Number of Homeless Female Veterans is Growing...and Many Have Kids
Friday July 10, 2009
It's an unfortunate fact that military service members experience physical, mental and emotional hardships on the job. But once they're discharged, the aftermath of a tour of duty can bring those hardships back home with them.
The Boston Globe has a little-reported story on the rising number of homeless women veterans, many of them single parents with kids. What's even more disturbing is the fact that although services are in place to help returning vets, many feel that the culture of the Veterans Administration is primarily geared toward addressing the needs of men; therefore, they're having a hard time adjusting to the very different and specific needs of women.
Comments
Sadly, it is true: female vets are treated differently. After I became a Disabled Veteran twenty years ago, I was met by VA doctor and VA doctor who did not listen to several complaints I had about neck and shoulder pain. After going to a Chiropractor and Osteopath, I discovered that I had a torn cervical disk, a herniated disk, a torn rotator cuff, and nerve damage from a bone graft from the Army health care system. The VA doctors left me to be in chronic pain and become crippled at times. I had a bankruptcy, lost my career path and became homeless. Albeit, being a US Army Trained Veteran, I was homeless while I used my GI Bill and graduated Cume Laude… but still remained homeless. I only survived because of my Army training to survive. Otherwise, I might have been another suicide case. The male preditors who “help” homeless women to prostitute themselves and become drug addicts is a huge trap. I recently escaped it due to the newer programs for women at the VA. After twenty years, I have a home, a mobile home-my first stable place to rest my body and mind.