Help lags for homeless female veterans

[unhappycamper]

Help lags for homeless female veterans
By Bina Venkataraman
Wed Jul 18, 4:00 AM ET


Rachel Caesar, the first American-born in her family of immigrants from Trinidad, served in the National Guard and Army Reserve for 14 years. Today, three years after returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, she's out of an apartment, out of work, and, on some days, ready to "run away and hide."

Ms. Caesar still suffers from sleepless nights, jumpiness, and vivid flashbacks of weapon fire and land mine victims. In 2005, her doctors diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); soon after, she had to quit her customer service job of eight years.

After she fell behind in rent, she and her landlord agreed it was time for her to go. "I'm not sure how long I can stay here," she says, of her mother's house in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, where she and her two sons have been living for the past two months. "I would go to a shelter, but I don't want to put my kids through that."

Like many women who return from war, Caesar – who calls herself "on the verge of homelessness" – is struggling to adjust to civilian life, make ends meet, and find a permanent home.

An estimated 8,000 female veterans are homeless in the US – the most in the nation's history and a number that is expected to increase as more women return from the war in Iraq. At the same time, services to help these women stay off the streets are lagging behind, say several experts who work with veterans' issues.

"With the likelihood of more women veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan with a need for housing, it's going to be a major, major issue," says Cheryl Beversdorf, executive director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, noting that there isn't enough housing to meet even current demands. "The VA is trying to gear up services for women, but frankly it's not enough given what we are dealing with."


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[Recursion]

1. From IVAW: resources for vets

http://www.ivaw.org/vetresources

Not nearly enough, but in case anybody needs some...

[ClintonTyree]

2. That reminds me....

I have to pick up a new "Support the Troops" magnet at Wal*Mart today. :sarcasm:

Just what we need. Thousands of homeless, suffering women careening around our country. And the "family first" crowd, so diligently protecting the sanctity of the American family, will turn a blind eye toward this and redouble their efforts to keep women under their thumbs.

I weep for these women and their children. They've been used and discarded by the Bush war machine. Our country owes them much, much more.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. I always associate our military with chivalry, but then the Eichmann-like,

chicken-hawk functionaries of the right in the UK and US are hardly military, hardly service people. They claim to be devoted public servants, like they claim to be patriotic - the last refuge of scoundrels for whom the country begins and ends with themselves; their main pre-occupation being how much they can plunder for themselves from the public purse.

[TahitiNut]

3. Gotta love the loyalty of the corporate colonialists.

These people are being sent to risk their lives due to an apathetic body politic surrendering to corporate colonialism and greed - and those same corporate 'interests' discard the human flotsam on the shores of unemployment and homelessness. Fodder. Throw-away bodies. Disgusting.