Vulnerable People and Places Blog

  Let’s paint a picture… You’re 18, fresh from high school, can’t afford college, no one will hire you because you have zero experience, and you just have to get out of your parents’ house. What do you do? You pick a branch. You serve your time, you form trauma bonds with the most unlikely people, and you’re immersed in a highly structured and detail-oriented environment where mistakes kill. To relieve some of that work stress, you go drinking with your buddies. After a year, it’s a social pastime; after two, it’s a habit. At four years, you need it just to sleep at night. You’ve blown every paycheck on youthful mistakes of high interest rates, obscene amounts of alcohol, and actually edible food, since the chow hall is sickening. You’ve collected every joint pop and muscle strain a body can get, not to mention the nightmares, the flinching at any sudden movements or loud noises. You know how to do your job very well, you are highly specialized and critical to mission succes...

  For many of us, sitting in front of a TV screen, and just watching some mindless tv show is good fun. It helps decompress from a long day at school, and/or work. A guilty pleasure of mine is Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. However, on the fourteenth episode of the twelfth season titled: "Shameless Not Ruthless", I could not believe the level of delusion and lack of self-awareness these affluent women showed. To summarize, Dorit Kemsley, one of the housewives featured in the show spoke about a charity that she had been working on called Homeless Not Toothless . Their mission statement states that this “501c3 nonprofit has provided free dental care to disadvantaged populations including Veterans, the homeless, poor, mentally ill, physically disabled, foster youth, domestic violence survivors, and the elderly, in the greater Los Angeles and surrounding areas since 1991. A particular focus is on veterans with disabilities including PTSD. Patients receive denta...

Image courtesy of Military Connection He goes to war. She fights for the United States. He gets injured while serving our country. She suffers from PTSD from serving our country. He is homeless and disabled. She could be homeless and disabled as it becomes hard to work a civilian job.   This is the truth for so many brave Americans once they depart the military. In fact, half of all homeless veterans have disabilities (DNVF.org). Homelessness is not uncommon for veterans. In Oregon alone, it is estimated that there are at least 1,300 homeless veterans (Oregon.gov). That is more than 10% of the entire homeless population in Oregon. This suggests that if one has served in the military, they are more likely to be homeless.   When this type of quantitative analysis is observed, veterans are not getting the support and critical resources they need. The government utilizes the Transition Assistance Program to help service members and their spouses prepare for civilian life, however,...