Let’s better care for homeless veterans

Recently the Alliance to End Homelessness conducted a 2011 homeless count. Thank you to everybody who participated in this worthy cause. A 2009 count revealed an estimated 656,129 people experiencing homelessness in the United States on a given night. That is a rate of 21 homeless people per 10,000 in the general population.

On any night, approximately 107,000 veterans across the country go to sleep on benches, in back alleys and under bridges. Roughly twice that number will experience homelessness at some point this year. Thus, veterans make up a significant percentage of the homeless.

In recent years, the military has actually been encouraging its active duty troops to acknowledge the emotional and psychological stress of deployment, hoping to break through the resistance some people have to seek help. Unfortunately, a new Rand Corp. study of recent veterans in New York state suggests that some of the same resistance continues among men and women who have left the military. The study found that only about a third of the veterans who appeared to need mental health care — typically for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or substance abuse — had actually received it in the previous year.

Asked why, many said they feared that seeking treatment would lead colleagues or bosses to lose respect for them and would hurt their careers. Others raised concerns about the side effects of medications or the cost and effectiveness of therapy. The survey also found that about 22 percent of the veterans surveyed had either post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, or both.

We need to improve on this by making sure our veterans can get the help they need through community-based health services. They must get financial assistance. This stigma of needing treatment needs to be removed. Our veterans deserve better.

Joseph M. Jason

President

National Alliance on Mental Illness, Barrington Area

Buffalo Grove