Taylor Edgeworth

Womens Studies
12/10/2015
Homelessness Activism Plan
Homelessness in general is a very important issue. However, 33% of homeless
men are veterans. Between 529,000 and 840,000 veterans are homeless at some point
during the year. Veterans make up 11% of the adult civilian population but 26% of the
homeless population. People who have risked their lives to fight and defend our country
should not be facing these issues once they are finished serving in the military. They
should be coming back to a place to call home. I think that it is very important to
acknowledge the hardships that these generous people are facing and try to do what we
can to help them.
When veterans return from service many times they are unable to get jobs because
of the lack of transferable skills they have from the military life to civilian life. Because
many veterans join the service immediately after high school, they may not have enough
education to make them eligible for a different occupation. Often times their minds are
damaged because of everything they had to go through during combat, making it difficult
for them to have the proper social skills to obtain a job outside of the military. Some
veterans suffer from mental illnesses such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Other
veterans cannot get jobs because they are physically injured during combat.
I think that something needs to be done in order to help these veterans in order to
return the favor that they have already done for the country. The government needs to
help and offer different education plans for young veterans returning from war. There

should be classes offered to them to help transfer the skills they had to use in the military
to civilian life so they do not have to start all over and can reintegrate into society
successfully. The veterans that come home from war and cannot get a job to support
themselves because they are injured is not fair at all. Society can help by raising
awareness of homelessness among veterans. Donations should be made to injured
veterans so that they do not have to live the rest of their lives in homelessness because
they were protecting the rest of their country. Also, the government should step in when
injured veterans become homeless because of an injury from combat. The government is
able to hand out welfare to regular civilians who did not serve our country or anything
near what these veterans have done for us, so to me it does not seem acceptable that
people who have done so much for us come home to nothing and have no one there to
help them.
The benefits of this action plan would be on a national level. It would be the
government that mostly had to step in. There are already federal and state programs in
place to help veterans such as the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program and the
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, because the percentages of homeless people
that are also veterans are nearly half of homeless people in America. Civilians can also
try to help by donating money to provide new education programs for the veterans who
have spent all of their time in the service after high school. The money that is donated
could also go towards healthcare for veterans who were physically injured and are unable
to work.

Homelessness in general is an issue that is prevalent in society. However, veterans

are more at risk of becoming homeless than non veterans. Therefore, awareness of
homelessness among veterans should be increased. Raising awareness is an important
step towards prevention and could result in a significant decrease in the number of
veterans that suffer from lack of shelter. Without society being aware of this issue,
homeless veterans will continue to be a commonplace affair.