Number of Homeless Afghan, Iraq Vets Doubles

In an article published by the Army Times titled “Number of homeless Iraq, Afghan vets doubles,” the exponential increase in homeless veterans in the last two years is brought to light by the military’s media mouthpiece. The article states, “Through the end of September, 26,531 of [veterans] were living on the streets, at risk of losing their homes, staying in temporary housing or receiving federal vouchers to pay rent, the Department of Veterans Affairs reports.”
That is up from 10,500 in 2010 and the VA admits the numbers could be higher because they include only the homeless veterans that the department is aware of. In fact, it is reasonable to assume that the number is considerably higher.
This increase in Veteran homeless rate has occurred despite that President Obama Obama vowed in 2009 to end veteran homelessness by 2015.  As the fiscal cliff goes so do the veterans it seems.


Anne Murphy, a Salvation Army Homeless Veteran program director in Los Angeles, CA attributes the increase to our veterans today being, “younger, much more savvy and they don’t necessarily like to ask for help,” Murphy says. “But there are a lot of them out there.”
Sure a good explanation of the increase could be that those “whom have borne the battle” are returning home to one of the worst economic situations in history. This doesn’t explain the veterans being “more savvy,” as Mrs. Murphy claims, however.
Veterans face a world much different than the one they left from. One that resembles the land of their birth but one also, that because of their experiences, will never be the place that they remember from their childhood.