You’ve only seen what people want you to see…
Being around vets is not experiencing the day to day. The same argument goes with national guard vs AD.


The homeless metric is political, as it is a niche program to cheat in life. Tdui and scaler 100% from the VA is $3700 a month tax free. If you are homeless or in danger of being homeless your claim gets priority processing. Being chronically homeless almost always gives a 100%. Now since they have collected that 100%, they get priority processing for SSD. That’s 6k+ a month tax free. AND they can work a min wage job for 14hrs a week…. Reddit has a how to on the shot gun approach to claiming everything and anything. This is even the sop for claim reps groups at the VA (DAV ect). VA has been cracking down on these high % claims but the CFR has not been updated yet.


It’s very easy to be homeless in today’s housing inflation. A studio seems to be around $1200 no matter where you go in this country. That’s half the salary of a 50,000 year job… a job market that is very saturated and not forgiving for stem majors*.

A lot of vets do the van life… they are by all definitions homeless.


If one has a moral bone in their body, this shouldn’t sit right with them… but… you have to realize that the VA is a welfare system.

Good sample size (but rather small compared to someone with 20-40 years of service all over the world). How many of those family members and friends that served are homeless, insane, or helplessly addicted?

Th 70s was a period when many vets of the time served involuntarily in an unpopular war...and were treated poorly. The draft ending in the 70s changed a lot. Drinking was the culture before the age of consumption increased to 21 in the early 80s. The 70-year-old veteran crowd is not lining the streets addicted and homeless. They are largely retired, raised families, and are valuable contributing members of society.

Hay St was way before my time ... but not some on Pelican still... some of their old pals are out there ... homeless :(.

My buds/acquaintances were mostly late 70s-80s-90s. Just lots of Vets .... and drinking was "their culture"... most changed.

Some fall through...

Small sample sizes matter .... if you are it.

So... what did your sample size show? How many of those family members and friends that served are homeless, insane, or helplessly addicted?

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps your drinking buddies were the outliers and evenings for most of us were at home with our wife and kids, working a second job, or going to college...or all three (like me)? Who had time to do a lot of hard drinking and have a career/life?

This veteran is doing what he can to not only raise awareness but money for them as well.
MonkeyacrossAmerica.org.
He is the friend of a good friend of mine. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1720822721.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1720822721.jpg

Sorry fint .... your experiences don't mirror a lot of other Vets' either. The young single guys in their 20s that I lived around, and played/worked/sailed and drank with in my youth... they were successful drinkers :). Their Navy WAS a drinking culture for sure back then for those single guys .... and the Army & Marines too from my little glimpse on occasion and hearing their stories. Real people .... good people ... some drank too much :D.

Good guys ... living life ...

Some fall through the cracks tho' .... If a Vet is homeless, then put a roof over their head.

...and your experiences in the military are nonexistent. So, yes... I image they do not mirror my 40+ years. I imagine there were quite a few folks in the millions that served that were alcoholics...just like the private sector. I also suspect that for most it had nothing to do with their joining the military and serving their country. The military did not train folks to be hard drinkers...as I served and did not (nor did most of the folks I knew/know). They drank pretty responsibly. Yes, I have seen the multitudes of sailors descend upon a port on shore leave...but that was not an everyday thing (and most had to be back on the ship that night). It was just a rite of passage for youngsters (IMHO).

So... what did your sample size show? How many of those family members and friends that served are homeless, insane, or helplessly addicted? How do you help them?

This thread is about homeless Vets.... not me or what I do. I help my family members ... the details are none of your businesss, but it has been signifcant over the years. I put roofs over their heads .... one was an 82 year old Marine who served in Southern CA before 'Nam .... tornado destroyed her home 14 years ago... she just passed. The other is a basket case without Methadone now but never served .... I don't GAF.

I assist folks .... non-judgemental with no strings attached...

If a Vet is homeless ... we have failed as a society.

Shame on us ....

I'm out (again) ... This thread should be about AB's post he deleted, and others' issues .... and what can be done.

