Veteran Homelessness is a Moral Failure

They don't need your platitudes.

Today, your social media feeds will be filled with “thank you, veterans” messages written in a swoopy font set against a backdrop of the American flag. And yes, I agree that veterans deserve to be thanked for their service. But as the child of a disabled veteran who died of his war-related injuries, these generic platitudes can ring hollow.

This is a concept veterans know deep in their core: running your mouth does little. Moving your hands and feet gets the job done.

Experts estimate that approximately 20% of the men who are homeless in the United States are veterans. This is unconscionable, and this is a problem that can be solved. In fact, Hennepin County, Minnesota’s most densely populated county with more than a million people, has effectively ended veteran homelessness.

Veterans face many barriers to economic stability: they are far more likely to have a disability than their civilian counterparts. They’re more likely to struggle with marketable job skills, as so many military assignments, have few civilian applications. They’re more likely to struggle with PTSD and other mental health issues. They’re more likely to suffer from addiction.

The list of services we should be providing ample access to is long: addiction treatment, mental health assistance, access to medical care, and job skills. But the sun around which all these services must orbit is: housing. This is how Hennepin County has approached the problem, and it’s worked. If we first stabilize a veteran with a safe home free from drugs and alcohol, the other services are far more easy to provide.

If we know where you live, we can give you a ride to your medical appointments. If you have a home with privacy and electricity, you can access telemedicine counseling appointments. If you have a roof over your head, we can get you scheduled for job training and mail you the information.

Too often, politicians take the opposite tack: they view housing as a “reward” for compliance.

Too often, the public views veteran homelessness as a moral failure.

And it is. It is the moral failure of a nation to press a person into service, asking them to risk life and limb for their country, promising them they will be cared for, only to abandon them in their time of need.

This is a problem we can move the needle on, today. We don’t need to wait for Congress to fix it at some undefined moment in the future when there are men and women who need us right now. We don’t have to let the specter of what should be — the federal government shouldn’t allow veterans to be homeless anywhere — overshadow what can be in our local communities.

We need people working on this issue from a nationwide policy perspective. But we must also remind ourselves that if it’s worth doing for everyone, it’s worth doing for one person. It’s worth helping one veteran find a stable home, a job, medical care, and addiction services.

Today, instead of posting a platitude on social media, would you be willing to donate to a local organization that serves veterans in your community? And if you can’t afford to make a donation to an organization working on this issue, would you be willing to post about one instead?

If you don’t know of a local veteran’s organization, you can Google “my city/my state veteran services organization,” but I am also linking a map here that lists hundreds of local groups. You can click on your region and find one near you.

My dad was able to provide for his kids — sometimes just barely, and with the help of the American social safety net — but better than anyone, he knew the power of moving your hands and feet.

Let’s honor America’s veterans today by doing the same.