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Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that nearly 40,000 veterans are homeless.

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It's hard to imagine someone who served our country in the military living on the streets. Unfortunately, for many veterans, homelessness is a sad reality. Although there's no official count, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that nearly 40,000 veterans are homeless.

One of the biggest contributing factors to homelessness among the veteran population is post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

What Is PTSD?

Living as a homeless veteran is hard enough. Add in the struggles of PTSD, and it takes the situation to a whole different level.

PTSD can affect anyone who's experienced a traumatic situation, even if they're not in the military. However, because traumatic situations can be commonplace in war zones, it affects military members disproportionately.

PTSD triggers a person's "flight-or-flight" response in a situation that doesn't necessarily require it. To be officially diagnosed with PTSD, a veteran will experience the following symptoms for at least one month:

At least one avoidance symptom. Avoidance symptoms stem from the affected veteran wanting to stay away from places, events or objects that remind them of the traumatic experience, as well as avoiding thoughts or feeling related to it. So, a veteran may avoid talking about war or may steer clear of people who served in the military altogether because being around other veterans brings back bad memories.

At least one re-experiencing symptom. Re-experiencing symptoms are quite like they sound-flashbacks, which include physical symptoms such as sweating or elevated heart rate, bad dreams and frightening thoughts. A veteran with PTSD may feel in immediate danger even when no actual threat is present.

At least two cognitions and mood symptoms. Cognitions and mood symptoms mean that the affected person has negative feelings, both about themselves and the world around them, feelings of guilt or blame and has trouble remembering key parts of the event that caused PTSD.

At least two arousal and reactivity symptoms. Arousal and reactivity symptoms, which are often constant, include startling easily, feeling tense, sleeping issues and having angry outbursts.

PTSD is often accompanied by other mental illnesses. Common comorbid conditions include depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.

Why Veterans With PTSD Become Homeless

Researchers estimate that between 11 and 20 percent of veterans who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom struggle with PTSD. Additionally, an estimated 12 percent of Gulf War veterans experience PTSD, while approximately 30 percent of Vietnam veterans have experienced PTSD in their lifetime.

A study published in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research found that two-thirds of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have PTSD, which is significantly higher than homeless veterans who served in previous wars.

Many of these veterans with PTSD didn't receive adequate treatment to help them deal with the traumatic events they witnessed in the military. Consequently, they struggle to maintain jobs and have difficulty finding things in common with their friends and families.

When veterans are discharged from the military, many of them struggle to fit back in with civilian life. Research shows veterans' lack of support and social isolation contributes to homelessness among veterans with PTSD.

A Profile of Homeless Veterans

The VA estimates that approximately 11 percent of homeless people are veterans. Additionally, homeless veterans are nearly entirely male; just 9 percent of homeless veterans are female.

These veterans don't come from any one particular war zone. Among them, homeless veterans served in wars ranging from World War II to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in the military's anti-drug efforts in South America, says the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV).

What's Being Done to Help Homeless Veterans

Many people assume the VA and other federal government departments are taking care of veterans when they leave the military. The VA does have a specialized homelessness program for veterans that provides health care to nearly 150,000 while more than 40,000 homeless veterans receive some sort of monthly compensation or pension, notes the NCHV.

Additionally, the department has secured more than 45,000 beds for homeless veterans across the United States. For example, a joint program between the VA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded more than 85,000 Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers to Public Housing Authorities across the country since 2008.

In 2012, the VA introduced the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) with the goal of both preventing homeless veterans and finding housing for those who do experience homelessness.

In 2015, this service helped more than 157,000 people, including 99,000 veterans and 34,000 children, with just 9.4 percent returning to homelessness after benefits expired.

However, when a veteran also experiences PTSD and other issues, whether it's substance abuse or additional mental illnesses, they don't always seek out the aid they need-nor is there enough aid to meet demand.

That's why there are community-based organizations that aim to meet the needs of homeless veterans-more than 2,100 of them across the country. The groups do what they can to work in collaboration with governmental agencies, veteran service organizations, and other homeless aid groups.

NCHV notes that the most effective programs are those that allow for transitional housing for the veteran that's both structured and substance-free-the ideal solution for all veterans struggling to return to a normal life.

How to Help a Homeless Veteran

If you know of a homeless veteran, you can contact your local VA Medical Center. Trained staff can offer information about resources available in your community and the steps you might take to help someone.

While you can't force someone to get help (as long as the person is competent), sharing resources or alerting a professional to the situation may be a step in the right direction.

Notifying staff at your VA center of the situation is important. Some centers provide outreach workers who can meet with homeless veterans on the streets to provide them with urgent medical care or to inform them of housing assistance or treatment options for mental health or substance abuse issues.

Thanks for your feedback!

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Other Inaccurate Hard to Understand

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Why PTSD Increases the Risk of Homelessness Among Veterans

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It's hard to imagine someone who served our country in the military living on the streets. Unfortunately, for many veterans, homelessness is a sad reality. Although there's no official count, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that nearly 40,000 veterans are homeless.