Nothing? So is that your final answer..... then shame on you too.

Oh yeah .... the VA was a HUGE part of my aunt's healthcare for at least 25-30 years .... kudos to them... and she was taken care of :).

Some parts of our system work fine .... some need change.... jmho.

You take care of your family and I will mine...but if you use them as examples to make your point/position, then you inserted them into the debate, not me. Hard to expect to have it both ways.

You spend your money and let me spend mine. Giving people more and more of other people's money never solves anything...it just salves the conscious of the virtue signaling. Charity is one thing, but massive redistribution of others' hard-earned wages is tantamount to theft.

If anyone is homeless, they likely made a tremendous number of bad decisions. There are a tremendous number of programs to help them (both governmental and private) ...military or otherwise. If they choose to live on the street, it is not likely because they served in the military. And no, serving does not necessarily make folks alcoholics and addicts...nor do young troops have any more pressure to drink than any other folks their age that did not serve (despite of the fact that some of your youthful drinking buddies made poor choices).

Decline in Veterans’ Homelessness Spurs Hopes for a Broader Solution

Two federal agencies, backed by ample funding from Congress, have quietly shown that it is possible to make progress on a seemingly intractable problem.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1723160853.jpg



By Jason DeParle
Jason DeParle, who writes about poverty, reported from Los Angeles.

Aug. 6, 2024


After two years in the Air Force and decades on Skid Row, Steve Allen was spending his senior years living in his car. John Sullivan, who joined the Army after seeing the film “Patton,” slept on his son’s couch. Home for Babs Ludikhuize, an Air Force veteran recovering from domestic violence, was in psychiatric care.

Now all three have comfortable apartments with subsidized rents, and they embody what many analysts call the greatest success in homelessness policy — the decline in homeless veterans.

Since 2008, Congress, with bipartisan support, has spent billions on rental aid for unhoused veterans and cut their numbers by more than half, as overall homelessness has grown. Celebrated by experts and managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the achievement has gained oddly little public notice in a country in need of broader solutions.

Progress in the veterans program has slowed as rising rents displace more tenants and make it harder to help them regain housing. But while homelessness among veterans rose last year, the increase was smaller than other groups faced. Admirers say the program’s superior performance, even in a punishing rental market, offers a blueprint for helping others and an answer to the pessimism in the debate over reducing homelessness.

“It is the best initiative on homelessness that the federal government has ever developed,” said Philip F. Mangano, who helped launch the program under President George W. Bush. “The best. By far. If we can do it for veterans, we can do it for others.”

No place illustrates the hard-fought progress more than Los Angeles, which serves more homeless veterans than any other city and has gravity-defying rents.

The housing shortage has shifted power to landlords, who are wary of homeless applicants and sometimes complain that the aid program brings red tape. While the federal government has provided veterans in Los Angeles with thousands of vouchers to help pay landlords, nearly half of the vouchers remain unused because the veterans cannot find places to rent.

With progress stalled, the veterans department changed local leadership, hired more staff and expanded community partnerships to court landlords. As the changes took hold last year, homelessness among veterans in Los Angeles fell by nearly a quarter, while homelessness among other people in the region rose slightly.

“The outcomes show what we’re doing is effective,” said John Kuhn, the veterans department official who now runs the Los Angeles program.

In housing Mr. Allen, the Air Force veteran, the department teamed up with local officials who leased an entire building, protecting the owner’s cash flow from the risk of vacancies. In exchange, the program received 13 new apartments in a desirable West Hollywood neighborhood.

“It’s a miracle to me, nothing short of a miracle,” Mr. Allen, 68, said of his 565 “exquisite” square feet of living space. Though he overcame years of heroin addiction and earned a bachelor’s degree in his 60s, until recently he was recovering from cancer and managing diabetes while sleeping in a decade-old Nissan.

Without the rental aid, Mr. Allen said, “I’d probably be dead.”


