Nonprofit aims to give vets hope
Lyons VA campus opening wing for homeless veterans.
By KARA L. RICHARDSON STAFF WRITER
BERNARDS -- A transitional housing program for homeless veterans was full within a year of its 2004 opening at the Lyons Veterans Administration campus here.
Now, as a new wing with 25 more beds is about to be unveiled today, Community Hope, a private nonprofit organization contracted to run the homeless veterans program, has the same challenge.
The additional beds, making a total of 95 spots in the program, will be helpful, but J. Michael Armstrong, Community Hope's executive director, said, "It will still only be a drop in the proverbial bucket."
On any given night, an estimated 8,000 veterans in New Jersey are homeless. So, the additional beds already are spoken for from a long waiting list of clients, he said.
"Our residents have experienced repeated homelessness as far back as their service in Vietnam. It is an incredible challenge to break that lengthy cycle, but these veterans are succeeding in the program and experiencing hope for the first time in many years," Armstrong said. "The opening of this new wing enables us to help more veterans turn their lives around."
click post title for the rest
Monday, November 26, 2007
Homeless veterans in Michigan
Group Steps Up Aid for Thousands of Homeless Michigan Veterans
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Monday (11/26) at 08:59 AM
Thousands of veterans of wars from Korea to Iraq, who returned to Michigan traumatized and without adequate care and who are suffering in poverty, are living on the street this fall, including in makeshift shelters under highway overpasses, veterans' advocates say.
Tyrone Chatman, associate executive director at the Detroit-based Michigan Veterans Foundation, says he sees the problem daily. The foundation's main project is the Detroit Veterans Center, a transitional housing and resource center run by and for veterans. The foundation plans to expand services and set up similar community-based veterans centers beyond Detroit.
"We serviced over 1,100 veterans this year and on any given day there are over 130 that reside with us," Chatman said.
Continued -
Eartha Jane Melzer ::
Group Steps Up Aid for Thousands of Homeless Michigan Veterans
by: Eartha Jane Melzer
Monday (11/26) at 08:59 AM
Thousands of veterans of wars from Korea to Iraq, who returned to Michigan traumatized and without adequate care and who are suffering in poverty, are living on the street this fall, including in makeshift shelters under highway overpasses, veterans' advocates say.
Tyrone Chatman, associate executive director at the Detroit-based Michigan Veterans Foundation, says he sees the problem daily. The foundation's main project is the Detroit Veterans Center, a transitional housing and resource center run by and for veterans. The foundation plans to expand services and set up similar community-based veterans centers beyond Detroit.
"We serviced over 1,100 veterans this year and on any given day there are over 130 that reside with us," Chatman said.
Continued -
Eartha Jane Melzer ::
Group Steps Up Aid for Thousands of Homeless Michigan Veterans
Anderson hears calling to help homeless vets
Anderson hears calling to help homeless vets
By Alexa Hinton
Janet Robinson has no feeling in her fingers. And, when she holds out her hands, her thick, weathered fingers fall into a limp, gnarled curl.
It's one of the many indelible marks scarring the woman after she lived two years homeless on the streets of Nashville. It happened when, while shuffling along Murfreesboro Road, Robinson was pushed viciously by muggers and fell to her hands. The force when she struck the ground was too much for fingers weakened by seasons of cold temperatures and little protection, and she never regained sensation.
“They got my purse, but wasn’t nothing in it,” Robinson said.
Though her bag was empty, the 50-year-old Texas native says she had once considered her life full. Robinson served three years in the Army as a combat medic and hearing technician. She worked many years as a home health care nurse. She raised two boys, Jesse, now 20, and Josh, now 24.
“I wouldn’t ever have dreamed I’d become homeless. Heck, I used to make good money,” Robinson said.
click post title for the rest
By Alexa Hinton
Janet Robinson has no feeling in her fingers. And, when she holds out her hands, her thick, weathered fingers fall into a limp, gnarled curl.
It's one of the many indelible marks scarring the woman after she lived two years homeless on the streets of Nashville. It happened when, while shuffling along Murfreesboro Road, Robinson was pushed viciously by muggers and fell to her hands. The force when she struck the ground was too much for fingers weakened by seasons of cold temperatures and little protection, and she never regained sensation.
