homeless vets

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Monday July 04, 2005 05:56

by juan wesley livingston - veterans helping homeless veterans

juan8w1 at bellsouth dot net

1609 co rd 81 prattville ala 36067

3343580695

we are located in prattvile alabama and we are just getting started we are trying to help the homeless vets in the surrounding area and around the world

like alot of the people involved with this i am a veteran and it hurts my heart wheni see our fellow vets with no place to calll home or sleeping in the streets , and or eating from the trash cans these are men and women who have served there country with honor and just for some reason couldnt seem to just blend back into their lives . we want to with your help of course provide them with an alternative which will consit of first getting them off the streets and getting them to the local va hospitals and providing them with a place to stay we have a building with a facility
capable of housing these vets until they are able to rejoin us as productive members od society along with the housing of these people we want to offer meals and rehab alot of people say what they want to do and preach about the homeless and walk around them when they see them or toss them change on the streets , and complain about them being on the streets in there towns beging for food or work we want to try and end this we understand it is not an over night process but with your help we can make it a day by day process when i got out of the service there was alot of support there for me when i got out but alot of people dont have that and for what ever reason they fall through the cracks and end up homeless for what ever reason noone choosesto be homeless they dont just wake up one day and say it loks like a good day to toss my life and beg for money or that trash looks mighty good i think i will eat from there for a while or i am gonna give up my bed and sleep under that bridge for a while we send millions overseas to aid in all kinds of support efforts all i ask is that you help us support an effort thats not quite so far away if you couldnt find a reason for doing so before think of all the people we have dieing over in iraq or the people that come home and dont go home but to walking the street becuae they cant cope or they cant seem to adjust or get along with there families so they abandon them and the service memeber doesnnt just become homeless so does his family ok i get passionate and log winded when it comes to somthing i believe is worth fighting for and if our people here are not worth fighting for or are in need of our help right here at home prove it to me when you walk by that guy asking for a quarter or the man you cant stand to look at because he is so dirty from sleeping on the street or smells becuae he cant afford a bath or clean up under a bridge and then i will agree with you . until then with open arms and a full heart we beaseach you . will you just stand by or will you join us or is it easier if they live thousand of miles away ??

our link is http://www.webspawner.com/users/juan8w1/index.html

if you feel led to aid us please do so you will not regret it and the person you help maybe related to you and , for some reason you cant reach them if they come to us your assistance will have a greater meaning ....

with love and a full heart i end this

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Homeless Iraq vets showing up at shelters

by Jon Glackin - Street Seen

Mon Jul 04, 2005 20:43

streetseen at hotmail dot co dot uk

07743275533

U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are 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 getting them. It is happening and this nation is not prepared for that."
"I drove off in my truck. I packed my stuff. I lived out of my truck for a while," Seabees Petty Officer Luis Arellano, 34, said in a telephone interview from a homeless shelter near March Air Force Base in California run by U.S.VETS, the largest organization in the country dedicated to helping homeless veterans.
Arellano said he lived out of his truck on and off for three months after returning from Iraq in September 2003. "One day you have a home and the next day you are on the streets," he said.
In Iraq, shrapnel nearly severed his left thumb. He still has trouble moving it and shrapnel "still comes out once in a while," Arellano said. He is left handed.
Arellano said he felt pushed out of the military too quickly after getting back from Iraq without medical attention he needed for his hand -- and as he would later learn, his mind.
"It was more of a rush. They put us in a warehouse for a while. They treated us like cattle," Arellano said about how the military treated him on his return to the United States.
"It is all about numbers. Instead of getting quality care, they were trying to get everybody demobilized during a certain time frame. If you had a problem, they said, 'Let the (Department of Veterans Affairs) take care of it.'"

The Pentagon has acknowledged some early problems and delays in treating soldiers returning from Iraq but says the situation has been fixed.
A gunner's mate for 16 years, Arellano said he adjusted after serving in the first Gulf War. But after returning from Iraq, depression drove him to leave his job at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He got divorced.
He said that after being quickly pushed out of the military, he could not get help from the VA because of long delays.
"I felt, as well as others (that the military said) 'We can't take care of you on active duty.' We had to sign an agreement that we would follow up with the VA," said Arellano.
"When we got there, the VA was totally full. They said, 'We'll call you.' But I developed depression."
He left his job and wandered for three months, sometimes living in his truck.

Nearly 300,000 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.

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