“No one knows this better than those who
serve in uniform. As this time of war draws to a close, a new generation of
heroes returns to civilian life. We’ll keep slashing that backlog so our
veterans receive the benefits they’ve earned and our wounded warriors receive
the health care -- including the mental health care -- that they need. We’ll
keep working to help all our veterans translate their skills and leadership
into jobs here at home, and we will all continue to join forces to honor and
support our remarkable military families.” – President Obama - State of the Union
Address - January 28, 2014
This past Tuesday was the Presidents annual State of Union
address to the joint session of congress and broadcast live on most major
television networks. Among the legislative
agenda items he outlined was the need for greater veterans services. To my
understanding this means that there could be more public awareness and
additional funding opportunities for issues highlighted in the speech.
The article from the St. Louis Beacon was published on the
day following the speech. It talks about the President’s goal of eradicating
homelessness among veterans by 2015. This article is very brief but brings up
some important points of conversation. It states that last year 13% of St.
Louis city’s homeless population are veterans, which is about 193 people. The
Veterans Affairs (VA) officials came into St. Louis City to try to count and
identify homeless veterans in effort to get them into housing immediately. The
article states while there has been funding for services such as mental health
and case management there has been limited funding for housing available. It
states that there is new influx of federal dollars available that has been ear
marked for the housing need.
It was interesting for me to see how quickly officials from
the VA where able to capitalize on the momentum from the state of the union
address in Washington and bring it home to our own backyard. Like I stated
earlier this article was very brief did not go into great depth. I’d be
interested to know what the legislative solution for homeless veterans is and
how long funding is slated to last. It would be interesting to hear from the
homeless veterans themselves and what they feel would be beneficial to them. It
would also be interesting to see the numbers of how many homeless veterans are
have mental health issues and how that is connected to their homelessness. I’d
like to see that this federal funding for housing is not a Band-Aid solution
for a greater issue for our nation’s veterans.
How would you want to follow up on this program? What would
you use as measures of success? What services would you include as part of the
program? What about people who have decided that they do not want help from the
government and want to be left alone? How do you serve them?