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This is about a family that almost couldn't be together because there is male homeless shelter and a female homeless shelter.

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So how do we get out from under the bridge? Brian Albrecht's July 26th article about the homeless couple living under a bridge was a poignant reminder that our community safety net still has large holes. [more]

Faced with a lack of employment, a landlord who defaulted on his mortgage and a criminal history this couple is forced to live under a bridge. Men's shelters are for men, women's shelters are for women and there are no shelters for married couples. With no home their chances of employment are slim.

There are ways however for couples like this to restore there lives and become self-sufficient. The public should be aware of the tremendous, progressive, and successful efforts to get families out from under bridges, off the streets and out of shelters into homes of their own. These efforts need to be highlighted and supported.

How many of us are aware of the HOUSINGfirst initiative? The solution to homelessness is so painfully obvious that it has been overlooked for years. The first step out of homelessness is housing; not treatment, not employment, not rehabilitation, but housing. All the other steps to self-sufficiency rest on the platform called "home." Housing First recognizes this essential truth and works to place homeless persons in a home of their own as a first step in addressing other barriers to self-sufficiency they face.

These programs are successful and have been so for years. Housing First initiatives and similar model programs helped to reduce family homelessness in Columbus by 40% from 1995 to 2004. In four years Hennepin County, Minnesota reduced the family homeless population by 43%. In New York family homelessness dropped 19% over three years.

Fortunately Cleveland is not far behind. There has been, for years, wide spread efforts to end homelessness in our own County. Our own Housing First initiative has provided over 225 permanent supportive housing units for chronically homeless persons in the last several years and hundreds more are in process. These housing solutions provide a way out for long-term residents of shelters and the streets.

This housing is modest, attractive, safe, humane, and dignified. There is another benefit to such human treatment of our fellow human beings; this housing is less expensive than the alternatives. A study of a similar program in Portland, Oregon demonstrated that the costs of shelter, outpatient health care, emergency rooms, jails, and police services averaged $42,000 of public resources each year. Once housed the total public resource burden, including the housing provided, dropped to $26,000 per year. They were able to provide a humane dignified housing solution, reduce the population living on the streets and save $16,000 per year, per person, in the process.

The same efforts are under way here in Cleveland; the same cost savings are possible and the agencies involved are a model of collaboration. Our Housing First initiative is collaboration among: The Enterprise Foundation, Sisters of Charity Foundation, Mental Health Services, Emerald Development & Economic Network, Famicos Foundation, Cleveland Housing Network, the Office of Homeless Services, and others.

Here at the West Side Catholic Center we have served the materially poor in our community for over 30 years and have always recognized the need for housing. Our recently launched, "Zacchaeus Housing Solutions" project, begun in partnership with the Community West Foundation is today providing homes for 118 previously homeless men, women and children. We witnessed what our comrades were able to accomplish with the Housing First initiative and joined in the battle. We urge others to do so as well.

If you want to learn more about any of these programs, or how you can help, contact any of the agencies listed above or email me at gskoch@wscccenter.org If you are interested in learning more about the tremendous potential of these housing solutions the National Alliance to End Homelessness web-site is a great resource: www.endhomelessness.org

It is a biblical truth that the poor will be with us always, but homelessness is a solvable problem. Other cities have made remarkable progress in doing just that and Cleveland needs to broaden its efforts so no one needs to live under a bridge again.

Gerald Skoch
Executive Director
West Side Catholic Center
3135 Lorain Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44113
216-631-4741
gskoch@wscccenter.org

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Story: Op-Ed Article - Homelessness | The Business Of Good

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So how do we get out from under the bridge? Brian Albrecht's July 26th article about the homeless couple living under a bridge was a poignant reminder that our community safety net still has large holes. [more] Faced with a lack of employment, a landlord who defaulted on his mortgage and a criminal history this couple is forced to live under a bridge.

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This is my Viewpoint article. This article is probably one of the best articles on my padlet. https://www.quora.com/Can-smart-people-become-homeless

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This article is my reference article. It shows how much homelessness grew over the years. .

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Homelessness Homelessness is an endemic social problem in the United States, with approximately 643,000 people now living without a place to call home on any given night. Over the course of a year, the number of people residing in emergency shelter and transitional housing exceeds 1.5 million. More than one

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This is the counterclaim which is a good article. It is there fault that they are homeless because they didn't do their own work.

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Some think that the homeless should stay on the streets because their just bums who cant hold down a job. But most jobs rather not have a homeless employee. But that is always not the case

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They seem to be almost everywhere, in places old and new, no age spared. Sleeping on cardboard or bare ground, the homeless come together under bridges and tree s, their belongings in plastic bags symbolising lives on the move.

Many have arrived on the streets just recently, victims of the same prosperity that has transformed cities across the US West Coast. As officials struggle to respond to this growing crisis, some say things are likely to get worse.