“They got my purse, but wasn’t nothing in it,” Robinson said.
Though her bag was empty, the 50-year-old Texas native says she had once considered her life full. Robinson served three years in the Army as a combat medic and hearing technician. She worked many years as a home health care nurse. She raised two boys, Jesse, now 20, and Josh, now 24.
“I wouldn’t ever have dreamed I’d become homeless. Heck, I used to make good money,” Robinson said.
click post title for the rest
New Effort to Help Homeless Veterans
New Effort to Help Homeless Veterans
Reported by: Herryn Herzog
Email: HerrynHerzog@woai.com Last Update: 11/20 5:55 pm
About a fourth of all homeless people are veterans. News 4 is uncovering what is being done to get a handle on the problem and hopefully solve it.
Kenneth Ballantine served in the Marine Corps from 1975 through 1978. Now he is homeless
"Poor personal decisions and choices, alcohol and drugs," said Ballantine.
Bill Tompkins is another homeless veteran. He says there is help out there, but the problem remains.
"It's just often they don't reach those that could use it," said Tompkins.
"They've been there for us when we needed them. We need to be there now that they're in need," said Congressman Ciro Rodriguez.
Rodriguez says we have failed our homeless vets.
Reported by: Herryn Herzog
Email: HerrynHerzog@woai.com Last Update: 11/20 5:55 pm
About a fourth of all homeless people are veterans. News 4 is uncovering what is being done to get a handle on the problem and hopefully solve it.
Kenneth Ballantine served in the Marine Corps from 1975 through 1978. Now he is homeless
"Poor personal decisions and choices, alcohol and drugs," said Ballantine.
Bill Tompkins is another homeless veteran. He says there is help out there, but the problem remains.
"It's just often they don't reach those that could use it," said Tompkins.
"They've been there for us when we needed them. We need to be there now that they're in need," said Congressman Ciro Rodriguez.
Rodriguez says we have failed our homeless vets.
Sonny Iovino's death causes action for homeless veterans
Iowa City group seeks to raise funds for homeless veterans
Associated Press - November 22, 2007 11:14 AM ET
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa City group has teamed with a local bank to provide assistance for homeless veterans. The move comes two weeks after one died of hypothermia under a bridge.
go here for the rest
Nursing the mental scars of war in UK too little, too late for too many
Nursing the mental scars of war
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 26/11/2007
The Government is unveiling a new scheme to help soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But for one widow, it is too little too late, Glenda Cooper finds
'Imagine your worst day and multiply it by a thousand," was how Captain Ken Masters described his time in Basra to his wife Alison. "In Bosnia and Afghanistan I felt I was doing some good. Here it's different."
'Imagine your worst day': Captain Ken Masters killed himself in Iraq
Four days before he was due to leave Iraq he walked into his small barrack room at Waterloo Lines military camp and hanged himself.
"He was out there looking after his men; why was no one looking after him?" his wife asks now.
Capt Masters is one of 17 serving personnel posted to Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed suicide; one in 10 of those who have died in these two conflicts have taken their own lives.
According to the Ministry of Defence's own figures, of 1,158 serving personnel who developed mental health problems - such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), stress-related disturbance and depression - between January and March this year, 499 had been in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
Other figures show that the number of reservists sent to Iraq who suffer mental problems has doubled since 2003.
The last military psychiatric hospital, the Duchess of Kent in Yorkshire, was closed after a review in the 1990s. The MoD says it is accepted as best practice to treat service personnel with mental health disorders in the NHS in conjunction with the Priory group of clinics.
It spent £3.4 million on 307 such patients in 2006-07. However, on Friday the Government announced that it was also unrolling a pilot scheme across six sites in Britain that will provide trained mental health therapists for veterans.
The mental scars of war have always been with us. The veterans of the First World War called the symptoms they brought home shell shock; the Second World War generation talked about "going psycho".
Today, the buzz word is ''post-traumatic stress disorder", a term describing a severe reaction to an extreme psychological trauma.
click post title for the rest
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Ecstasy Trials Was it a fluke -- or the future?
The Peace Drug
Post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore's life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke -- or the future?
