First war, then the streets

[InkAddict]

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/11/08/homeless.ART_ART_11-08-07_A1_0Q8DK5D.html?sid=101

Tim Espich, director of Gov. Ted Strickland's Office of Veterans Affairs, said "even though those numbers are good (in Ohio), we have a ways to go to get more of those folks off the streets."

Espich, who held the same post under former Republican Gov. Bob Taft, said the state has intensified its efforts to reduce homelessness.

Espich said his office has worked closely with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to identify veterans in prison. Just before the veteran is released, the department contacts the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to help find a job and housing, and make certain the veteran receives counseling for alcohol or drug addictions.

Here are the reasons why few Vets fight back:

from the article:

Both Andrews and Schmenk said they think many homeless veterans share common characteristics:

• Mistrust of the government

• Post-traumatic stress disorder

• Reliance on survival skills learned in boot camp

This is a joke, right? Prisoners (who are vets) get job/housing/medical assistance, but regular citizens who just happen to be Vets (from another legislatively "protected conflict") get ineffective prayers and platitudes about how globalization and outsourcing are really, really good for the US and Ohio. Perhaps, the Govenor's office could also concentrate more on retaining good jobs in this state, heck, any jobs in Ohio. (This is an Ohio rant, but I also feel for the likes of Michigan, et.al.)

Do they think only Vets have the issues cited above?

Hah, mistrust of the government? - Without having a pocket full of readily available retainer fees, few have the resources to follow employment discrimination cases. Furthermore, that makes one suspect as not a team player, no? Justice in any State of the US - it's only for the uber-rich or to make chumps of the rest of us who are modestly trying to co-exist with each other, by making the others, who exist unto themselves, richer still. Life no longer has predictable ups and downs, it's got unscalable-without-oxygen Everests where far too many freeze even before making the ABC (that's Advanced Base Camp) of Maslow's Level II. Is it any wonder some give up on the idea of climbing, even before lessons are over?

PTSD? - Those without actual post-traumatic stress syndrome may qualify for a diagnosis of COMPLEX PTSD, apparently unrecognized by the mental health experts in the US, which apparently is caused by persistent bullying which leaves one feeling defenseless. Some succumb to that bullying through uncivilness and/or violence as more suitable defenses prove meaningless or inacessible. These are the ones that wind up in the penal system while the real criminals of society remain free to continue defaming the Constitution's Bill of Rights. At the very least, the lack of appropriate programs aimed at prevention of and reparations for "corporate (who has "individual personhood" status) bullying" has left many with the learned helplessness, the despair, that at very least leads to a very real diagnosis of depression and other DSM-recognized diagnoses. These people see no pathway to what others just take, take, and take for granted. Effort is rewarded by pain, and no good deed goes unpunished. YOU ARE NOT PATRIOTIC - YOU ARE NOT USEFUL - YOU ARE STUPID - YOU ARE NOT WORTHY. Survival takes on the counter-civil societal behaviors that are dangerous for us all but go unheeded. Sorry, "it's just business." Aren't we all at war to stay sheltered; aren't we're all Vets in that way?

Bureucratic red tape, hurry up and wait, the motto of the armed forces, awaits any of us on any day, at any time. How many Vets and/or ordinary citizens can qualify for job training programs, housing assistance programs, or medical assistance programs as prevention from ruination. Our leaders and the media have been unbelievablely disingenous in their double-speak as they only apply those programs after the ugliness of lack of adequate education, unemployment, and ill health leaves broken contracts, empty homes, and broken families. Some countries have recognized complex PTSD as a serious society-destroying process that is difficult from which to recover. And war isn't? Those diagnosed can be considered for disability and "shelter" programs, but it's often difficult to re-wire those neural pathways jarred in this way. It's as if one received one of those cranial-jarring bomb injuries that change one's character and abilities. When the entity doing the bullying is one's government - well, go back to bullet #1.

Survival skills learned in boot camp? - I didn't realize that soldiers were instructed in primitive urban camping. At least they receive the minimal equipment as provided by, yup, us. Do they also teach how to recognize and avoid what has become the inevitable IEDs of serial disemployment, not for poor individual performance, mind you, that breaks the citizen soldiers' will to work in peace and harmony with the surroundings of the community in which one finds oneself. in Ohio?...in the US?...in the world? Oh, yeah - our decider-in-chief has declared endless war, so no one need ever stand down.

I'm sort of glad that Strickland seems to be trying to address the problems that this admin has handed many Ohioans,if one can believe the offered "solutions" as honorable authentic ones at all and not just more money-grabbing, time-wasting studies that provide no actual relief. However, what can he do about those that were the first to be made the poster children of *Co's failure and the birth of the new corporate "domestic terrorists" who stole the domestic warriors jobs, their homes, and their continued health and well-being, especially if they, at one time, were/are Vets. How will he shape programs-in-place and new programs to make sure those that those who were first-used to "create" a problem big enough to lure the Governor to actually acknowledge the problems and challenge those so tasked to really come up with some relief, to regain some sense that one can build a life here in Ohio or in the US at all. What about the natural laws of unintentional consequences...???

There are many that have been fighting a war against corporate domestic terrorism for as long as they could stand and fight but who now don't have enough working years left to rebuild that safety net that once came with a steady job; they are screwed presently, for like the old with arthritis, their flexibility isn't what it used to be and short-term productivity doesn't have lasting value...the rest, not at the summit of the Neocon capitalist Ponzi pyramid scheme, are only being generationally marginized and being readied, set up, for future plunder.

Sorry for the pessimism. Homelessness and the fear of same, while working very hard to do the right things, sucks!

END OF RANT.

[samplegirl]

1. Sometimes I wonder.......

If Ohio can ever be turned around. These corrupt politicians have totally bankrupted Ohio. I was glad to hear that Blackwell now has a lawsuit. The days of good paying jobs in Ohio is gone.
Its just devastating to think that we were once a thriving steel based state. I blame the republicans who thought they could roll us back and still thrive themselves many who are not as wealthy anymore.