Our Veterans special

1. NAMI-San Francisco recognizes that many of our veterans who are returning from active duty face a second war at home, confronting profound mental health problems that challenge their lives and the lives of their families ...
   
   
2. Half-million Veterans Make Up One In Four Homeless In US
   Tsunami predicted from "enormous" mental health toll in current war.
   
   
3. NAMI-SF has adapted this list from a San Francisco Chronicle guide to benefits, entitlements and services available to veterans in the Bay Area and other sources.
   
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INAMI-San Francisco recognizes that many of our veterans who are returning from active duty face a second war at home, confronting profound mental health problems that challenge their lives and the lives of their families.

Consider these grim statistics:

Almost 1 in 3 veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq confront mental health problems.

In 2006, the suicide rate in the Army reached its highest level in 26 years.

Approximately 30% of veterans treated in the Veterans health system suffer from depressive symptoms, two to three times the rate of the general population.

More Vietnam veterans have now died from suicide than were killed directly during the war in the 1960s and 70s.

Approximately 40% of homeless veterans have mental illnesses. Approximately 57% of this group are African American or Hispanic veterans.

Please click here for a San Francisco veterans' mental health resources list.

In addition, NAMI national's Veterans Resource Center (www.nami.org/veterans) features a growing compilation of fact sheets, self-help information, online discussion groups, research and policy updates, and links to government agencies and other private organizations. NAMI national has made the Veterans Resource Center a priority to meet a growing need.

The NAMI national Veteran's Resorce Center’s is organized into 12 on-line categories:

* Posttraumatic Stress Disorders
* Traumatic Brain Injury
* Suicide Prevention
* Veterans & Mental Illnesses
* Veterans Affairs and Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN)
* Families, Children and Spouses
* Women Veterans Resources
* Multicultural Resources
* Homelessness & NAMI’s Missing Person’s Network
* NAMI Veterans Council
* Online Discussion Groups

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Half-million Veterans Make Up One In Four Homeless In US
Tsunami predicted from "enormous" mental health toll in current war.

From The Associated Press by Kimberly Helfing, November 7, 2007

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

The Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.

In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.

Some advocates say such an early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters does not bode well for the future. It took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless. Advocates worry that intense and repeated deployments leave newer veterans particularly vulnerable.

"We're going to be having a tsunami of them eventually because the mental health toll from this war is enormous," said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.

While services to homeless veterans have improved in the past 20 years, advocates say more financial resources still are needed. With the spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to prevent homelessness and provide affordable housing to the younger veterans while there's a window of opportunity.

"When the Vietnam War ended, that was part of the problem. The war was over, it was off TV, nobody wanted to hear about it," said John Keaveney, a Vietnam veteran and a founder of New Directions in Los Angeles, which provides substance abuse help, job training and shelter to veterans.

"I think they'll be forgotten," Keaveney said of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. "People get tired of it. It's not glitzy that these are young, honorable, patriotic Americans. They'll just be veterans, and that happens after every war."

Keaveney said it's difficult for his group to persuade some homeless Iraq veterans to stay for treatment and help because they don't relate to the older veterans. Those who stayed have had success — one is now a stock broker and another is applying to be a police officer, he said.

"They see guys that are their father's age and they don't understand, they don't know, that in a couple of years they'll be looking like them," he said.

After being discharged from the military, Jason Kelley, 23, of Tomahawk, Wis., who served in Iraq with the Wisconsin National Guard, took a bus to Los Angeles looking for better job prospects and a new life.

Kelley said he couldn't find a job because he didn't have an apartment, and he couldn't get an apartment because he didn't have a job. He stayed in a $300-a-week motel until his money ran out, then moved into a shelter run by the group U.S. VETS in Inglewood, Calif. He's since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he said.

"The only training I have is infantry training and there's not really a need for that in the civilian world," Kelley said in a phone interview. He has enrolled in college and hopes to move out of the shelter soon.

The Iraq vets seeking help with homelessness are more likely to be women, less likely to have substance abuse problems, but more likely to have mental illness — mostly related to post-traumatic stress, said Pete Dougherty, director of homeless veterans programs at the VA.

Overall, 45 percent of participants in the VA's homeless programs have a diagnosable mental illness and more than three out of four have a substance abuse problem, while 35 percent have both, Dougherty said.

Historically, a number of fighters in U.S. wars have become homeless. In the post-Civil War era, homeless veterans sang old Army songs to dramatize their need for work and became known as "tramps," which had meant to march into war, said Todd DePastino, a historian at Penn State University's Beaver campus who wrote a book on the history of homelessness.

