I'm hoping you find this helpful.

Our primary model indicates a single combat exposure increases the probability of homelessness by about 0.40 percentage points (27% relative to the mean probability) and multiple combat exposures increase the probability of homelessness by about 0.57 percentage points (38% relative to the mean probability). The weighted average effect of combat exposure, conditional on the share of single and multiple exposures observed in the sample, indicates an expected 0.50 percentage point increase in the probability of homelessness.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1051137720300474

To equate retired people living in their campers for extended periods with lose living on the streets in poverty is heartless and ignorant.

I don’t think suicide rate is a good metric either.

If they are a vet and are living on the streets because they have no other alternatives, this is a problem. If they are choosing to be there, that’s a different story.

Scoff, what does a Canadian know about the American military or vets…

Not all people who do not live in a home are homeless... but you may be right. Idc.

Being ad is what I would equate to extended camping, especially when you have to go to the field for a few weeks or more, deployments, etc. Army barracks are not something I would equate to even a basic level of quality living either. So, while it may have been insensitive to compare the homeless schizophrenic yelling at the sky to the retirees living in a truck top tent, I would say that there’s no veteran living on the streets in their own feces, yelling at a tree, who is not receiving help from the VA (whether it be in a long-term care facility or a veteran halfway house)… For example, I saw a homeless dope sick veteran at the VA ER the other day… getting fully taken care of.


The homeless vets that you see on the street are either not genuine or do not want help from the VA (because that requires getting clean and becoming a productive member of society…. Often times that’s not even the case. VA doesn’t care that one spends their whole rating check on dope), or they had prior service mental health issues (which means no VA rating). I feel the vets that the VA abandons are the ones that commit suicide, and that’s the reason for the high suicide rate... homelessness still being a political metric.

Thankfully 90% of the military never sees combat.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yuTkgi7scKo?si=CeJx3fxObyIhqWVx" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That stat is accurate, and actually makes sense. Also of no surprise is that stats for homeless vets pretty much mirrors those for non-vets. 92% of both are homeless due to drug usage.

Yup, as stated in my earlier post, I’m not a vet or an expert at this. That being said, I have seen first hand the effects of mental health issues and how they keep people (vets and non military people alike) from integrating into society and the associated societal norms. These are not high school dropouts either. One graduated top of his class, got an honours degree in mechanical engineering, is a professional engineer, and is smart as a whip but can’t ‘people’. He thrived on high demand jobs early in his career which burnt him out. Now he is unable to keep a job because of his mental illness, and it’s getting worse. He has been diagnosed as having an anxiety disorder but I think he’s also got Asperger disease but this has not been officially diagnosed to my knowledge. If he didn’t have savings from when he was working, he’d be living on the streets too. Thank god he has not turned to drugs or alcohol.

You are missing the fact that addiction and mental health issues are not a choice, ‘getting clean’ isn’t as easy as quitting smoking. There may be vets who don’t want to get clean (while sober) but the drugs are less painful that whatever the voices inside their brain are telling them. They need help and support as bad as vets who are clean and just had bad luck.

Thank you and God bless you for saying this.

While "getting clean" may not be easy, addiction largely is self-afflicted...as most folks do not get addicted unless they take addicting drugs to start with.

Please do not confuse my empathy of those with issues and the topic at hand.

VA is a welfare system for the veterans. Social security is for everyone (including double dipping vets). This is political theatrics.

Homelessness is ultimately about lacking purpose and meaning.
- A lot of people out there are just existing and going through the motions of life.

Our modern world has produced a bunch of unhappy people.

The best way to reduce the number of actual "homeless vets" is to stop intentionally recruiting folks that have discipline/mental issues and/or a history of drug use. The military is not a rehabilitation program for broken people. Lowering standards is not the answer.

There’s so many different ways you can take homelessness… let alone the modern west’s construct of what a home is… I think it’s important to take note of the current housing market as well… not many people want to rent a room in some random’s house for $500-800 a month. Rent a studio for $1200 or a 2k mortgage that locks you in for decades, on a house that costs half as much 5 years ago… Veteran van life is exploding for those reasons…but it ain’t that forking hard to wake up everyday. Put your pants on one leg at a time and get it done. Some people do not want that. Some people want distraction. Inebriation until they’re numb. I get it. Life sucks. But we cuddle this mindset/weakness by allowing and paying for it.


