Posted on 01/24/2013 4:47:34 PM PST by moonshinner_09
Killeen's homeless have nowhere to go, and that means dozens, possibly hundreds of our veterans are stuck out in the cold.
More than 62 thousand American veterans are living on the streets.
Nickie, a 58-yr old Vietnam Marine veteran, is one of them, but the Fort Hood area doesn't have any homeless shelters, turning cold nights into life or death battles that leave Nickie wondering.
"Am I going to make it until tomorrow? Am I going to make it, straight up," said Nickie with tears in his eyes.
A few warming centers open, but only when temperatures dip below freezing, and as soon as Killeen Mayor Dan Corbin was elected, he made his opinion about that known.
(Excerpt) Read more at kcentv.com ...
62,000?
The pop. of Killeen is only 130K.
We’ll get the “media” right on it.
I can’t speak for Texas, but in the midwest, the only people that are truly “homeless” are ones who choose to be, due to addiction (the shelters won’t allow drugs or alcohol consumption) or mental illness.
It is time foe this homeless guy to move on, to a city that has homeless shelters.
—and we haven’t had any winter to speak of around here.
The temperature hit 82 degrees today, setting an all time record for this date in this part of Texas (Austin area). We are having a terrible drought in these parts, so these poor guys are cold and wet.
I think it’s a shame that there isn’t some where for them to be housed, though.
I do wonder how many are doing dope and other bad stuff, which could be a reason that they can’t find work. Our unemployment rate is pretty low in these parts, the last I heard.
Whoops!
Make that: so these guys AREN”T cold and wet.............
My typing often leaves something to be desired.
So thumb a ride to Temple and stay there. Or keep going to Waco. I’m sure they have shelters. Why do you have to stay in Killeen?
I never understand why I’m supposed to care that they’re veterans.
The 62,000 figure is for the nation as a whole, supposedly. It really has nothing to do with the story, if there is one. They either thought you might like to know or are playing proportionity tricks. You be the judge.
***** “I never understand why I’m supposed to care that they’re veterans.” ******
Chances are they aren’t Vets and if you aren’t a Vet you probably wouldn’t understand anyway.
TT
Where in the world did they get this number?
They made it up. Just like they did after Vietnam. See the book "Stolen Valor" by BG Jugs Burkett for his refutation of the garbage statistics on Vietnam veterans that were being put out.
Does anyone else find it strange that someone as young as 58 could be a Vietnam Marine veteran? Weren't we all but completely pulled out of Vietnam by the time he would have turned 18? (While I'm sorry to be cynical enough to raise this question, I've met a number of homeless "veterans" who didn't know what an MOS was, let alone what theirs was.)
Exactly. Cities should be competing NOT to have bums around, rather than treating it as a problem to solve. They are able to feed off civilization because we let them. Maybe if we made them truly fend for themselves they’d either:
1). die (boo-hoo);
2). hack it out in the wilderness, of which there is plenty and which was good enough for injuns and pioneers;
or
3). return to humdrum society.
He would have been 21 in 1975 the final year of the war.
If he enlisted at 18 he theoretically could have been in VN.
WASHINGTON — Despite political discord on Capitol Hill, Obama administration officials and Congress have cut through partisan differences to help veterans returning from wars to homelessness.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has announced grants totaling $100 million to help almost 42,000 homeless and at-risk veterans in 49 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Texas will see more than $4.1 million of those grants go to community agencies in San Antonio, Houston, Killeen, Fort Worth, Austin and El Paso.
“No man or woman who has served our country should have to worry about having a place to call home,” said Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio.
San Antonio Family Endeavors, Inc., will serve about 1,000 families with a $998,153 grant in a 12-county area. The grant is a renewal, allowing the program of counseling and aid for a second year.
Floor it through the speed trap in Nolanville on 190. (55>30>55).
You’ll get 3 hots and a cot.
At least that’s how it went down in 1975.
Most of the “homeless vets” I have run across (I volunteer with a homeless outreach service) are homeless because they want to be. They are the hobos of today. Love to travel from city to city and enjoy the hospitality (free stuff) of each new city until it gets either too cold or to hot.
Don’t get me wrong, there are vets roaming the streets that are screwed up because of their military service, but for the most part they are few and far between.
This makes no sense. There is a whole lot of nothing off post at Fort Hood. No place to look for a job. But just North on the highway is Waco, and South is Austin, with much better prospects in either.
You're right, he could have barely made it in time.
I just checked the dates. The last troop level listed for US troops was fifty troops in 1973 and none after that.
On my ship's WestPac in late 1972, all of our fire support missions were done in support of South Vietnam Army units, not US troops. Our guys had, for the most part, been pulled out by then.
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