As Congress voted Friday to extend cash compensation to veterans, Salt Lake advocates of homeless veterans were busy on the front lines of their ongoing battle to help vets have a life back home.
Both the House and Senate approved different versions of a bill extending the current law of providing a one-time $1,000 Welcome Home bonus and an additional $500 for each subsequent return home following deployment.
More than 200 post-deployment vets, many of them homeless, received medical care, food and contacts with about 25 outreach and social service providers during the eighth annual daylong Homeless Stand Down at the George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center.
"With the mandate to do more for our vets, particularly now with the goal to end homelessness in five years, we've been trying very heard to reach out to those, especially the ones who might have a hard time asking for what they need," said Darin Farr, special projects coordinator for the state Department of Veterans Affairs, as the final few duffel bags full of food, clothes and survival gear were handed out. "We are trying to make things a little better."
A little better can be a lot, said Sharon Hatch, a Vietnam-era veteran who has lost her mobility to fibromyalgia and last week lost her two-bedroom house to foreclosure.
"We sold off what we could, but it's pretty hard to go from two bedrooms, a garage and a place to put your things to having one room," she said as she rolled her wheelchair to the shuttle bus.
"I come up here three or four times a month, and came here today for the first time (for the stand down), and it helps to know that people care," she said. "It makes the difference some days."
The care that veteran Robert Nelson finds at the VA "has meant the difference between getting by and stepping in front of a bus. I was ready to do that several times," he said, noting that his post-traumatic stress disorder from working at the Balboa Naval Medical Center in San Diego during the Vietnam War ran deeper than he realized and didn't affect him until years later when family problems hit.
"You know, I thought I was OK, but when things fell apart at home, I went downhill fast," Nelson said. "I think things I held over since then just hit me head-on, and I pretty much lost everything. People think a divorce maybe shouldn't be that big a deal, but anyone who's been through it knows it's as traumatic a shock as anything."
He'll keep doing better, he said. "I had to learn how to do life all over again. I'm a slow learner, but I eventually did it. When you lose everything, you meet people you'd never meet, and some of them are mean and out to take advantage of you. But you also meet some of the best people in the world, and some of them are here today."
The stand down is one of 100 held nationwide in honor of Veterans Day, Nov. 11, and is a focal point for not only expanding benefits, but also a $3.2 billion pledge by Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki to end homelessness. He plans to look after vets in jail better and to create a referral center that can link veterans to jobs, housing and health care.
No one should find themselves homeless, and perhaps veterans most of all, said Jennifer Eaves, VA outreach social worker who coordinated the day's events at the VA in Salt Lake.
"We're seeing more this year than last, and we're seeing more women, and we're seeing a lot of veterans who didn't realize they were entitled to benefits just by their service; a lot believe they have to be wounded to get benefits," Eaves said.
Women make up 14 percent of current active duty, guard and reserves, according to the VA. It is projected that the number of female veterans who use the VA system will double in the next five years, making women veterans one of the fastest-growing subgroups of veterans.
"Anyone in the military goes the extra mile for us, so we need to do the same for them and their families," Eaves said, "because no matter when or in what capacity they've served, they've made sacrifices that need to be recognized."
e-mail: jthalman@desnews.com