Vibrant Portland, Oregon's largest city, has long lured many. It is the City of Roses, of pleasant climate, rich culture and progressive thinking. It is also an innovation hub, part of what is called Silicon Forest, and new residents have moved here in these post-recession years attracted by its high-tech companies and their well-paid jobs.

But the bonanza, unsurprisingly, has not come to everyone.

Booming demand in an area with limited housing offers quickly drove the cost of living up, and those who were financially on the limit lost the ability they once had to afford a place.

Many were rescued by family and friends, or government programmes and non-profit groups. Others, however, ended up homeless. The lucky ones have found space in public shelters. Not a few are now in tents and vehicles on the streets.

"Even though the economy has never been stronger," Mayor Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, said, "inequality [is] growing at an alarming rate and the benefits from a [growing] economy are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands... We have increasing disparity all across the United States, and that's definitely impacting people."

His city is indeed not alone. Homelessness has increased in other thriving West Coast cities that are destinations for young, well-educated workers, like San Francisco and Seattle, where the blame has also largely fallen on rapidly rising costs and evictions.

Joseph Gordon, known as Tequila, has lived in a homeless camp called Hazelnut Grove since its creation in 2015, when Portland first declared a state of emergency over the crisis. "It's very scary. [The] people I have come across," said the 37-year-old, "are from every single walk of life. And the homeless population is getting bigger and bigger."

Tequila arrived from Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2011 and said they (Tequila is a transgender man and asks to be referred by this pronoun) became homeless after losing the apartment they shared with a former violent partner.

"Being out on the street you deal with all sorts of things [like] having to relax with living with rats. You also start to appreciate running water or when you can go to the bathroom anytime you want," said Tequila. (People usually thought Tequila was Mexican because of the colour of their skin, and the nickname was in reference to Jose Cuervo, the tequila brand.)

The self-governed community of small wooden structures next to a highway had more than a dozen residents, half of them with some sort of income, Tequila said. "If there was access to actual affordable housing they would take it."

In Portland, the rent of a one-bed flat is, on average, $1,136 (£867), which is out of reach for those who rely on Social Security cheques, topped at $735 locally, or earn the minimum wage, $12 per hour. (Officials said half of the 1,300 units to be created would be reserved to those with extremely low income.)

"We have a housing market that's really unaffordable for folks at the lowest income level," said Shannon Singleton, Executive Director of Join, a charity that helps homeless people return to permanent housing. "There's a real lack of hope. Folks are struggling to see the ability to end their homelessness and get back in the [market]."

Homelessness, in Portland and beyond, seems to be more visible than ever. Residents are growing frustrated with the smell of urine, human faeces and abandoned objects littering public spaces and, sometimes, their own doorsteps. In certain places, there is the feeling that this is a fight being lost.

But this is a crisis long in the making. Cuts by the federal government to affordable housing programmes and mental health facilities in the last few decades helped send many to the streets nationwide, officials and service providers said, as local authorities were unable to fill the gaps. The current affordability problem is now adding to it.

The future, he warned in an interview, did not look promising. "The federal government's policies under this administration have been to cut back, as much as possible, on various housing benefits and I think the worst is probably yet to come."

Other rich countries have faced rising homelessness, too, as the most vulnerable feel the burden of austerity policies, rising costs and unemployment. But in most parts of Europe, for example, there was still a "robust welfare safety net", Mr Alston said, to help those at risk. "In essence, if you're in Europe, you get access to necessary health care, psychological, physical rehabilitation... That contrasts dramatically with the US."

"People are simply trying to survive and they don't have means to do so," said Kimberly McCullough, Policy Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oregon. "We're seeing a crisis of our humanity and how we're going to treat and help each other."

Tequila, however, was not surprised. "Of course there are tensions," they said. "If a police officer is having a bad day... the easiest target is a homeless person, especially the ones who are by themselves."

Back at Hazelnut Grove, Tequila, who had found a part-time job, was asking for donations of toilet paper, garbage bags and shampoo. They were gathering documents to join a local affordable housing programme but did not expect to move from the camp any time soon.

"A high homeless situation is not a good [sign], especially when you're the richest country," Tequila said. "There's very little hope. It's a dire situation."

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Homeless in US: A deepening crisis on the streets of America

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They seem to be almost everywhere, in places old and new, no age spared. Sleeping on cardboard or bare ground, the homeless come together under bridges and tree s , their belongings in plastic bags symbolising lives on the move.

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New York has the second most homeless people (91,897). New York City has the most people homeless with the number of 78,676 in 2018.

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These are the people most people are. When they learn young, they would do it when they are older.

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Kids decide between helping the Homeless or Ice Cream

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Finally, this is what most people including me. Whoever started this is a great person.

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Utah Provides Housing For Homeless | NBC Nightly News

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Not only they are homeless they are by themselves, lonely.

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This is a picture of a girl living by herself and she is homeless. There is 1.3 to 1.7 million kids living by themselves.

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This is another picture of a homeless teenager. These thing actually happens to young kids/teenagers.

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I picked this because I know that if we all participate then we could endanger homelessness.

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This is a good thing that people do for the homeless and this should expand all over the world.