Yesterday, the International New York Times published an editorial titled “Broken Promises to Homeless Vets” where the Board called President Obama’s recent statement of having reduced the number of homeless veterans by 47 percent, an “upbeat statistic [that] actually reflects shrunken ambition and mission failure”
Last year we released the second chapter of our video documentary series on homelessness in Arizona titled: Chapter 2: Housing First where we explored Mayor Greg Stanton’s claim of ending chronic homelessness amongst the veteran population of the city of Phoenix, Arizona.
In the article, Virginia, Connecticut and a several communities are mentioned to have successfully ended homelessness. The list does not include Arizona.
As the article notes President Obama made promises of ending veteran homelessness since 2009 with a 2014 deadline, and then pushing it to 2015.
While the Housing First initiative has proven to work in some cases, it is necessary that underlying issues of inadequate mental health and disability services, as well as the promotion of effective support networks to be improved for veterans even before they experience homelessness.
Take a look at our short video documentary below:
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