Put veterans back in their homes

By Patricia Driscoll

If you live in a major metropolitan area, you see them every day: Men and women who appear down on their luck, out of options, and running out of hope.

They are under overpasses, atop park benches, and panhandling outside of bus and subway stops.

Many of these homeless men and women are veterans, who comprise approximately 12 percent of the homeless adult population. They have dutifully served their country. Now, they are homeless.

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates there are nearly 50,000 homeless veterans throughout the country on any given night. In 2009, President Barak Obama and then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki announced an initiative to eradicate veteran homelessness by 2015.

At the end of 2014, a full five years later, the VA is only 33 percent closer to its goal. In other words, time is running out.

Even more disheartening is an Inspector General’s report released on Dec. 3 investigating the National Call Centers for Homeless Veterans.

The report stated there were an estimated 79,500 calls into the centers in fiscal year 2013. Of these, more than half were “missed opportunities where the Call Center either did not refer the homeless veterans’ calls to medical facilities or it closed referrals without ensuring homeless veterans had received needed services from VA medical facilities.”

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