According to CBS News, "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley was "skeptical" when the story first crossed his desk that young Marines from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning up homeless. He wondered if there were really that many homeless veterans from the current war, or that a three-day event could actually do any good. But spending time at July's Veterans Village of San Diego's Stand Down, which offers free food and a wide variety of services for homeless vets from job fairs to legal advice to dental services to rehab opportunities, evidently convinced him that this generation's population of homeless veterans is indeed growing at a disturbingly fast rate, and that, at least for some, the program can and does help.
A source who has been very close to this CBS investigation over the past few months who asked for anonymity told me yesterday that Pelley wasn't just skeptical, he was "truly shocked" to learn that not only are there already more than 9,000 homeless veterans from the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that a growing percentage of them are women, who now make up nearly 15 percent of our overall population in the armed services.
Pelley's piece, while well done overall, could have focused more on the psychological wounds of war (post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury) and the multiple deployments, which most studies say are the primary cause (along with the economy) of this homeless situation among new vets. With all respect to Pelley, his alleged skepticism about the scope of the problem suggests he hasn't been keeping up with the studies or the media coverage. As the Washington Post reported, a study back in 2007 by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) found that veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming homeless far faster than past veterans. While homeless Vietnam veterans first spent, on average, five to 10 years trying to readjust to society, Iraq and Afghanistan veterans can end up homeless within 18 months or less, the study said.
The Veterans Village, which was originally formed to help homeless Vietnam veterans, organized the nation's very first Stand Down in 1998. The program has since become widely replicated nationwide. Today, more than 200 Stand Downs take place across the country every year. "The program has become recognized as the most valuable outreach tool to help homeless veterans in the nation today," according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.
Here's an excerpt from a blog from Henry Schuster, the producer behind last night's "60 Minutes" piece about "Stand Down" in San Diego.
