Tag / Veterans

by Frank Maduri

Twenty Two Tragedies A Day: The Veteran Suicide Rate Spike In America

The effects of warfare have always been devastating to our society and our shared global community. In the United States, the focus on such factors as PTSD began largely following the most recent wars waged in Iraq and Afghanistan following the September 11th terror attacks.

The men and women who bravely served our country and survived returned home after their service in combat with battle scars of another kind: mental, emotional, and psychological. The prevalence toward violent outbursts and wildly irrational behavior was seen more with these service veterans than others, though the Vietnam-era veterans had demonstrated some symptoms that, at the time, went largely unrecognized.

The media began to focus on the amount of suicides being committed by veterans and speculating about particular potential connections. This past week, USA Today and Military Times released a comprehensive study regarding this disturbing trend.

The first finding of the report suggests that the rallying cry from veterans’ advocacy groups may be inaccurate. Those groups would demonstrate and centered their key message around “twenty two per day”, which is in reference to the suicide rate of veterans in the United States.

However the data from this study seems to indicate that the number of veteran suicides is twenty per day. The number is still a huge problem and a heartbreaking statistic, but some other reports still have the number at twenty two, so the consensus remains that there is a problem and it has to be addressed.

There have been 7,400 veteran suicides, which is 18% of the total number of suicides in the U.S. in a given year. The astounding part of that statistic is that veterans constitute less than 9% of the U.S. population. The federal government was quick to point out that 70% of the veterans who tragically took their own lives did not regularly utilize VA services.

The suicide rate in female veterans rose the most precipitously with an 85% increase over the past 13 years. The rationale behind that increase is not a situation that can be easily determined or tracked. It certainly does not fit the general stereotype of veteran suicide, so much of the mainstream media reporting is on male veteran suicide.

Another troubling statistic is that 65% of the veterans that have taken their own lives are 50 years old and older, and have spent no time fighting in the most recent wars against the terrorist groups organizing in the Middle East.

In response to this terrible situation, which is of growing concern, the VA hired over 5,300 new staff in mental health support type jobs. The more challenging aspect is going to be determining methods to get the veterans to use the services offered and to stay consistently compliant and accountable with those mental health services.

Furthermore, there are so many other organizations in the non-profit arena working and dedicated to solving the tragic prevalence of suicide within the veteran community; that those involved in it feel that needs to change as well. In essence, without one single authoritative group to lead this effort, it will be too scattered to achieve any type of traction.

There are several proposals regarding how this single entity authority would work, and this type of structure has become necessary with other large social justice causes in the past, so the interest groups involved with veterans’ issues will approach it in a similar manner.

The other response that has come out of the combination of the recent media attention and the survey data on this continued horrible trend of suicide within the veteran population is, an effort termed by the federal government as being more “aggressive” in their procedures in getting these veterans into VA offered services.

Unfortunately, there is no hard data on the root cause of the rise in the suicide rate for veterans. The suicide rate could correspond with untreated mental and emotional trauma from being in combat. It could also be in response to the changes from when a soldier has to adjust to being back in their home or in their community; and the transition to being back in that scenario after being away for several months to a few years can be overwhelming.

In addition, the rise in this rate could be tied to any number of combinations of these issues coupled with the isolation that many veterans deal with upon their return home from active duty. The study data also indicates that difficult economic times may be a contributing factor in causing that transition home to be more challenging which leads to depression and then to suicide.

A large number of the suicides take place within three years of the veteran being out of military service. It is also not completely correlated to those who served in active forward areas or combat zones. The study data shows that military service members serving in other capacities have a tendency to take their own life. In a piece done by the LA Times where they interviewed military officers about the findings, the consensus is that there is no way to understand why these terrible events take place.
In my view, the numbers of veterans that take their own life both shocked and saddened me. The importance of mental health services for these service men and women becomes absolutely critical for them to be able to survive the transition from active duty to the civilian life. The human need for connection suggests that the VA should increase their capacity for holding support groups in communities more actively to support our veterans.

Furthermore, the indication that economic conditions could be a major contributing factor to the suicide rate in veterans suggests that more effective job placement is needed. The other component to that is, in many cases, more robust job training programs to help provide new skill sets to our veterans to compete in an ever-changing job market.

The root of the issue is mental and emotional, it stems from places in the human psyche that we may never fully understand. It is a stark reminder of the true cost of war and the emotional scars it can leave on these brave men and women. It is a reminder of the “dog eat dog” world where everybody is out there with their own self-interest in mind. A soldier coming from an environment where he or she was used to having fellow soldiers to lean on, would find that transition especially isolative. That leads to a scenario where we have twenty of these tragic suicides a day.

If you are interested in finding out more about how you can help the veterans of military service to better transition into your neighborhood or your community, please contact your local VA office, your local Congressional representatives, or your local American Legion office. Those of you who are reading this and have served our country in military service of any kind, I thank you for your service. If you are reading this, and your family has suffered through the suicide of a family member, you are in my prayers.

