by George Smith

Created on: May 10, 2009

While driving around the poorer areas of any-city USA you will see homeless people in the doorways trying to hide in the shadows. They are trying to survive one day at a time and live a meager existence without hope or affection. Did you know that one of every four are Honorably Discharged Veterans who served their country and came back a bit messed up mostly just enough to get them a divorce from their wives and estranged from their families, lost their jobs, their homes, their dreams and had to resort to alcohol and drugs to forget the memory's of war and the loss of their loved ones.

You would think that the above describes only Veterans who served in Korea or Vietnam and you would be wrong. We are now getting Veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq coming home and being divorced while finding themselves unable to cope with the daily grind of work or unable to find work at all. Most have PTSD or TBI so severe that they do not thing correctly and have anger issues. Many wind up committing suicide.

The United States Veterans Initiative houses, educates, assists with getting monthly benefit checks, helps plan goals and monitors the milestones to reach the goals, case management, meetings, groups, community outings, and we feed and clothe our vets for one to two years at which time they can move into our transitional living or back to the community.

These men and women pledged to give their lives if required to insure our safety and come home to be discarded like so much garbage. We say we are patriotic and are united in beating terrorism, but what about the ones who come home different from when they went in?

We have programs for Veterans that are designed for their special needs such as: women's program, hadicapped programs, employment programs, father's programs, high barriers programs, Recently Separated Veterans programs and more.

We offer education, computer training, resume writing, interview techniques, assitance with educational and Va benefits and applications, Transportation to and from VA appointments, housing, meals 3 x daily, clean clothes, toiletries, entertainment, groups designed to eliminate negative problems, groups to learn positive things, legal assistance , VA clinic and Nursing staff on hand daily, Gymnasium, and so much more it is too much to tell you about here.

This is probably not the correct venue for this article but the word needs to get out to every Veteran and his family somehow. Thanks Helium for being there to allow this to happen.

If you are a vet in need then please do yourself the biggest favor you will ever do and call the United States Veterans Initiative or go to http://usvetsinc.org and see for yourself what we do and the locations around the country that we have sites. Send your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who need help as well.

If you know of a homeless Veteran then send him our way. We have a team of Outreach specialists around the Nation cruising the poorer parts of towns and under bridges looking for them 24 hours a day.

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