After World War I, thousands of veterans — many of them homeless — camped in the nation's capital seeking bonus money. Their camps were destroyed by the government, creating a public relations disaster for President Herbert Hoover.

The end of the Vietnam War coincided with a time of economic restructuring, and many of the same people who fought in Vietnam were also those most affected by the loss of manufacturing jobs, DePastino said.

Their entrance to the streets was traumatic and, as they aged, their problems became more chronic, recalled Sister Mary Scullion, who has worked with the homeless for 30 years and co-founded of the group Project H.O.M.E. in Philadelphia.

"It takes more to address the needs because they are multiple needs that have been unattended," Scullion said. "Life on the street is brutal and I know many, many homeless veterans who have died from Vietnam."

The VA started targeting homelessness in 1987, 12 years after the fall of Saigon. Today, the VA has, either on its own or through partnerships, more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. It spends about $265 million annually on homeless-specific programs and about $1.5 billion for all health care costs for homeless veterans.

Because of these types of programs and because two years of free medical care is being offered to all Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, Dougherty said they hope many veterans from recent wars who are in need can be identified early.

"Clearly, I don't think that's going to totally solve the problem, but I also don't think we're simply going to wait for 10 years until they show up," Dougherty said. "We're out there now trying to get everybody we can to get those kinds of services today, so we avoid this kind of problem in the future."

In all of 2006, the Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that 495,400 veterans were homeless at some point during the year.

The group recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years dedicated to the chronically homeless that would provide permanent housing linked to veterans' support systems. It also recommends funding an additional 20,000 housing vouchers exclusively for homeless veterans, and creating a program that helps bridge the gap between income and rent.

Following those recommendations would cost billions of dollars, but there is some movement in Congress to increase the amount of money dedicated to homeless veterans programs.

On a recent day in Philadelphia, case managers from Project H.O.M.E. and the VA picked up William Joyce, 60, a homeless Vietnam veteran in a wheelchair who said he'd been sleeping at a bus terminal.

"You're an honorable veteran. You're going to get some services," outreach worker Mark Salvatore told Joyce. "You need to be connected. You don't need to be out here on the streets."

Source: Associated Press

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NAMI-SF has adapted this list from a San Francisco Chronicle guide to benefits, entitlements and services available to veterans in the Bay Area and other sources.

To see the complete San Francisco Chronicle list, please go to: http://www.sfgate.com/returningvets/

VA Medical Centers offer mental health and substance abuse treatment, including services for combat-related stress and readjustment issues.

San Francisco Central Access Mental Health Service
(415) 750-6674

San Francisco VA Medical Center
4150 Clement Street
San Francisco, CA 94121-1598
(415) 221-4810
Member services office (877) 487-2838
www.sf.med.va.gov

Polly Rose, Combat Veteran Case Manager
(415) 221-4810, ext. 4405
24-hour advice nurse (800) 733-0502

VA 13th & Mission Outpatient Clinic
205 13th Street, San Francisco
(415) 551-7300

Local Vet Center
Vet centers offer broad readjustment services. They focus on counseling for military traumas, employment and family problems. They also provide referral services for VA benefits and medical assistance and liaisons with community agencies.

San Francisco Vet Center
505 Polk Street
San Francisco, CA 9410
(415) 441-5051

County Veterans Service Offices
These county offices are entities of local government and are made up of trained accredited claims representatives. As advocates of veterans, their dependents and survivors, they assist the claimant with filing claims for entitlements from the Department of Veterans Affairs and provide case management even after the DVA renders its decision.

San Francisco County
875 Stevenson Street, Suite 250
San Francisco 94103
(800) 807-5799

Veteran Service Organizations
The following nonprofit organizations help veterans navigate the VA system and advocate for veterans' rights. They are not affiliated with the government.

Disabled American Veterans (DAV)
Advice on filing claims, especially for service members in transition with a disability. Also offers transportation to facilities for treatment.

Disabled American Veterans
VARO Oakland Federal Building
1301 Clay Street, Room 1110 North
Oakland, CA 94612-5209
(510) 834-2921; (510) 834-2959
www.dav.org

Swords to Plowshares
This community-based organization provides counseling and case management, employment and training, housing and legal assistance to veterans in the Bay Area.
1060 Howard Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 252-4788
www.swords-to-plowshares.org

Fisher Hours
enables family members of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers. The homes are normally located within walking distance of the treatment facility or have transportation available. (www.fisherhouse.org)

Veteran's Affairs Watchdog Group
www.vawatchdog.org
A privately-owned web site the latest information about the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) and other topics of interest to veterans and thei

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