By Tom Shroder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007; Page W12
THE BED IS TILTING!
Or the couch, or whatever. A futon. Slanted.
She hadn't noticed it before, but now she can't stop noticing. Like the princess and the pea.
By objective measure, the tilt is negligible, a fraction of an inch, but she can't be fooled by appearances, not with the sleep mask on. In her inner darkness, the slight tilt magnifies, and suddenly she feels as if she might slide off, and that idea makes her giggle.
"I feel really, really weird," she says. "Crooked!"
Donna Kilgore laughs, a high-pitched sound that contains both thrill and anxiety. That she feels anything at all, anything other than the weighty, oppressive numbness that has filled her for 11 years, is enough in itself to make her giddy.
But there is something more at work inside her, something growing from the little white capsule she swallowed just minutes ago. She's subject No. 1 in a historic experiment, the first U.S. government-sanctioned research in two decades into the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. This 2004 session in the office of a Charleston, S.C., psychiatrist is being recorded on audiocassettes, which Donna will later hand to a journalist.
The tape reveals her reaction as she listens to the gentle piano music playing in her headphones. Behind her eyelids, movies begin to unreel. She tries to say what she sees: Cars careening down the wrong side of the road. Vivid images of her oldest daughter, then all three of her children. She's overcome with an all-consuming love, a love she thought she'd lost forever.
"Now I feel all warm and fuzzy," she announces. "I'm not nervous anymore."
"What level of distress do you feel right now?" a deeply mellow voice beside her asks.
Donna answers with a giggle. "I don't think I got the placebo," she says.
click post title for the rest
Post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore's life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke -- or the future?
By Tom Shroder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 25, 2007; Page W12
THE BED IS TILTING!
Or the couch, or whatever. A futon. Slanted.
She hadn't noticed it before, but now she can't stop noticing. Like the princess and the pea.
By objective measure, the tilt is negligible, a fraction of an inch, but she can't be fooled by appearances, not with the sleep mask on. In her inner darkness, the slight tilt magnifies, and suddenly she feels as if she might slide off, and that idea makes her giggle.
"I feel really, really weird," she says. "Crooked!"
Donna Kilgore laughs, a high-pitched sound that contains both thrill and anxiety. That she feels anything at all, anything other than the weighty, oppressive numbness that has filled her for 11 years, is enough in itself to make her giddy.
But there is something more at work inside her, something growing from the little white capsule she swallowed just minutes ago. She's subject No. 1 in a historic experiment, the first U.S. government-sanctioned research in two decades into the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat psychiatric disorders. This 2004 session in the office of a Charleston, S.C., psychiatrist is being recorded on audiocassettes, which Donna will later hand to a journalist.
The tape reveals her reaction as she listens to the gentle piano music playing in her headphones. Behind her eyelids, movies begin to unreel. She tries to say what she sees: Cars careening down the wrong side of the road. Vivid images of her oldest daughter, then all three of her children. She's overcome with an all-consuming love, a love she thought she'd lost forever.
"Now I feel all warm and fuzzy," she announces. "I'm not nervous anymore."
"What level of distress do you feel right now?" a deeply mellow voice beside her asks.
Donna answers with a giggle. "I don't think I got the placebo," she says.
click post title for the rest
GUARD POLICY KEEPS MEMBERS SEPARATED AFTER DUTY
GUARD POLICY KEEPS MEMBERS SEPARATED AFTER DUTY
Iraq vets help each other
Notes on message board support Ahoskie man suffering from PTSD
BARBARA BARRETT
(Raleigh) News & Observer
The letter landed in Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens' mailbox in the Williamston armory last week. It ran three pages. It was from a Marine who had served in Beirut.
The Marine described his nightmares and experiences and referred to Stephens' 11-year-old son.
"He said I need to make sure that little guy grows up," Stephens said. "I thought it was a good letter. He gave me good advice."
The News & Observer ran a series called The Promise two weeks ago that detailed Stephens' struggles since an N.C. National Guard battle in Baqouba, Iraq, in June 2004. One of Stephens' gunners, Spc. Daniel Desens Jr., was killed in the fight. Stephens, a platoon sergeant, was awarded a Silver Star after trying to save Desens.
