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Veteran Homelessness Drops Nearly 50 Percent Since 2010

azgreg

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Veteran Homelessness Drops Nearly 50 Percent Since 2010 > U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE > Article

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2016 — The Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs departments and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness today announced that the number of veterans experiencing homelessness in the United States has been cut nearly in half since 2010.

White House officials said data shows a 17 percent decrease in veteran homelessness between January 2015 and January 2016 -- quadruple the previous year’s annual decline -- and a 47 percent decrease since 2010.

Through HUD’s annual Point-in-Time estimate of America’s homeless population, communities across the country reported that fewer than 40,000 veterans were experiencing homelessness on a given night in January 2016, officials said. The January 2016 estimate found slightly more than 13,000 unsheltered homeless veterans living on their streets, a 56 percent decrease since 2010.

This is great news. However, there is more work to do. We need to find a place for all our veterans who want one.
 
So they basically did it with welfare. Sigh.
 
What we need is to fix our military's mental health system and the VA. I have no idea how to go about accomplishing such a task, but that seems like the right place to start.
 
Veteran Homelessness Drops Nearly 50 Percent Since 2010 > U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE > Article



This is great news. However, there is more work to do. We need to find a place for all our veterans who want one.

See? This is how incompetent Obama is! Even though he declared war on the nation's veterans (and on the economy, and on the American people including LGBT's), he even failed so badly in his war on veterans that their homelessness dropped by half! Why, his war on the economy is such a failure that we've had positive private sector job growth every month since September 2010!

Waitaminnit! Veteran homelessness drops 50% since 2010...AND positive private-sector job growth since Sept. 2010...that's too much of a coincidence! It MUST be a conspiracy, a secret plan by Obama, Clinton, and Hugo Chavez to destroy America!!!! They want us to THINK we're doing great, see, that's what it is! While at the same time they're aligning BLM with Fidel Castro and Mark Cuban (who's actually Donald Trump in disguise) to impose socialism on America!!!!!!
 
So they basically did it with welfare. Sigh.

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I'm pretty sure HUD rental assistance programs amount to welfare.

So? I can't think of a better use of tax dollars than taking care of our veterans.
 
So? I can't think of a better use of tax dollars than taking care of our veterans.

They're prior employees, so unless we are talking about injuries that happened on the job or something along those lines there is no reason for the government to treat them special.
 
Why do you hate our veterans?

Who said I did? Do employers hate their prior employees because they don't continue to pay them after their employment ends?
 
Beyond that, what we really need is a long-term program of bare-bones housing coupled with public works jobs for those homeless eligible to work, veteran or not. We know that we have trillions of dollars of infrastructure repair and upgrade that MUST be done over the coming decade or two.

Why not kill two birds with one stone, errr, wad of cash?
 
Beyond that, what we really need is a long-term program of bare-bones housing coupled with public works jobs for those homeless eligible to work, veteran or not. We know that we have trillions of dollars of infrastructure repair and upgrade that MUST be done over the coming decade or two.

Why not kill two birds with one stone, errr, wad of cash?

Unfortunately repairing infrastructure requires skill. You cant just throw shovels to homeless people.
 
so approximately half of the 8.6% of the homeless population made up of veterans is no longer homeless. How about the other 500,000+
 
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Unfortunately repairing infrastructure requires skill. You cant just throw shovels to homeless people.

That depends entirely on what portion of the infrastructure one is repairing. There are plenty of supporting and low/no-skill roles that people can play without skill, especially when starting out (ie, New Deal style work programs), and people can pick up skills along the way. I'm not talking about asking some random homeless guy to figure out how to fix an aging suspension bridge.


I'd also add that veterans may indeed already have any number of relevant skills depending on their role in the forces and could be matched up with appropriate work. Other unskilled homeless people would have to be assigned to no-skill or low-skill jobs. It could even mean following the orders of low-level paving crews, or joining generic jobs like picking up trash with inmates, etc. Give them something to do to make some money.

Otherwise, they're just on the streets begging, fighting for homeless shelter space, committing crimes so they can get a roof over their head, ending up in hospitals for emergency care we pay for, etc etc etc.
 
That depends entirely on what portion of the infrastructure one is repairing. There are plenty of supporting and low/no-skill roles that people can play without skill, especially when starting out (ie, New Deal style work programs), and people can pick up skills along the way.

I'm not talking about asking some random homeless guy to figure out how to fix an aging suspension bridge.

I guess where I am going with this is I have a friend that is an engineer. He works with a small construction company, he said they are under staffed because there just isn't enough people with the skills to do the jobs. He cant hire the homeless so to think the government can is not accurate. There are regulations and certifications for almost any job in infrastructure repair. I suppose it could be done but it would require a massive training and certification initiative.
 
I guess where I am going with this is I have a friend that is an engineer. He works with a small construction company, he said they are under staffed because there just isn't enough people with the skills to do the jobs. He cant hire the homeless so to think the government can is not accurate. There are regulations and certifications for almost any job in infrastructure repair. I suppose it could be done but it would require a massive training and certification initiative.

Just because someone is homeless doesn't mean they don't have skills. Besides, vets have already shown they are able to be trained.
 
Just because someone is homeless doesn't mean they don't have skills. Besides, vets have already shown they are able to be trained.

Didn't say that, but do they have the skills necessary to do the job, most likely not. Yes they can be trained but it will be expensive.
 
Didn't say that, but do they have the skills necessary to do the job, most likely not. Yes they can be trained but it will be expensive.

Money well spent.
 
I guess where I am going with this is I have a friend that is an engineer. He works with a small construction company, he said they are under staffed because there just isn't enough people with the skills to do the jobs. He cant hire the homeless so to think the government can is not accurate. There are regulations and certifications for almost any job in infrastructure repair. I suppose it could be done but it would require a massive training and certification initiative.

Well, again I think the devil is in the details. There are plenty of mundane tasks that can be assigned to low-skill workers, like the guy who rakes the bits of asphalt so that they're generally level, before the slightly more skilled driver of the roller-machine flattens it down. You pretty much need to be able to see and have basic coordination for that.

Or perhaps, if it's a job where cement is mixed in smaller quantities on the spot, the no-skill person is shown how to stir it while someone else handles the pouring in of cement and water. Etc

(And we know that road/highway repairs are a good part of the overall infrastructure projects we'll need to engage in)
 
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