case of burnout, too.
Looked at from one angle, there is sound economic common sense behind the decision to put $230 million into supportive housing for the most long-term and seemingly hopeless street people. As Zavis explains,
Although the chronically homeless make up just a quarter of the homeless population, they use up a disproportionate share of services, including beds in emergency shelters, hospitals and jails.
She quotes an official who says it is 40% cheaper to create supportive housing with treatment and counseling than to abandon the chronically homeless to the streets. Other cities have found this to be true. Hopefully, the tax dollars freed up will then provide more services to the other three-quarters of the homeless population.
As always, there are several sides to the issue. The most extreme form of the “housing-first” philosophy insists on just that, taking people as they are, getting them housed first, and then dealing with other problems such as alcoholism and drug addiction. The opponents would prefer that the clients clean up first, and show that they deserve housing. And a strong faction believes that veterans of our armed forces should be given any and every kind of help, immediately, unconditionally, and with no questions asked.
And, of course, as always and everywhere, Los Angeles would have to deal with the “Not In My Back Yard” problem, or NIMBYism. But that’s a post for another day.
Reactions?
Source: “Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) Program: Finally, “Sumthin Comin” To Those Who Need It NOW?,” Stone Soup Station, 12/03/10
Source: “Plan to house homeless vets and chronically homeless gains wide support,” LATimes.com, 12/02/10
Image by foxtongue (Jhane), used under its Creative Commons license.
Many Cities Observe Homelessness Awareness Week
Today, we’re looking around America to see what is being done in various cities about the National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. The news is encouraging. Many groups, both secular and faith-based, are taking on the responsibility for doing something useful to alleviate the growing problem of people experiencing homelessness. Here is a small sampling of what folks throughout the land are up to this week.
In Vero Beach, Florida, housed citizens take turns living in a car for 24 hours in a public place, while a local radio show broadcasts their reactions and sends out requests for donations to help the involuntary homeless, whose number in the area is estimated at 2,000. Volunteers staff 10 collection sites around the city to take contributions, and many businesses put on special events where part of the profit is donated.
In Pensacola, Florida, the main organizers for the Week are the Waterfront Rescue Mission and EscaRosa Coalition on the Homeless. Events there include food and clothing drives, a candlelight vigil, a prayer breakfast, a sale of art created by people experiencing homelessness, and the screening of a film called On the Edge.
On the opposite coast, in Portland, Oregon, a group called Human Solutions has opened its 60-bed Family Warming Center (it will be open for 12 hours every night), and also offers help with housing information and help with job hunting. Located at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, the Center is always looking for volunteers to help out in the recreation room with the evening activities leadership, and to mentor the children. Community members volunteer in the kitchen and, as always and everywhere, food donations are gratefully accepted.
In California, Project Homeless Connect holds an event in three towns (Hanford, Porterville, and Visalia), visited this year by close to 800 people in need of help. Actually, this is only a small portion of the activities of PHC. Machael Smith gives the background:
Created in 2004 in San Francisco, Project Homeless Connect is equal parts welcoming homeless neighbors into the life of the community, changing the way resources are accessed and achieving quantifiable results for people experiencing homelessness. The innovation has taken off like wildfire across the country as communities look for solutions to end homelessness. More than 330 events in 220 communities have taken place so far.
Thanks to the efforts of many volunteering agencies and individuals, clients receive an amazing array of services from haircuts and showers to vaccinations for their pets. The State Department of Motor Vehicles is on hand to issue ID cards for those who need them, and many other needs are also met, improving the lives of people of all ages.
In San Francisco, Craig Newmark himself (the founder of Craigslist) takes the time to publish an appeal for the sock drive sponsored by St. Anthony’s. This may sound like a small thing, but, as the article explains, people experiencing homelessness are rarely in a position to be able to do something as simple as take off their shoes, let alone wash any of their clothes. Clean, dry socks are rare, and a brand new pair of socks can seem like a luxury fit for a king.
This is a reminder to all of us that no matter how little we have, and regardless of how close to the edge we ourselves might be, there is still something we can do for a person who is even worse off. A pair of socks is not much to give, but it can be a bounteous gift to receive.
Meanwhile, down in Southern California, STANDUP FOR KIDS (SUFK) hosts a wine-tasting benefit to raise money toward the construction of a drop-in center and transitional housing facility for young people. Orange County, long regarded as a center of affluence, estimates that it contains an astonishing 26,000 homeless youth. And that’s only the kids. The SUFK organization concentrates on helping the young gain a foothold in society before they can slip too far into the hopeless situation of seeing homelessness as their only possible future.