Several of Stephens' soldiers left messages on the News & Observer's Web site, share.triangle.com, last week discussing their own problems.
"I was there with Chad in Baqubah Iraq and I do suffer from PTSD," wrote one sergeant. "It is real and I too call on Chad from time to time for help."
go here for the rest
http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/377252.html
One of the biggest problems with this practice is that while half of the National Guardsmen have been diagnosed with PTSD, they are not getting the help or the support they all need.
As much as I know about PTSD, what causes it and what they go through with it, I was not there. Although I have seen more pictures of what they see than the average person, I did not see it all in real life. Although I have nightmares and have trouble sleeping because of Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, I have never felt my life on the line, lost a comrade or experienced anything they go through. They need support from others who have. They need to know that what they are dealing with after, is not out of the ordinary for these men and women who are anything but ordinary.
There is nothing ordinary about combat and there is nothing ordinary about them. They are rare to us. This practice of leaving them to just go back to their families, their jobs and the lives they had as "weekend warriors" is damaging them in a time when they can be helped instead. The sooner they begin treatment to heal, the better the result. This cannot be stressed enough. What kind of help are they getting in a system with a claims backlog of 600,000, months of waiting and endless paperwork? As bad as we think the numbers of PTSD are, we cannot ignore the fact there are many trapped in that 600,000 figure, not counted, and even more still to come.
Iraq vets help each other
Notes on message board support Ahoskie man suffering from PTSD
BARBARA BARRETT
(Raleigh) News & Observer
The letter landed in Army Sgt. 1st Class Chad Stephens' mailbox in the Williamston armory last week. It ran three pages. It was from a Marine who had served in Beirut.
The Marine described his nightmares and experiences and referred to Stephens' 11-year-old son.
"He said I need to make sure that little guy grows up," Stephens said. "I thought it was a good letter. He gave me good advice."
The News & Observer ran a series called The Promise two weeks ago that detailed Stephens' struggles since an N.C. National Guard battle in Baqouba, Iraq, in June 2004. One of Stephens' gunners, Spc. Daniel Desens Jr., was killed in the fight. Stephens, a platoon sergeant, was awarded a Silver Star after trying to save Desens.
Several of Stephens' soldiers left messages on the News & Observer's Web site, share.triangle.com, last week discussing their own problems.
"I was there with Chad in Baqubah Iraq and I do suffer from PTSD," wrote one sergeant. "It is real and I too call on Chad from time to time for help."
go here for the rest
http://www.charlotte.com/local/story/377252.html
One of the biggest problems with this practice is that while half of the National Guardsmen have been diagnosed with PTSD, they are not getting the help or the support they all need.
As much as I know about PTSD, what causes it and what they go through with it, I was not there. Although I have seen more pictures of what they see than the average person, I did not see it all in real life. Although I have nightmares and have trouble sleeping because of Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam, I have never felt my life on the line, lost a comrade or experienced anything they go through. They need support from others who have. They need to know that what they are dealing with after, is not out of the ordinary for these men and women who are anything but ordinary.
There is nothing ordinary about combat and there is nothing ordinary about them. They are rare to us. This practice of leaving them to just go back to their families, their jobs and the lives they had as "weekend warriors" is damaging them in a time when they can be helped instead. The sooner they begin treatment to heal, the better the result. This cannot be stressed enough. What kind of help are they getting in a system with a claims backlog of 600,000, months of waiting and endless paperwork? As bad as we think the numbers of PTSD are, we cannot ignore the fact there are many trapped in that 600,000 figure, not counted, and even more still to come.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return
"Sometimes the person with the mental issue is the last to know," said Dr. Milliken. "They might not come looking for help, but if we can catch the symptoms before they become a problem, they'll be better off."Iraq vets' troubles appear long after return
Sunday, November 25, 2007
By Wade Malcolm, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It started about a month after he came home, innocently enough. Staff Sgt. Frederick Johnson missed his fellow soldiers.
During a year stationed at Anaconda base in Iraq -- nicknamed "Mortaritaville" -- he says he looked after them like a father, eyes always focused on the horizon, scanning for danger.
And at night, he clutched a half-gallon bottle of any liquor he could find, emptying two or three a week.
