Jacob Corell, Gina Dean, Madison Harding, Ashley Gregson

English II Honors

Mrs. Harrell

February 22, 2018

Are you aware of the severity of suicide and homeless rates in terms of veterans that

make it back from serving? According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, “About

11% of adult homeless population are veterans”. This is a very surprising statistic because many

would believe that veterans would be more closely and tentatively taken care of after they return

home and retire from their time in the service. Using this statistic we have identified

homelessness in veterans as one of the major problems in society. Veterans coming back from

serving our country to find no home to live in and nor family for support, therefore, communities

need to come together to fight for the ones who fought for us in our time of need.

Organizations such as the Veterans Administration (VA) and Wounded Warriors

Project(WWP) exist to try and help the veterans who have served our great nation. As stated by

Wounded Warriors “ Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) serves veterans and service members

who incurred a physical or mental injury, illness, or wound, consequent to their military service

on or after September 11, 2001 and their families”. The Wounded Warriors and the VA helps

veterans with collecting donations and a variety of benefits. These corporations also help these

veterans with providing health care centers across the nation. A number of veterans feel that

they don’t need or want to require the service of these companies; which can cause them think

about attempting to take their own life due to the truma from their time in the service .
 Seeing that organizations such as the VA and Wounded Warriors Project can only help

veterans to an extent, the suicide rates and the homeless rates still have not declined but in turn

have increased. This is happening because, it takes several months if not more for organizations

to set appointments with psychologist and case workers. According to the Wounded Warrior

Project, “In addition to the physical wounds, it is estimated as many as 400,000 service members

live with their invisible wounds of war including combat related stress, major depression, and

posttraumatic stress disorder”. Many people are not aware of theses statistics and if they were

informed, many would be appalled at these rates and would want change to those statistics. Also

according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, Veterans are homeless for many

reasons such as access to to health care, affordable housing, livable income; also many veterans

have to live with substance abuse and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Which can be worse

by having no family or support. Also military jobs sometimes do not transfer to a civilian job.

With this information you can see that there is many different reasons as to why veterans are

homeless and need our help more now than ever.

On the other hand, some may argue that veterans receive enough care and support after

returning from service. One executive department of the U.S. Cabinet is the Department of

Veterans Affairs which provides healthcare to eligible veterans. The U.S. also contains State

Veteran Homes which are established as nursing home facilities to serve disabled veterans.

According to statistics, veteran homelessness has decreased by an estimated 47% between 2010

and 2016, which demonstrates progress being made towards awareness of our veterans.

Based on the information above we can see that veterans need our support more

than most think. Organizations such as WWP and the VA help support veterans with problems

that occur after veterans come back from serving for are rights. These organizations are more
than necessary because PTSD and depression our uprising problems for veterans that WWP and

the VA can aide with. Although some people think veterans are receiving enough support when

they come home, they are no. We can be the answer to helping veterans get the support they

need. They need our support more than anything, so let's all give a little to those who risk their

lives for us.

Works Cited

National Coalition for Homeless Veterans,

nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/.
 Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs. “Office of Public and Intergovernmental

Affairs.” Go to VA.Gov, 1 Sept. 2016, www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2951.

Office, VA Public Affairs. “U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.” Go to VA.gov, 3 Oct.

2005, www.va.gov/.

“Wounded Warrior Project.” Wounded Warrior Project,

www.woundedwarriorproject.org/.