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Shelters take many vets of Iraq, Afghan wars -
Also housing those from earlier eras
By Anna Badkhen, Globe Correspondent | August 7,
2007
NORTHAMPTON -- After Kevin returned from Iraq,
he spent most nights lying awake in his Army
barracks in Hawaii, clutching a 9mm handgun
under his pillow, bracing for an attack that
never came. His fits of sleep brought nightmares
of the wounded and dying troops whom Kevin, a
combat medic, had treated over 16 months of
suicide attacks and roadside bombings. He kept
thinking about an attack that killed 13 of his
comrades. He hated himself for having survived.
Soon he was drinking so heavily that the Army
discharged him. He moved back in with his
parents in Narragansett, R.I., and drank even
more, until they asked him to leave. Less than
two years after he returned, Kevin became one of
a growing number of veterans of the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars who are now homeless. "I lived
in my car, at the Wal-Mart parking lot," said
Kevin, who asked that his last name not be
published because he is considering reenlisting.
He has been staying at a homeless shelter in
Northampton since early July. Kevin's tailspin
encapsulates a little-researched consequence of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As more troops
return from deployments, social workers and
advocates expect the number of the homeless to
increase, flooding the nation's veterans'
shelters, which are already overwhelmed by
homeless veterans from other wars.
"It's a major problem that's not going away
anytime soon," said Cheryl Beversdorf, director
of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
in Washington, who estimates that hundreds,
perhaps thousands of troops who fought in Iraq
and Afghanistan are living in shelters. Kevin's
story illustrates the lagging response of
overburdened government agencies to the needs of
troops returning from wars, said Jack Downing,
who runs the shelter where Kevin and four other
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are
staying.
"The general public believes that when a vet
comes home, he's well taken care of," Downing
said. "That's a horrible misunderstanding." No
one keeps track of how many of the 750,000
troops who have been deployed to Iraq or
Afghanistan since 2001 are homeless. Peter
Dougherty, director of homeless programs for the
federal Department of Veterans Affairs, said 300
veterans of these conflicts have asked the
agency for help finding shelter in the last 30
months. Beversdorf's agency has helped 1,200
homeless veterans of the current wars.
This reflects only a fraction of the total
number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan
veterans, said Amy Fairweather, who works with
Iraq war veterans at Swords to Plowshares, a
private organization based in San Francisco that
assists veterans. Last year, her agency's five
shelters in California helped 250 such veterans,
she said.
She said it is impossible to know how many
veterans have not asked for help and are
"crashing on their friends' couch, in a car, in
a park . . . [or are] people who live in a
church." Social workers say combat trauma is
responsible for the plunge into homelessness for
many veterans returning from Iraq and
Afghanistan. Unable to cope, veterans turn to
alcohol and drugs, lose their jobs and the
support of their family and friends, and end up
on the streets, said Larry Fitzmaurice, whose
homeless shelter in Boston is currently
providing beds to seven veterans of the Iraq
war.
Mental problems "really interfere with the
ability to maintain a stable relationship, to
maintain a secure employment," Fairweather said.
Army studies have found that up to 30 percent of
soldiers coming home from Iraq suffer from
depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress
disorder. Dougherty and other specialists who
work with homeless veterans say the pattern of
homelessness has changed. The approximately
70,000 veterans of the war in Vietnam who became
homeless usually spent between five and 10 years
trying to readjust to civilian life before
winding up in the streets, he said. Veterans of
today's wars who become homeless end up with no
place to live within 18 months after they return
from war, according to Dougherty. Dougherty said
the Department of Veterans Affairs is supposed
to recognize and address combat trauma and help
the new generation of veterans readjust in
civilian life. But he acknowledged that many
veterans "become homeless because there is not a
support system."
"There are more services available to veterans
returning today, but I still don't think there's
enough," said Allison Alaimo, who works at the
shelter for homeless veterans operated by
Massachusetts Veterans Inc. in Worcester. Alaimo
said her shelter has hosted a few veterans of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
Joe, who also stays at the Northampton shelter,
sustained a traumatic brain injury during the
invasion of Iraq in 2003, when he manned a 155mm
howitzer for the Third Infantry Division. "My
first time killing somebody was very
devastating," he recalled, saying that he fired
at a minivan carrying a family of 12 unarmed
civilians. "Just one woman survived."
Joe said he spent his first year back drinking,
abusing drugs, and going AWOL from his military
base at Fort Stewart, Ga. He said he was trying
to shut off the horrible fits of screaming and
violence brought on by his brain injury and his
memories of the most disturbing moments of his
war. "Two months after I'm back from Iraq I'm
shooting heroin," said Joe, staring into space
at the shelter, where he has been staying for
three months. Since he was discharged from the
Army in 2004, he has been living in shelters and
abandoned houses and staying with relatives and
friends. He stole and dealt drugs to support his
habit. He asked that his full name not be used
because he has a criminal record.
Kevin said that at least two of his friends have
become homeless since his deployment with the
25th Infantry Division ended in 2005. One stayed
in Hawaii, "because you've got beaches you can
sleep on," Kevin said. The other, he said, moved
to the Salt Lake City area, "because out there,
if you're homeless, you get meals, you get
money" from Mormon charities. As the wars
continue, the number of homeless veterans is
"going to radically swell," Downing said.
Downing and others who work with homeless
veterans said the government is not prepared to
assist those troops; a recent report by the
Government Accountability Office said there are
some 200,000 homeless veterans and only 15,000
beds for them at shelters. At least 9,600 more
beds are needed, the report said. No government
agency provides permanent housing for homeless
veterans, said Beversdorf. "We're just the
fallout, you know?" Joe said in the garden of
the shelter. Under the trees, several homeless
Vietnam War veterans stood in the shade, smoking
in silence. "We fall through the cracks." |
