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RETURNING VETERANS FACE NEW STRUGGLE -- Increasing
number of soldiers returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan
are falling into homelessness upon discharge.
Marine veteran Michael Leahy, 40,
stands in his room in the Vet House, a shelter for homeless
veterans, in Albany. (photo: Lori Van Buren / Times Union) |
For more information about homeless veterans, use
the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/sessearch.php?q=homeless&op=and
Story here...
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?s
toryID=680389&category=REGIONOTHER&BCCode
=HOME&newsdate=4/13/2008
Story below:
-------------------------
Returning vets face new struggle
Increasing number of soldiers returning from
Iraq, Afghanistan are falling into homelessness upon discharge
By DENNIS YUSKO
Staff writer
BALLSTON SPA -- Army Spc. Timothy Martin sustained a triad of misery --
severe injury, mental illness and substance abuse -- stemming from his
2003 tour in Iraq. Then, the shaky 25-year-old has fallen into a category
he never imagined for himself: homeless veteran.
Medically discharged from the military, Martin's tough travels led him to
near-alcoholic ruin on the streets of Albany before he realized he was
eligible for care at Veterans Affairs hospitals.
The VA referred him to a homeless shelter in Ballston Spa, where Martin
writes poetry in an upstairs bedroom he shares with two other vets. He
works on a desk with the Bible and Quran on it. Above his modest bed is an
outstretched American flag and a poster of a soaring eagle.
He now speaks best through his poems.
"I just got mixed up, made wrong choices to
forget things, and it progressed into something worse," said Martin, who
still looks and sounds like the young man from Wisconsin he was when he
deployed to Iraq with the Army's 567th Cargo Transfer Company, 24th
Battalion. He helped transport cargo to the front lines.
Martin is now part of a new wave of veterans turning up homeless.
As America enters its sixth year in Iraq, the
number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking help from the VA for
homelessness has leaped 600 percent -- 300 to 1,800 -- just from 2007,
according to the latest department findings.
"I think we'll see a new generation of homeless vets," said Glenn Gilbert,
who oversees all mental health programs at the Stratton VA Medical Center
in Albany. At least 103 of almost 120 beds for homeless veterans in
Albany, Ballston Spa and Glens Falls were filled in March, Gilbert said.
And, throughout last year, the agency helped about 357.
Compare that with the VA's national statistics that show members of the
armed forces make up about a third of homeless adults, who are defined by
the VA as lacking a fixed, adequate nighttime residence.
"But, hopefully, in the last 25 years, we've learned some things so we can
give people the help they need," Gilbert said.
SAFETY NET GONE
Many homeless veterans have chronic mental health and addiction problems,
have lost contact with family or have exhausted their support system,
Gilbert said.
Pair that with an economy in which, according to a report six months ago
from The National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington, about
500,000 veterans are paying more than half their incomes for rent. Look at
that number another way. In New York, most tenants -- 46.3 percent last
year -- pay less than a third of their household income for rent,
according to the U.S. Census.
That leaves low-income veterans highly vulnerable, said Mary Cunningham,
the report's author.
Several veterans at the shelter in Glens Falls mismanaged their finances,
said executive director Jeff Varmette, who explained some vets especially
suffer when they lose a spouse who took care of the family budget.
"Mismanagement of money is the biggest downfall," Varmette said.
The shelter, the nine-bed Adirondack Vets House, is one of a handful of
veterans shelters in the Capital Region. It and the Ballston Spa home,
which was founded by Dottie Nixon and run by the Saratoga County Rural
Preservation Company, are always full with a waiting list.
Most of the region's VA-funded beds are in Albany and operated by the
Albany Housing Coalition. The coalition provided a home, counseling and
employment for 298 homeless vets last year at a per-veteran cost of about
$7,700 annually, coalition executive director Joseph Sluszka said. Besides
the VA, the coalition also receives money from the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development, the state Homeless Housing and Assistance
Program and donations.
A third of vets stay one to six months; a third need help for seven to 12
months; and the other third remain 13 to 24 months, Sluszka said.
"Some feel they should pull themselves up by the bootstraps and get on
with life," Sluszka said. "What they don't realize is how devastating
combat can be."
It's a tough readjustment, said Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Glenn Read,
also with the coalition and assigned to the 42nd Infantry Division in
Troy.
"The Army fed you, clothed you, gave dentistry," Read said. "Then the
uniform comes off, and so does the safety net."
