US Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans homeless

This video from the USA says about itself:

24 April 2012

Over 100,000 United States Veterans are homeless every year. In a powerful one-hour documentary, filmmaker Issac Goeckeritz takes viewers into the largely invisible world of homeless veterans and the difficult, but hopeful, pathways home. Street Vets is the culmination of a year-long chronicling of the life and times of ten men living at Ogden, Utah‘s Homeless Veterans Fellowship – a transitional housing program aimed at assisting homeless Veterans into self sufficiency. The film provides a remarkably candid view of the long-term scars of war and personal tragedy that, in many cases, have led to alcohol and drug abuse…and life on the streets.

By Shannon Jones in the USA:

Homelessness soars among US Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans

31 December 2012

According to a new government report, the number of US Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who are homeless or at risk for becoming homeless is rising at an alarming rate, more than doubling over the past two years. The US Veterans Administration said that through the end of September 2012, 26,531 veterans were living on the street, at risk of losing their homes, staying in temporary housing or receiving federal vouchers to pay rent. That compares to 10,500 in 2010.

The numbers cited are only those veterans the VA is aware of. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that 62,619 veterans are homeless on a given night over the course of a year, and more than twice that number are at risk of homelessness.

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans estimates that some 1.5 million veterans are at risk of homelessness due to poverty, lack of support networks and dismal, overcrowded, living conditions. Veterans are much more likely than the population at large to suffer from homelessness, comprising 23 percent of the homeless population even though only 8 percent of the population at large can claim veteran status.

Afghanistan War veterans are particularly at risk because of their young age and their exposure to combat with its psychological effects. Some seventy percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had exposure to combat. About 30,700 are expected to leave the military in each of the next four years as the military reduces its ranks. About 13 percent of homeless Afghan and Iraq war veterans are women, and almost 50 percent of all homeless veterans are African American.

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