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Gov't focuses on homeless veterans
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Bill Radke: Tomorrow is Veterans Day. And tonight, like every night, an estimated 130,000 vets won't have a place to live. About a third of all homeless men once served in the military. In Washington today, a Senate housing subcommittee will focus on ways to help. Marketplace's John Dimsdale reports.
John Dimsdale: The number of homeless veterans has been coming down over the past five years. But the Veterans Affairs Department is worried the improvements will vanish in an economy with double-digit unemployment, and with more soldiers returning from war. Next year, the VA will spend over $3 billion on programs to reduce homelessness, including mental health treatments, college-degree programs, more subsidized housing and small-business loans for veteran-owned enterprises.
JOHN ROWAN: Unfortunately when we came around in the Vietnam era, we didn't have any of that.
John Rowan is president of the Vietnam Veterans of America. He's optimistic the VA can reach its goal of ending veterans' homelessness in five years.
ROWAN: If they do the right thing by the newer veterans, dealing with their post-traumatic stress disorder, they can get them in good enough shape to take care of themselves.
Yesterday the White House announced a government-wide effort to help vets identify job opportunities and reintegrate into civilian society.
In Washington I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
Observing all the cardboard placards displaying "Vietnam Vet" at intersections, they certainly seem to be a distraught lot. I can truly see how the atrocities I have only heard about in that era could give them mental problems. Lucky for me I saw no combat just prior to that era. Experiencing military obedience to point of killing innocents, killing soldiers of the enemy face to face and certainly maltreatment in concentration camps has got to create mental problems perhaps that won't go away. War is a bad idea, but soldiers are trained to kill...nothing new in history, and so is mental illness. Most soldiers who experienced deep combat, don't talk about it. There is good reason. I don't think those panhandling veterans ever do get over it. World governments always use war to achieve domination, under the guise of liberation and freedom. It's not working. Most of the casualties are on the streets with no food, money, warmth or hope.
