Dear Next President,

Do you want the Veterans that risk their life fighting for our country, to have no home to come to and live on the streets? This is what has been happening since 1973. We have been betraying our Veterans for 43 years. Homeless Veterans are most commonly found with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is important because Veterans suffer enough during the war, and they shouldn’t have to suffer after as well. We need to stop the homelessness of veterans.

According to the U.S. department of Veteran Affairs’s (V.A.), PTSD is a disorder caused by a traumatic and life threatening event. Some of the symptoms are aggressiveness, nightmares, flashbacks, problems sleeping, getting upset when something reminds you of the event, and self isolation. Some people don’t even know they have it until years later. Lots of people try to cope with it by drinking, doing drugs, or harming themselves or others. The most common treatment for it is therapy.

We need to figure out why, specifically, veterans are going homeless. Then, we need to find a solution. I think the cause may be that the Veterans with PTSD are not able to communicate to other where they live, so they live on the streets. According to the American Psychiatric Association, right now, all we are doing is helping them after they become homeless. We are taking the veterans and renting them homes and apartments. And for the ones with PTSD, we are getting health care for them. For the PTSD part of the problem, maybe we can require soldiers to go through some sort of mental training. Please, look more into trying to stop veterans in becoming homeless.

Sincerely,

K.B.