Veterans typically make up a disproportionate proportion of the homeless and disadvantaged population in the United States than they typically do of the actual population of the United States, usually differing by double digit percentage points. A research paper in the American Journal of Medicine discusses why a large portion of that may be for a reason different than some of the psychological issues that may immediately come to mind.
Financial literacy, for example, appears to play a major role in the issue. Many veterans lived in base housing while serving, and did not have to acquire the various financial skills necessary to succeed in our current society. Once they left the military, they were past the age when those skills are typically being learned, and thrust into a world and game that they did not know how to play. They may end up in a debt spiral from payday loans due to a difficulty being employed by employers with a structure different from the military, or they may be in a debt spiral because of bad financial decisions that they had no ability to make better than they had.
The question that we must ask ourselves is, what would it take to pull these people out of the quandary they are in, as well as teach them the life skills that they weren’t necessarily able to acquire while serving or when they were thrust into a world where they were far behind the skill sets of their civilian contemporaries?
This author wonders what you, the reader, think a solution might be?
To find more information, or to lend a hand, please visit Easter Seals
-KA
ELBOGEN, E. B., SULLIVAN, C. P., WOLFE, J., WAGNER, H. R., & BECKHAM, J. C. (2013). Homelessness and Money Mismanagement in Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans. American Journal of Public Health (1971), 103(S2), S248–S254.
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