‘Congress Has Provided Resources’

Veterans have higher rates of homelessness than other Americans, mostly because they come from more disadvantaged backgrounds but also because of service-related trauma.

As concerns about returning service members grew during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress in 2008 revived a pilot program, called HUD-VASH, that pairs vouchers from the housing department with case management from the veterans department. Voucher holders pay 30 percent of their income for rent, while the federal government covers the rest up to a local ceiling.

After expanding the program every year, Congress has created about 110,000 vouchers, meaning veterans have much shorter waits for rental aid than other homeless groups. The vouchers cost more than $900 million a year.

“The fundamental reason why homelessness among veterans has fallen so much is that Congress has provided resources,” Mr. Kuhn said.

Notably, the rental aid comes with no conditions: Services like drug treatment or mental health care are offered but not required. That approach, called Housing First, once enjoyed bipartisan support but has recently drawn conservative critics who say it promotes self-destructive behavior.

Supporters say the veterans’ progress shows the strategy’s merits.

“Housing First is responsible for cutting veterans’ homelessness in half,” said Ann Oliva, who runs the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group.

But as rents rose and vacancies fell, progress slowed nationwide. Flooded with applications, landlords grew more selective. Some fear that the homeless make bad tenants and complain that the vouchers require exacting inspections that cost them time and money.

Many cities bar discrimination against people with vouchers, who are disproportionately Black, but the laws are hard to enforce. Voucher holders often complain that they can rent apartments only in the worst neighborhoods.

Of the 110,000 HUD-VASH vouchers available nationwide, the share being used to rent apartments last year fell to 74 percent, from 85 percent in 2017. That leaves about 28,000 unused vouchers — enough to house most of the 35,000 remaining homeless veterans if the program placed more of them in apartments.

The veterans effort stands out in homelessness policy precisely because it is not primarily constrained by a lack of money. While there is nearly one voucher for every homeless veteran, among other Americans the ratio is about one for every seven homeless people, said Richard Cho, a senior federal housing official. “We’re trying to replicate the veterans’ success but don’t have nearly the same resources for other people experiencing homelessness,” he said.


Courting Landlords

Struggling with addiction or mental illness, some veterans reject housing aid. The Los Angeles program has intensified its outreach, hiring formerly homeless veterans to assist. It has also raised salaries to fill caseworker vacancies, which had proliferated during the coronavirus pandemic, slowing housing placements.

Above all, it has courted landlords. Through a strategy called master leasing, a local partner recently leased an entire building. The landlord received guaranteed rents, and the program got multiple apartments, a strategy it is trying to repeat.

Residential and Property Support Services, the strategy of a different partnership between the veterans department and local officials, tries to attract landlords with bonuses instead of guarantees. By reserving buildings for voucher-holding veterans, landlords can increase their revenue by as much as 15 percent. To address tenant issues, the initiative also provides an on-site manager.

Given legal constraints, the work demands inventive collaborations. The veterans department cannot sign master leases, so it worked with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a local government agency that can. The vouchers cannot pay landlords bonuses, so a nonprofit group, People Assisting the Homeless, does so with other government funds.

It can take multiple programs to house one veteran. Getting vouchers approved can take months, since the local housing authority has to inspect the apartment. Until then, rent for Mr. Allen’s “exquisite” apartment comes from a program called Supportive Services for Veteran Families. The aid is temporary but faster, and covers moving costs and furniture, which vouchers do not.

The Los Angeles program has one asset most cities lack: a 388-acre campus in West Los Angeles that was donated to the government in the 1880s to house veterans. But the department has faced years of litigation for failing to house enough veterans there. After settling a lawsuit in 2015 and agreeing to build 1,200 apartments, it is being sued again for falling far behind schedule.

Only about 10 percent of the veterans housed last year were placed on campus. Still, with placements rising in other apartments, the number of homeless veterans in the region fell last year by 23 percent, while the count among nonveterans rose 1 percent.


