Memorial Day highlights homeless veteran problem
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- While much of the nation enjoys barbeques, or possibly attends a Memorial Day ceremony, this holiday weekend is also a reminder of what can happen to vets who make it home, but don't get the help they need.
Too many suffer the effects of war - like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or other problems - and can find themselves without a job or place to live. They're left behind, not on the battlefield, but on the home front.
Just down the street Monday from the pageantry of Memorial Day services at the Capitol, we met Paul Bridge - a Marine who served more than 30 years ago and is now homeless in Raleigh.
For Bridge, it started with his divorce more than 20 years ago.
"It was just piece by piece. Things just seemed to get chipped away at it, you know," he explained.
For a while, Bridge said he had it squared away. From 1980 to 1984, he was in the Marines. Now, he says his biggest regret is not staying in the service.
"My life would have been 180 degrees different," he said. "I'm literally on the street."
Bridge is one hundreds of vets who report being homeless in the city. The US Department of Veterans Affairs estimates nationally that more than 100,000 veterans are homeless on a given night - and twice that over the course of a year.
There are programs aimed at fixing it, but Bridge said often the problem is outreach. He told us homeless vets like him just don't know about them.
"A lot of times, people are like 'You could have done this and you could have done that' and it's like, 'Where's the paperwork on this?" he said.
Still, the VA says it is committed to ending veteran homelessness by the end of next year. Learn more at: http://www.va.gov/homeless/.
The department is putting more than $600 million into outreach over the next two years, and Bridge said he thinks that's exactly what they need.
"I think veterans, homeless veterans, should have some place we can go and get that information. There is the VA, but that's a bus ride away. Yeah, that's four bucks leaving here and five bucks coming back," he said.
Bridge doesn't have a cell phone, a computer, or even an address. He can't receive even basic information on services that could help, and so far, VA's new outreach effort hasn't reached him.
Monday, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory announced one of the largest federal community development block grants in the state's history will go to help homeless veterans.
The $4.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will go to transform an unused state building in Butner into the Veterans Life Center.
The Governor's office said in a news release that the facility will help vets find the services they need to become independent once again. The building will provide housing and vocational education and mentoring.
"Perhaps the greatest way we can honor our military men and women who died in combat is by recognizing the men and women who fought right beside them," said Governor McCrory. "That's exactly what this facility will do. It will take care of those combat veterans who have sacrificed so much for so many of us."
The Governor's office said the goal of the program is to achieve self-reliance for up to 150 veterans in two years or less.