Lack of purpose is hopelessness… this creates the mindset to give up. Can’t get a job in your field because society sold you on university… here’s a gun. It’s not that arbitrary though. High school teachers and administrators look down on kids who join the work force out of high school…. They preach STEM/STEAM not realizing how overly saturated the applicant pool is…. Thinking about getting a bs in biology, chemistry, mathematics, neuro, med tech, ect… don’t. One won’t get even get a 50k job out of uni… I have a friend that received a bs in biology from the u of Michigan. He worked as a server until his childhood friend brought him into a company selling siding….



There’s a group of people getting stupid rich on the backs of Americans. it’s getting really annoying as they’re causing the hopelessness. They’re causing the suicides.

Thank you!

The VA really upped their efforts (and added new facilities) about a decade ago .... at least here. Methinks that most Vets "on the street" probably have substance abuse issues and they choose that over assistance that IS available.

The substance?

Alcohol.

CA has 1/3 of the nation's homeless and tending to them has become a growth industry here. The state's current approach is to dole out billions in grants to the counties, who in turn, hand it over to non-profits with no accountability. Many of these non-profits are rather large concerns with boards of directors, operating officers, and a sizeable staff of employees, all of whom are earning regular paychecks. One local outfit has an operating budget of $14M/year (mostly from grants and donations) and offers temporary shelter to those in need and claims to find 'permanent' housing for a few hundred un-housed individuals a year...usually by just helping them get section-8 housing vouchers. There's little or no coordination between these non-profits and no oversight at the state level. So, despite over $20B being spent in the last decade alone, CA's homeless population continues to swell and any real help for them is seriously lacking.

In my opinion, this practice of allowing non-profits to deal with the homeless crisis needs to end. It should be realized that homelessness has become a national problem and needs to be dealt with at the national and state level. States with large homeless populations need to create departments, similar to a DMV or Dept. of Education, to deal with this. More gov't bureaucracy certainly isn't a perfect solution, but the money is already there, and it's got to be used more effectively than just squandering it on programs that aren't working.

I completely agree that almost certainly most money spent on "solving" or at least managing the problem has been spent in vain. And the amount of money is staggering. We recently had a shutdown and clearing of Mass and Cass tent city. I don't have the costs/numbers but they were absolutely stratospheric something on the order of Massachusetts could have bought Rhode Island for less money and sent everyone down there. Almost not kidding. No more tents for months now but of course still crime and drugs in that area. Two months ago the state ended it's housing program for Mass & Cass campers. No idea where they will go now.

The solution has to be created at the national level. But we all know it won't be, just look at border crossing. It's one thing to secure the border and another to deal with those that come over both illegally and legally. I can't imagine why the Federal government hasn't hired 100, or maybe 1,000 new judges and 5,000 case workers to process immigrants in close to real time vs. catch and release for a few years or catch and send back. What's shocking is both parties have been completely absent in building an infrastructure to manage immigration. Why? Legal immigration takes years too. Why is that?

This issue is so complex. I worked with many homeless folks when I ran the largest representative payee office in Spokane for a few years. This included folks in the VA system and in the social security system. Explaining what we did could take several pages but, essentially, we received the benefits for the clients and paid their bills. These were all folks who were deemed incapable of managing their money. Our goal was to keep them housed first and then pay for food, medical, etc. It was frustrating, hard, occasionally rewarding, etc.

Things clicked for me a bit when I heard a long interview with the author of this book. The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. The author, Sam Quinones, has done a deep dive into the opioid crisis, meth, fentanyl and the homeless issues that are so entwined with the modern drug trade. These drugs are not the pot and heroin of the 60's and 70's. They are instantly addictive and brain altering.

https://a.co/d/0g97blET

One point he makes is that no progress will be made with the hardest of the homeless who are addicted to these drugs. The focus on housing first (if you build it they will come) ignores what is often the reason people are not in housing. Folks on these drugs cannot function in any kind of structured environment, which is what shelters and affordable housing complexes are. They are too crazy, paranoid, etc. to follow any rule or direction.

