SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Yet Another Alarm Sounded on Homeless Vets and PTSD. But, Who's Listening?
Nov 08, 2007
How many times do we need to hear an alarm? Once again, major studies are finding a swiftly growing number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and a coming tsunami.
One out of four homeless are veterans, and though there hasn't been a very comprehensive study of just Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA estimates at least 1500 homeless veterans of the current wars. I'll bet you everything I got that the number is significantly higher.
There are a number of wonderful groups doing all they can to find these veterans and get them into housing. But that's not enough. The real point to this tragedy is buried in the AP story:
"The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness - mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA."
The VA finds that, overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness. We know from previous studies that greater than 30 percent of Iraq veterans coming home have some PTSD. Those studies were done before third deployments and 15 month extensions. And, remember, sometimes PTSD takes years for manifest itself. So bank on the number with PTSD being higher by war's end and in years after.
And yet, the process for mental screening is deficient, as are the number of qualified people within the DoD and VA health systems to diagnose and treat PTSD. This doesn't even address the severe VA underfunding that simply keeps veterans from getting the care they need.
It was just reported this month that two VA hospitals in Florida were turning veterans away, because they couldn't deal with the load. The money crunch, as well, has the agency pinching pennies and setting the bar for PTSD, and full disability, very high. I had a soldier call me last year requesting a memorandum from an eyewitness officer from Iraq that could validate the soldier had in fact been in combat, despite the fact that the army had already concluded that this soldier was suffering from PTSD! These are the hurdles that are set up.
So, here's how it goes. A veteran goes to the VA, if they can get in, because something is just not right in their mind. Instead of PTSD, they're told they have "adjustment disorder" or a preexisting mental condition, neither of which allows them to collect disability. They don't get the right treatment, allowing their mental condition to worsen. They simply cannot hold down a job, they don't get disability, and, not surprisingly, they cannot afford a place to live and become homeless.
There is no blood test that can tell if you have PTSD. It's not a simple injury to find -- an injury to your psyche. And, until this administration gets serious about greater funding and a real strategy to deal with this coming tsunami, it doesn't matter how many wonderful charitable groups are out there, trying to find and house homeless veterans, because we'll just be dealing with the result -- homelessness -- rather than the root cause - PTSD.
Oh, and by the way, the president is vowing to veto the Labor-HHS bill which includes $3.4 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which provides mental health and suicide prevention services, and $23.6 million for the military veterans that comprise a quarter of America's homeless population in the Homeless Veterans Program.
The alarm is blaring, but who is listening?
Jon Soltz, is Co-Founder and Chair of VoteVets.org.
Copyright (c) 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
How many times do we need to hear an alarm? Once again, major studies are finding a swiftly growing number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and a coming tsunami.
One out of four homeless are veterans, and though there hasn't been a very comprehensive study of just Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA estimates at least 1500 homeless veterans of the current wars. I'll bet you everything I got that the number is significantly higher.
There are a number of wonderful groups doing all they can to find these veterans and get them into housing. But that's not enough. The real point to this tragedy is buried in the AP story:
"The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness - mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA."
The VA finds that, overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness. We know from previous studies that greater than 30 percent of Iraq veterans coming home have some PTSD. Those studies were done before third deployments and 15 month extensions. And, remember, sometimes PTSD takes years for manifest itself. So bank on the number with PTSD being higher by war's end and in years after.
And yet, the process for mental screening is deficient, as are the number of qualified people within the DoD and VA health systems to diagnose and treat PTSD. This doesn't even address the severe VA underfunding that simply keeps veterans from getting the care they need.
It was just reported this month that two VA hospitals in Florida were turning veterans away, because they couldn't deal with the load. The money crunch, as well, has the agency pinching pennies and setting the bar for PTSD, and full disability, very high. I had a soldier call me last year requesting a memorandum from an eyewitness officer from Iraq that could validate the soldier had in fact been in combat, despite the fact that the army had already concluded that this soldier was suffering from PTSD! These are the hurdles that are set up.
So, here's how it goes. A veteran goes to the VA, if they can get in, because something is just not right in their mind. Instead of PTSD, they're told they have "adjustment disorder" or a preexisting mental condition, neither of which allows them to collect disability. They don't get the right treatment, allowing their mental condition to worsen. They simply cannot hold down a job, they don't get disability, and, not surprisingly, they cannot afford a place to live and become homeless.
There is no blood test that can tell if you have PTSD. It's not a simple injury to find -- an injury to your psyche. And, until this administration gets serious about greater funding and a real strategy to deal with this coming tsunami, it doesn't matter how many wonderful charitable groups are out there, trying to find and house homeless veterans, because we'll just be dealing with the result -- homelessness -- rather than the root cause - PTSD.
Oh, and by the way, the president is vowing to veto the Labor-HHS bill which includes $3.4 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which provides mental health and suicide prevention services, and $23.6 million for the military veterans that comprise a quarter of America's homeless population in the Homeless Veterans Program.
The alarm is blaring, but who is listening?
Jon Soltz, is Co-Founder and Chair of VoteVets.org.
Copyright (c) 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
How many times do we need to hear an alarm? Once again, major studies are finding a swiftly growing number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and a coming tsunami.
One out of four homeless are veterans, and though there hasn't been a very comprehensive study of just Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the VA estimates at least 1500 homeless veterans of the current wars. I'll bet you everything I got that the number is significantly higher.
There are a number of wonderful groups doing all they can to find these veterans and get them into housing. But that's not enough. The real point to this tragedy is buried in the AP story:
"The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness - mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA."
The VA finds that, overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness. We know from previous studies that greater than 30 percent of Iraq veterans coming home have some PTSD. Those studies were done before third deployments and 15 month extensions. And, remember, sometimes PTSD takes years for manifest itself. So bank on the number with PTSD being higher by war's end and in years after.
And yet, the process for mental screening is deficient, as are the number of qualified people within the DoD and VA health systems to diagnose and treat PTSD. This doesn't even address the severe VA underfunding that simply keeps veterans from getting the care they need.
It was just reported this month that two VA hospitals in Florida were turning veterans away, because they couldn't deal with the load. The money crunch, as well, has the agency pinching pennies and setting the bar for PTSD, and full disability, very high. I had a soldier call me last year requesting a memorandum from an eyewitness officer from Iraq that could validate the soldier had in fact been in combat, despite the fact that the army had already concluded that this soldier was suffering from PTSD! These are the hurdles that are set up.
So, here's how it goes. A veteran goes to the VA, if they can get in, because something is just not right in their mind. Instead of PTSD, they're told they have "adjustment disorder" or a preexisting mental condition, neither of which allows them to collect disability. They don't get the right treatment, allowing their mental condition to worsen. They simply cannot hold down a job, they don't get disability, and, not surprisingly, they cannot afford a place to live and become homeless.
There is no blood test that can tell if you have PTSD. It's not a simple injury to find -- an injury to your psyche. And, until this administration gets serious about greater funding and a real strategy to deal with this coming tsunami, it doesn't matter how many wonderful charitable groups are out there, trying to find and house homeless veterans, because we'll just be dealing with the result -- homelessness -- rather than the root cause - PTSD.
Oh, and by the way, the president is vowing to veto the Labor-HHS bill which includes $3.4 billion for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which provides mental health and suicide prevention services, and $23.6 million for the military veterans that comprise a quarter of America's homeless population in the Homeless Veterans Program.
The alarm is blaring, but who is listening?
Jon Soltz, is Co-Founder and Chair of VoteVets.org.
Copyright (c) 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.