The Shameful Way America Treats Its Veterans

Veterans are twice as likely as the average American to be chronically homeless. In fact, more than a third of homeless individuals across the country are veterans — between 529,000 and 840,000, depending on the time of year, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. At this point, the number of homeless Vietnam veterans, male and female, is greater than the number of soldiers who died during the war.

It’s even worse for female veterans, for whom the risk of becoming homeless is four times greater than for male veterans.

According to the VA, about 70 percent of homeless veterans suffer from substance abuse problems, and some 45 percent are suffering from mental illnesses, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

PTSD diagnoses are on the rise, with as many as 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans reporting they have experienced it. Even as those rates are rising, the U.S. justice system is failing to take mental illness into account in criminal trials. A report released Wednesday by the Death Penalty Information Center found that mental health is often not weighed as a factor during trial. The DPIC estimates that there are some 300 veterans on death row today, and many, if not most, of them did not habe their mental health considered at trial.

On Tuesday, Ben Carson closed the GOP debate by saying that during the two hours the candidates stood on the stage “two veterans have taken their lives out of despair.” That statistic was extrapolated from a 2012 VA analysis of veteran suicides in 21 states between 1999 and 2011, so it offers only an incomplete and outdated sketch of the problem. (The VA, with help from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Defense, is apparently working on a more comprehensive study.)

The debate over the number, though, might speak to the United States’ biggest failure of all when it comes to its veterans: not understanding the full scope of the problem.