I believe all people experiencing these issues deserve our empathy and help. I also think we've generally been too "easy" on these folks. Sure, target the manufacturers and distributors of these drugs. But, camping in the park, using in public, etc. should not be tolerated. The worst impacted of these folks are not competent to make decisions for themselves and should be in mandatory locked down treatment. If they can't follow through with any improvement, They should be incarcerated longer term until they can work themselves into more freedom and autonomy. These people aren't just using drugs and harming themselves. They are stealing, committing assault, killing, all while taxing systems over and over that are at a breaking point. Somehow their cycle needs to stop. I can't tell you how many times I met with people just released from the ER or inpatient psych holds who still had their hospital garments and wrist bands on who were already high, strung out and headed right back from where they came. The social workers, docs, nurses, police and fire dept folks are spending a ton of their time dealing with a relatively small number of repeat offenders, over and over again.

I won't try to address other drivers of the homeless problem. Suffice it to say, it is not a one solution problem. The population of homeless people is just too diverse. Everything from basic deadbeats to disabled vets, families who can't make rent, the mentally ill/drug addicted, etc. It needs many solutions.

It’s a multifaceted problem and it all seems to be related to corruption of a few that scapegoats human lives and society.

We can directly blame the drug manufacturers. Especially purdue pharma (https://www.businessinsider.com/fda-chief-approved-oxycontin-six-figure-gig-at-purdue-pharma-2021-5?op=1). I’ve listened to people tell their stories of going from the “non addictive opioid” prescribed pain medication to street heroin and fentanyl, due to the crack down on over prescribing… I had a roommate during my MEB that was snorting his pain pills and became violent when his new script of oxycontin was reformulated so they couldn’t be crushed (and snorted)…

I’ve personally known people who are still at the heels of addiction and have been since high school. Institutionalized is a harsh reality but you’re correct.

I have no personal experience working with homeless people. However, I’ve watched us here in Portland struggle with the problem for years and years, spending more and more money for little results, and know people who do have that experience. I had something to do with getting a 160 unit affordable housing complex built in my neighborhood and have seen the (wonderful) results but also how incredibly difficult it was to do. My half a cent, in no organized order:

1. There is not one “homeless population”. There are at least five.
a) Trying to lead a normal life (job, housed) but can’t afford the housing even with the job part. This is the convenience store clerk who lives in his car, the guy I know who lost everything to a divorce and was living in a friend’s SUV doing odd jobs. He (or she) needs financial and job help, often for only a limited time.
b) Mentally ill. This is the person wandering in the street muttering about aliens and conspiracies. He needs to be institutionalized and medicated, usually against his “will”, and may need to stay institutionalized for life.
c) Drug addict. This person needs treatment analogous to b), and if he’s lucky can then convert to a) and from there to normal life. But todays’ drugs are so potent and cheap, it’s getting harder. So there is a law enforcement / drug interdiction requirement too.
d) Neither a) b) or c), not trying and doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to try, he is long-term homeless, has been living on the streets for many years and has learned how to get by, it is more or less “normal life” for him. He may be “service resistant”, may choose his familiar life rather than make the sacrifices (as he sees it) necessary to lead the job + housing kind of normal life.
e) Criminal. He preys on the others.

2. The homeless-industrial complex is the fastest-growing industry locally, and has very effective lobbyists called “homeless advocates”. There is no industry that gets so much money with so little accountability.

3. About 5,000 to 10,000 unsheltered homeless are enough to send a city of 500,000 into a downward spiral. That’s 1-2%. It is ridiculous to think that the “rights” of 1-2% outweigh the needs of 98-99%, when those “rights” are to live miserably and die. We’re not talking freedom of speech or freedom of religion here.

4. “Housing First” is a popular approach, because it benefits real estate developers who have their own effective lobbyists and political contributions. All developers have figured out how to get on the bandwagon, whether their product is affordable or not. The reality is that a large portion of the needed housing is in mental hospital, drug treatment facilities, and jails, and much of the rest is housing combined with intensive social services. All the remaining needed housing is genuine affordable - meaning, subsidized and deeply cheap.

I'm certainly no expert, but for someone with little direct experience, I'd say you captured this quite well.