When Johnny comes marching home (vets and homelessness)

Associated press is running a story through Yahoo which notes that "Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population"[1] This has been a problem for American society in all of its major military engagements.

Most alarming from this report is the trend. Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with locating employment. Given the long rotation times and short leave times of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts, Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa sums up the coming trend: "We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous."[1]

This is not good news for American society. However, I think there is a bright spot. Traditionally, the Democratic party robustly supports funding for mental health and related social services,[2] and it looks like they are going to take control of the government for awhile, so we might get the opportunity to substantially lessen this problem before it becomes critical.



REFERENCES

[1] "Study: 1 out of 4 homeless are veterans" Yahoo News (Accessed November 7, 2007).

[2] "Democrats Working to Expand Veterans Mental Health Care" The Democratic Party Website (Accessed November 7, 2007).

O.