It is time for action, it is time for us to step up and help so that our military veterans can return home to move forward into active and productive lives. Some may think this is impossible, but I believe that in America anything is possible because of the compassion of our people.

by Frank Maduri

Follow Up: Homeless Veterans In U.S. Cities

In a follow up to an article series I wrote last year, the pledge by the government leaders across all levels to end the terribly high levels of homeless military veterans achieved a milestone in the first days of 2015. The City of New Orleans is the first city in the United States to provide housing for all of their veteran population.

 

The announcement represents some good news which is welcomed to counterbalance the often distressing reports of chronic homelessness in our cities and towns. In addition, the methodology which was used by New Orleans provides a framework which is under consideration by many other cities at this point in order to address their homeless veterans and their total homeless populations.

 

In fact, some other cities such as Phoenix and Salt Lake City have also made great strides in providing housing to their homeless veteran populations. Both of those cities have effectively ended chronic long-term homelessness of veterans, which is the most difficult circumstance to resolve within the nature of this terrible societal problem.

 

Counterpoint

 

The counterpoint that is being made to this news announcement which I have to include in fair balance, is that the numbers of homeless veterans in New Orleans is much smaller than in the larger American cities of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

 

The total number of homeless veterans in New Orleans was 227 in 2014, therefore that is a much more manageable number to place into housing than in a larger city. The homeless veteran population in New York City is staggering, and the city lacks the amount of affordable housing needed to shelter this group.

 

The detractors would also point out that New Orleans could handle this scenario more effectively than other cities because of the availability of housing due to the population migration in the post-Hurricane Katrina period.

 

However, my view on the ability of New Orleans to house the homeless veterans in their city is one of optimism for the progress of this movement to gain momentum across the country. It is also my hope that this approach used in New Orleans could be modeled to provide housing to combat homelessness on a more widespread level.

 

A New Model

 

The main stumbling block in the process to end homelessness in the United States is the propensity for some of the groups involved to approach the situation in a vacuum of sorts, which hampers the overall success of the effort. A good example being that the tendency is to think that the best way to help the homeless population in a given area is through the local government.

 

However, if the local government in this example has limited resources, then the correct aid will not be accessible to effectively resolve the issues with providing housing to the homeless in that area.

 

The approach by New Orleans in effectively ending homelessness for their veteran population, provides a new model for the rest of the nation to implement in the fight to end homelessness. In New Orleans the local government, the state government, the federal government, local and regional non-profit organizations, and landlords of potential residential properties worked in a collaborative partnership to address the needs of their city with regard to homeless veterans.

 

It was by working together that they were able to provide housing for the homeless veterans in their city. The rest of the country should utilize a similar model in order to coordinate and consolidate their respective efforts to provide housing to those who are living on the streets or in shelters.

 

The City of New Orleans provides the housing for veterans with the initial rental assistance being provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The project also receives support from non-profit agencies including Catholic Charities.

 

Furthermore, New Orleans has used this same collaborative model to address and decrease their chronically homeless population from 4,579 in 2009 down to 677 in 2013. That is a huge decline in the numbers of homeless people in their city, and the goal is to eliminate homelessness by the end of 2015.

 

The solution of providing housing to the homeless is not straight forward, it is a complex situation that for many cities requires a variety of resources in order to effectively resolve. The New Orleans model essentially pools all of the various resources and respective expertise of the groups involved in order to accomplish that desired outcome.

 

The model used in New Orleans could be cumbersome initially for other cities to implement because the collaborative approach is not the usual American method of solving complex social problems. In the interests of providing an adequate resolution to the troubling trend of long-term homelessness in military veterans, the most cost effective way is to work together on every level to coordinate every step of the process.

 

In addition, this holistic approach enables each group to utilize their individual strengths and talents in a collective way to solve this issue and move military veterans, who served our country bravely in battle, off the streets and into housing they can call their own.

 

It is through this collaborative effort that American cities of all sizes can bring an end to homelessness in our veteran population. Then, once a standard protocol has been developed that spans all levels of the government and includes the non-profit organizations and residential landlords, the larger issue of the total homeless population can be addressed.

 

In my previous articles on this topic, I have detailed the reports of studies that quantify the costs of housing the homeless population in the U.S. versus keeping that same group of people in the same system we have now of shelters, the streets, and emergency room care. The cost of providing housing to the current homeless population is far more cost effective when compared to the manner in which those same people are dealt with today, living on the streets.

 

In the end if everyone works together in a truly collaborative manner, with each group contributing to the process within their own area of expertise, then the issue of homelessness in America could have a legitimate chance of resolution.

 

(Statistics, demographic information, and some background information courtesy of Yahoo! News, The Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, and New Orleans Times – Picayune)