From Evansville, Indiana, Richard Gootee reports that this is one of the many cities participating in the “Totes for Hope,” a program that provides tote bags and backpacks to homeless veterans.
Last but certainly not least, The Statesman carries a report from Andrea Ball on the doings in Austin, Texas, the center of operations of House the Homeless, and the site of the annual Homeless Sunrise Memorial Service.
Reactions?
Source: “HFC joins National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week,” TCPalm.com,10/04/10
Source: “Homeless Families Warming Center Opens…,” Chuck Currie, 11/04/10
Source: “Events urge awareness of hunger, homelessness,” pnj.com, 11/13/10
Source: “A day of hope offered to the homeless,” Visalia Times-Delta, 11/06/10
Source: “St. Anthony’s needs socks for homeless veterans,” San Francisco Chronicle, 11/09/10
Source: “‘STANDUP On The Vine’ To Benefit Local Orange County Homeless Youth,” San Francisco Chronicle, 11/03/10
Source: “‘Totes for Hope’ gives hand to local homeless veterans,” Evansville Courier & Press, 11/12/10
Source: “Who Are the Homeless?,” The Statesman, 11/15/10
Image by Elsie Esq. (Les Chatfield), used under its Creative Commons license.
A Book to Help Homeless Veterans
This is the official publication day for Looking Up at the Bottom Line: The Struggle for the Living Wage! by Richard R. Troxell, from Plain View Press. Troxell is in Philadelphia, visiting at the University of Pennsylvania, where the School of Social Policy & Practice is hosting a lecture and booksigning today only. If you’re in the area, it’s at 3601 Walnut St., University Sq., and the event is from 2:30 to 4 PM.
Looking Up at the Bottom Line is largely about veterans. How could it not be, when one-third of the people experiencing homelessness are veterans? Among the unhoused population, the military, as a profession, is woefully over-represented. The homeless vets are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones are dead.
Aaron Glantz, an investigative journalist, studied veterans in the state of California and reported in The Bay Citizen on an appalling situation. He says,
An analysis of official death certificates on file at the State Department of Public Health reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period.
To make a broad generalization, it looks like the after-effects of having been in the war are killing more service members than the actual war. To make another broad generalization, the government really needs to pay attention to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and take it seriously.
These guys come back from combat and just jump the track, becoming the poster children for self-destructiveness. Some die in motorcycle wrecks and car crashes, others OD or commit suicide in a variety of more direct ways. Glantz says,
Suicides represented approximately one in five deaths of young veterans, the data showed. Many other deaths resulted from risky behaviors that psychologists say are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
Glantz is the author of three books, including The War Comes Home: Washington’s Battle Against America’s Veterans. His recent report is replete with both cold, factual graphs dealing with statistics, and several human-interest stories of individual veterans.
Apparently, the government is not doing a good job on any level, from intervention all the way down to mere record-keeping. Glantz interviewed the director of Veterans for Common Sense, Paul Sullivan, who deplores the attitude shown by the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense. He told the reporter,
V.A. and D.O.D. appear to have a policy for veterans called ‘Don’t look, don’t find.’
The veterans who die of compulsive risk-taking behavior or outright suicide are called “stateside casualties,” and we can expect a lot more of them, partly because of the delayed impact peculiar to PTSD. Often, it takes a few years for the full effects of PTSD to develop. People can even seem fine… for a while.
Of course, this is nothing new. A vet named Daniel G. Dumas has gathered together some statistics on Vietnam veterans that are just as disheartening. Unfortunately, he doesn’t give the sources of his information, but makes such claims as, “The suicide rate for Vietnam vets is 86% higher than the national average of peers of the same age group.”
Probably nobody can really know these numbers, but there is no doubt that Vietnam veterans experienced unemployment, divorce, incarceration and homelessness at statistical rates out of proportion to their numbers. The claims about Vietnam vets have been contested, but the more careful analysis now being done of the fates of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans indicates that even the wildest guesses about their Vietnam war counterparts might not be too far off the mark.
Reactions?
Source: “After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge,” The Bay Citizen, 10/16/10
Source: “What is a Vietnam Veteran?,” CAPVeterans.com
Image by Tony the Misfit, used under its Creative Commons license.