After he returned home in December 2005, his dangerous coping methods progressed to crack cocaine. Already depressed by separating from the Ohio-based 373rd Medical Company -- the only people, he said, who could understand his war experience -- he grappled with his emerging fear of crowds, his aversion to loud noises and the horror of his nightmares. They often ended with him leaping out of bed into a low crawl position.
After a year battling addiction and the lingering effects of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which the Army initially failed to diagnose, Sgt. Johnson, 38, is starting his life over at the VA Pittsburgh's Highland Drive Division.
He is among thousands of soldiers overlooked by previous mental health screening methods that, according to a new Army study released earlier this month, "substantially underestimate the mental health burden" of Iraq War veterans.
With increased congressional funding, the Army is trying to stop soldiers in Sgt. Johnson's situation from slipping through the cracks. The study compared results from soldiers who received only an initial mental health screening and those who received initial screening and then were reassessed after several months.
go here for the rest
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07329/836618-85.stm
Update on Sonny Iovino's last hours
Homeless veteran refused help before death
Copyright 2007 The Gazette
By Jennifer Hemmingsen
The Gazette
jennifer.hemmingsen@gazettecommunications.com
Sonny Iovino
IOWA CITY - Two days before Sonny Iovino died of exposure, he was released by a Veterans Affairs Medical Center doctor and turned away from the Johnson County Jail after police repeatedly found him behaving erratically and shedding his clothes.
On the advice of a social worker, police didn't try to take Iovino, 55, to a shelter, according to University of Iowa police incident reports The Gazette obtained.
Medical Center spokesman Kirt Sickels told the newspaper Monday hospital officials did all they could.
"If somebody doesn't want to be treated, you can't treat them," Sickels said. He could not disclose details about Iovino's medical history or immediately get information about Iovino's military service.
The nearly naked body of Iovino, a homeless Vietnam-era veteran who had frequented Iowa City for years, was found under the Benton Street bridge around 3:45 p.m. on Nov. 7. An autopsy confirmed he died of hypothermia.
click post title for the rest
Vets Helping Vets takes this issue on
Homeless Vets Help Their Own
By Josh Hinkle, Reporter
Story Updated: Nov 24, 2007
IOWA CITY - A homeless veteran's death two weeks ago in Iowa City has prompted several groups to fight back. Sonny Iovino died from hypothermia under a bridge near downtown. Now that incident is inspiring the community to fight back against the homeless problem.
About 1,300 people are homeless right now in Johnson County. Iowa City's Shelter House can only hold 29. 15% of those now staying there are veterans like Len McClellan.
go here for the rest
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/11783991.html
Copyright 2007 The Gazette
By Jennifer Hemmingsen
The Gazette
jennifer.hemmingsen@gazettecommunications.com
Sonny Iovino
IOWA CITY - Two days before Sonny Iovino died of exposure, he was released by a Veterans Affairs Medical Center doctor and turned away from the Johnson County Jail after police repeatedly found him behaving erratically and shedding his clothes.
On the advice of a social worker, police didn't try to take Iovino, 55, to a shelter, according to University of Iowa police incident reports The Gazette obtained.
Medical Center spokesman Kirt Sickels told the newspaper Monday hospital officials did all they could.
"If somebody doesn't want to be treated, you can't treat them," Sickels said. He could not disclose details about Iovino's medical history or immediately get information about Iovino's military service.
The nearly naked body of Iovino, a homeless Vietnam-era veteran who had frequented Iowa City for years, was found under the Benton Street bridge around 3:45 p.m. on Nov. 7. An autopsy confirmed he died of hypothermia.
click post title for the rest
Vets Helping Vets takes this issue on
Homeless Vets Help Their Own
By Josh Hinkle, Reporter
Story Updated: Nov 24, 2007
IOWA CITY - A homeless veteran's death two weeks ago in Iowa City has prompted several groups to fight back. Sonny Iovino died from hypothermia under a bridge near downtown. Now that incident is inspiring the community to fight back against the homeless problem.
About 1,300 people are homeless right now in Johnson County. Iowa City's Shelter House can only hold 29. 15% of those now staying there are veterans like Len McClellan.
go here for the rest
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/11783991.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)