Problems With Housing

Challenges remain. Though the program aims to blend housing and case management, casework is uneven. Weeks after gaining an apartment, Damien Wright, a former Marine who had been living in his car, said, “I don’t know who my caseworker is.”

Asked his caseworker’s name, Anthony Robinson, 68, a recovering drug addict housed on the V.A. campus, said, “I don’t know — sometimes I don’t remember my own name.”

Some veterans dislike their buildings or neighborhoods. At 83, Iran Acton, was recently punched in the face and knocked down by another resident of a building filled with formerly homeless veterans. Though Mr. Acton calls his $350 rent a “godsend,” he added, “Some of the clientele that are allowed to move in, they’re not to my liking.”

One focus of complaint is Building 207, which provides 59 apartments on the V.A. campus with an attractive common room, patio and grill. But a meeting with residents produced a chorus of complaints about nighttime drinking and drug use.

“One guy was losing his bodily functions in the common areas,” said Mr. Sullivan, 68, who became homeless after his wife died and he could no longer afford their mobile home.

Ms. Ludikhuize, 62, said the disorder threatens her sobriety. She joined the Air Force after high school but left after being raped twice in 14 months. Years of domestic violence followed, along with anxiety, depression and methamphetamine use. Achieving sobriety, Ms. Ludikhuize got a job with the department’s outreach team, only to relapse and return to homelessness.

Sober again, she is grateful for an apartment that costs her just $50 a month. But she returns from nightly meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous to the kind of atmosphere she should avoid.

“Half the building’s drunk,” she said. “It gets loud — they fight with each other. I’m a little sensitive about that because of the domestic violence I survived.”


A Unique Reach

Could the decline in veterans homelessness be replicated among other people? With more than 1,300 hospitals and clinics nationwide, the veterans department has a unique reach.

But the program’s main advantage is political: Veterans attract bipartisan support. Congress has halved veterans’ homelessness by offering deep, unconditional aid to people who in other contexts often draw scorn, including drug users, ex-offenders and the chronically unemployed.

Mr. Allen, whose struggles began with childhood molestation in a New Orleans housing project, spent more years in prison than he did in a job. Ms. Ludikuize’s problems with drug use have spanned nearly four decades.

MacKenzie Harrell, 28, who transitioned to a woman after leaving the Navy, is especially conscious of her outcast status after growing up in Alabama as a “queer fat atheist” and developing an interest in “communist and anarchical thought.”

Many people would “see me as a homeless trans person unworthy of money or care,” she said, but a veteran’s status redefines her as deserving.

“If I wasn’t a veteran, I’d be in a graveyard,” she said.

Whether the same generosity should apply to others is a question on which veterans are split. “We deserve special treatment,” Mr. Allen insisted. “We agreed to defend this country.”

Ms. Harrell disagreed, saying, “You shouldn’t have to spend five years of your life as a cog in an imperialist machine to get help.”

Sitting in the courtyard where another veteran knocked him down, Mr. Acton said that “veterans deserve special treatment.” He then paused and added, “But there are other people who deserve special treatment, too.”

Jason DeParle is a Times reporter who covers poverty in the United States.

You can't present what has been done on LA as a positive thing. It is not.

Further comment would precipitate a trip to the dungeon

In my home town of Baker City, Oregon a veterans village is being built for homeless vets. Tiny homes and such, but also cottages with backyards. Look's legit.
https://www.gctoregon.com/veteran-villages Theres a bunch popping up over here in eastern oregon. The link is pretty cool. So heres what some folks out here are doing for vets.-WW

That's awesome ... the support system in this area is actually pretty good. I personally don't know any "down & out" vets... but know a few who put in 20+ years... Navy, an Army MP I sailed with a few times (he was heading to the sandbox for his last (5th) time after our last drunkin' 3 day regatta ;).... and a whole bunch of former squids in a Navy town... Jax. I know some of their buddies need help now .... prior mistakes ... warts & all.

Getting homeless Vets off the street and into modest shelter is something I want.

Mebbe I'm wrong?

Then I'll be wrong .....