For Veterans: Beds and Stand Downs
Out of all Americans currently experiencing homelessness, some say that one in four is a veteran. Richard R. Troxell says it’s more like one in three, going by the figures gleaned by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, namely, 28-33%. And, out of that number, more than half are black or Hispanic. So, on top of being a general societal problem, it’s also a race issue.
Despite the best efforts of those who want to help house the homeless, these statistics are rather difficult to keep track of. Many homeless people have learned from hard experience that it’s a good idea to steer clear of any official types, no matter how benign they appear. Some of these folks probably don’t even know themselves who or where they are.
This week, some homeless veterans are getting help, as journalist Melissa Murphy reports from the ninth annual Veterans Stand Down in Dixon, California. The three-day North Bay Stand Down is a yearly event that does its best to provide vets with medical and legal help, along with jackets, underwear, sleeping bags, hygiene kits, boots, and other tangible goods.
The clothing and equipment are either government surplus or bought with grant money. Personnel from Health and Social Services are present, as well as the representatives from Employment Development. Substance-abuse counselors and legal aid people are also available to provide help. A valid ID is always a handy thing to have, and the Department of Motor Vehicles is on hand to facilitate that.
Volunteers from Travis Air Force base set up tents to house the visitors and the various activities. Even live entertainment by the Timebandits is part of the package, along with showers and hot meals.
The organizers expect attendance from the 250 individuals who have registered, with probably another hundred arriving unannounced. Most participants are bused in from the five surrounding counties, and most are in their late forties or early fifties. Murphy interviewed Patrick Stasio, executive director of the Stand Down board, who said,
They come home and there is no wind down time for them. They’re physically here, but their mind is still in the combat area. It’s hard for them to adjust. They’re not the same person when they come home.
Back in August, Aaron Glantz of the New American Media wrote about another California Stand Down, this one in Pleasanton, on the grounds of the Alameda County Fair. Glantz has published two books on the Iraq war, and has collaborated with veterans on the book titled Winter soldier, Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. The Pleasanton event drew more than 400 Americans who needed help to turn their lives around, including a break from the legal system. Glantz wrote,
A group of veterans stayed in camouflage canvas tents, met with employment counselors and even made their case to superior court judges, who prescribed modest penalties in exchange for dropping charges related to failed appearances on old warrants. Such warrants often started as unpaid traffic tickets, but the charges escalated as they were ignored.
The reporter talked with a former burn-unit medic who had worked extensively with Vietnam veterans. After a prison term, he hooked up with the Homeless Veteran Rehabilitation Program, which he credits with saving his life. This man had just had his resumé typed, which was stored on a flash drive and tied around his neck on a string for safekeeping.
There are about 400 “transitional housing beds” available in California, which has an estimated 12,000 homeless veterans. That’s about 30 in need, for every one existing accommodation.
Earlier this month, Eric K. Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, announced nearly $42 million in government grant money, which is supposed to supply additional space. According to the press release,
The $41.9 million is broken into two categories. About $26.9 million will help renovate, rehabilitate or acquire space for 1,352 transitional housing beds. A second group of awards, valued at $15 million, will immediately fund 1,216 beds at existing transitional housing for homeless Veterans this year.
About half of all veterans on the streets had served during the Vietnam era, a particularly damaging war in terms of long-term psychological effects on its participants. When idealistic young people enlist, hoping to serve their country, they’re thinking a three- or four-year hitch. Some end up staying in for a full 20, but very, very few of our youth sign up expecting that the consequences of their stretch in the military will be lifelong, consigning them to wandering, hunger, and neglect.
And maybe it doesn’t have to be forever. It’s wonderful that caring people put together the Veterans Stand Down, but no matter how wonderful, it’s only a bandaid on a gaping societal wound. Richard R. Troxell believes the Universal Living Wage could fix that. Here’s looking forward to the day when there is no longer any need for the Veterans Stand Down.
Source: “Dixon ‘Stand Down’ draws homeless veterans in need,” Daily Democrat Online, 10/13/10
Source: “Standing Up for Homeless Vets at ‘Stand Downs’,” New American Media, 08/18/10
Source: “Secretary Shinseki Announces $41.9 Million to Help the Homeless,” Dept. of Government Affairs, 10/01/10
Image by yummyporky (Vera Yu and David Li), used under its Creative Commons license.
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