When Martin returned, he was confused, injured and had no job or
transportation. Over two stretches of homelessness that lasted more than
16 months, he followed a woman who also was homeless through the South
Side of Chicago to the Capital Region, where she had connections.
Martin turned to alcohol and drugs to tamp down the feelings of guilt and
trauma he brought back. It led him down a road he knew was wrong, but he
found impossible to halt the behavior.
Martin displays a brittle soul, unwilling or unable to discuss the
circumstances surrounding the injuries he sustained in Iraq. He says only
that he suffered wounds across his body -- in his back, shoulder and feet
-- and underwent multiple operations.
"I went over scared and adjusted to deal with scary situations. It didn't
work out, but nothing ever does," Martin said in a January interview.
His poems that grew from the war and his subsequent personal battles
reflect his suffering: "If I Die Tonight," "Massacre," "Guilt" and
"Alcohol."
PREPARING FOR A WAVE
Martin sought help from the Stratton VA last year, when he had nothing
left and was lying "in a house he shouldn't have been." The VA referred
him to the Ballston Spa shelter about six months ago.
The VA does not presently fund the facility, and the several vets who live
there pay the $250 monthly rent through public assistance or military
disability payments and survive with the help of food stamps, case manager
Terence Clare said.
The VA acknowledges its homeless programs reached only 25 percent -- about
100,000 of some 400,000 homeless veterans -- of those needing help in
2006. Others had to seek help from state or local government agencies and
donation-based service organizations.
The agency says community-based shelters, like those in the Albany Housing
Coalition, are most successful. The VA started that approach in the 1980s,
trying to help veterans get a bed, counseling, help with addictions and
the chance to speak with other vets.
The effort, according to the VA, actually helped decrease the numbers of
homeless veterans over the last decade. In 2007, an average 154,000
veterans lived on streets or in shelters -- down from 250,000 in 1996,
according to VA statistics.
But last year's surge is troubling.
To prepare for the expected "wave" of new Iraq and Afghanistan vets, the
Albany Housing Coalition hired Read, 43, as director of veterans services.
Read knows firsthand the challenges facing the new generation of returning
men and women: He served in Iraq two years ago.
For Martin, when he first arrived at the Ballston Spa shelter, things in
his life were still too raw, and he quickly deserted the home.
"I didn't want to depend on anyone," he said.
Yet, he eventually made his way back. And Nixon, its executive director,
accepted him. As did James Gray, an Air Force veteran of Vietnam, and
Michael Brown, who saw fighting with the Navy in Grenada and Beirut during
the 1980s. They are Martin's roommates and are helping coach him through
his feelings.
"I hate seeing anybody have any troubles," said Brown, 45, who called the
new generation of homeless vets "disconcerting."
DRAMATIC DIFFERENCE
In helping veterans become independent, Sluszka discovered that housing
was only part of the answer. They also require employment opportunities,
health care and drug treatment.
Returning to the shelter was one of the best decisions Martin ever made,
he said in a follow-up interview this month.
After the initial struggles, he entered counseling for his trauma-related
stress and alcohol abuse. He attends several sessions and support meetings
a week. And he's staying clean.
The military recently turned down his disability claims, he said, but the
combination of housing, therapy and discussion with others has effectively
turned things around.
"Get help right away, don't wait," Martin said for others like him.
"Finding your own medications and solutions through drugs and alcohol does
not work."
A few weeks ago, with his injuries slowly healing, Martin started working
38 hours a week at a store in Wilton. He takes the bus to work. He is
enjoying the company of a 22-year-old girlfriend from Ballston Spa, and
relations with his parents in Wisconsin recently improved.
His poems have a more positive feel and, should all go well, he could move
out of the shelter and into an apartment by July.
"I'm slowly pulling myself toward independence," he said.
Dennis Yusko can be reached at 454-5353 or by e-mail at
dyusko@timesunion.com.
Helping hands
The Stratton VA Medical Center funds a handful of independent contractors
who provide shelter for homeless veterans:
Adirondack Vets House, Glens Falls, nine beds
Saratoga County Rural Preservation Company, Saratoga, eight beds
Schuyler Inn, Menands, 60 beds
Turner House Center for Veterans, Williamstown, Mass., nine beds
Vet House, Albany (part of the Albany Housing Coalition), 28 beds
-------------------------
posted by Larry
Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org
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