Problems faced by Elderly Veterans

-

Waving from the street, an elderly veteran holds up a sign. Homeless, need food, money, or work. Sadly, this is an all too common sight to see. Elderly veterans face a huge lack of support and many difficulties in their lives and many wind up homeless.

Why does this happen? For many veterans, they were drafted to fight in wars when they should have been in school and have wound up without any degree. This leads to many veterans working entry level jobs or manual labor, which were sustainable when they were younger with more able bodies. As they’ve grown older these kinds of jobs break down their bodies or due to other aging problems they just can’t work anymore. And, these kinds of jobs can result in not having much of a retirement fund or plan.

In addition to this, although veterans can complete disability claim appeals, the process can take up to 2 years before a Regional Office can make a decision due to the humongous backlog. As for the Board of Veteran Appeals, they make take up to 3 years! And we’re still talking about elderly veterans here, despite their old age they are still forced to wait this long.

So what can an elderly veteran do? For one, if they fall under significant hardships, terminal illness, or are over 85 years old, they may be able to get their claim expedited. There are also some other benefits that veterans may not be aware of, such as palliative care, home based primary care, housebound care, and many more. You can view these in a link below!  These are general resources that can be missed by veterans because they aren’t labeled as veteran-specific. For others, they can help out by connecting and volunteering with veterans and veteran organizations. There are also some links below that you can check out to help out the people that have served our country.

https://www.hillandponton.com/common-issues-facing-elderly-veteran-population/
https://www.dav.org/help-dav/volunteer/volunteer-locally-help-veterans/
https://www.volunteer.va.gov/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Domestic Violence within the Homeless Community

-
Image
  Domestic Violence within the Homeless Community Source: Unsplash The Facts                                                                                          According to  Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), 233,832 are people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the United States. Of the 233,832, 50,767 are families with children.  Currently, 30% of homeless people are adult women.  (portlandoregon.gov)   Bradley Angle , which works to support survivors of  domestic violence , reported that 70% of domestic violence reports are from homeless women. ( www.kgw.com)  Homeless women are 1/3 of the fastest growing populations HUD homeless populations. ( portlandoregon.gov)   Specifically, in Por...
Read more

Understanding Homelessness

-
Image
  Source (American Addiction Centers)      Homelessness has a myriad of different reasons it can happen. The similarity between all scenarios in which a person is experiencing homelessness is that each person is human. A popular belief is that homelessness is a choice. People believe there is a set amount of circumstances that cause homelessness and that it is a choice not to fight to get out of those problems. The problems can range from mental health issues to drug addiction. There is no one size fits all, and it is not a choice.  Over the last few weeks, I have learned that there are many factors that can lead to homelessness. One big one that focuses on our class is how affordable housing, or the lack thereof, is a significant contributor to people not getting back on their feet. If you want to learn more about that subject and if affordable housing can help, click here.   This lack of affordable housing is a big roadblock for those trying to ove...
Read more

Air pollution caused by wildfires may increase risk of dementia

-
Image
  There are already more than 57 million dementia sufferers in the world, and by 2050, that figure is predicted to rise to 153 million. It is estimated that risk factors like exposure to air pollution account for up to 40% of these instances. Even when annual exposure was lower than the current EPA annual threshold of 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (g/m3), the researchers discovered continuous evidence of a relationship between PM2.5 and dementia. The researchers discovered a 17% increase in risk for dementia for every 2 g/m3 increase in average yearly exposure to PM2.5, specifically among the studies using active case ascertainment. Despite the fact that the data was more sparse, they also discovered evidence supporting links between dementia and nitrogen oxide (5% increase in risk for every 10 g/m3 increase in yearly exposure) and nitrogen dioxide (2% increase in risk for every 10 g/m3 increase in annual exposure). According to a recent University of Michigan study, wildfi...
Read more