Homelessness

This week, I spent time learning about the issue of homelessness and the prevalence of the problem in the veteran community, males and females, veterans with children, and single soldiers. Some people have the idea that homeless is people not “going out to get a job”, and in fact you may heard someone tell a homeless person to “get a job,” but it’s not that easy. There are broader issues at play in correcting the realities associated with the homeless population, and arguably more important problem of homeless veterans. The number of homeless veterans in America is upwards of 107,000. Keep in mind these are the men and women who honorably served our country for 3 years on up to a lifetime in service. Not surprisingly when most people think of homelessness they automatically jump to conclusions like all homeless people are “crazy”, “addicts”, or “alcoholics”, but the truth is that a homeless is not black and white issue more often its full of levels of homelessness from chronically homeless to people “couch surfing” with relatives until they find something stable. There are over a million people at risk of homelessness in America on a daily basis as they struggle to pay their bills. I personally believe that if a majority of the “non-chronic homeless” were given a support system, including a steady “reasonable” income and even a temporary roof over their head there would be thousands upon thousands of people with some of the best work ethic out there, instilled by the military, pulling themselves out of homelessness one pay check at a time. If you are interested in this issue and want to do any research, I recommend you go to http://www.nchv.org/index.cfm.