Dear Mr./Mrs. President,

What I would like to talk to you about is the abundance of homeless people, especially homeless veterans and homeless immigrants. Imagine that you are a soldier who is serving in the Vietnam war, and you have lost your leg. You are sent back to the U.S. for lots of surgery and treatment, and after all of the surgeries, you have to use your very low income to pay for your hospital bills. You lose your leg, so you are honorably discharged from the army. With no job, no money, and crippled, there is nowhere to go. You are homeless. This is the situation of many veterans who are discharged from the army. Based on recent data by researchers at endhomelessness.org, there are around 50,000 homeless veterans on the street on any given night. Although this number may seem small compared to the population of the country, these are 50,000 people who were paid a little more than minimum wage to risk their lives for our country, some with lost limbs, broken backs, or even PTSD, which throws them into stressful fits on paranoia and belief that they are in a war zone when living on the streets (FAQs about homeless veterans). When a veteran returns from war, there is little to no care about ehir physical and mental health before they start searching for jobs. Because these people bravely risked their lives each day, some for several years, for the U.S., it should be that there is some kind of safe haven for veterans who are discharged and do not know where to go, but this is not the case. Some veterans are very old fashioned, and do not know how to use technology so this makes it extremely difficult to communicate to them and offer them help. I also believe that veterans deserve a higher income than around the typical minimum wage of the U.S. The average wage of an enlisted U.S. soldier is about $29,000. The minimum wage annual income $15,080. Although this may seem like a large increase from the minimum wage, but it really still is not enough to have a good quality of life and not get federal assistance.

There is also another type of homeless person that is far too abundant in the U.S. Imagine that you are a young person living in Mexico, you are barely sixteen. You cannot find a job and the government is not helping you or your family along. Your family could not pay for you to go to school anymore, so you drop out. Homelessness is evident for you, and homelessness in Mexico is extremely dangerous. The only option is to cross the border to the U.S., or else be thrown onto the streets. So you take a chance and go to America, illegally. When you get there, you know no one, you can’t speak english. This is the situation for very many immigrants who come to America either because of safety, opportunity, or necessity. They usually can’t speak english, so they walk around asking people for help until they find someone who can speak their language, which usually takes a while. They then do not know how to get assistance from federal or local sources in finding jobs, housing, food stamps, or any kind of federal assistance. Their position just gets worse and worse as they search for help but don’t know how. Even though the immigrants are illegal, I do believe that they deserve and need help. It breaks my heart to see someone who cannot speak English running around frantically asking for help of passerby, but people just dismiss them like they are nothing. They came to the U.S. for safety and opportunity, but the only thing they got was homelessness. This makes me disappointed in the U.S. government.

In conclusion, I believe that homeless people, but especially homeless veterans and immigrants, deserve help from the government, whether it be state or federal, entering back into society. Also, there should be some kind of health screening when veterans get back, and if they fail they can get help. I believe that there should be a department or committee that provides assistance to those who do not know how to live in the U.S., and have difficulty figuring out how to get a job or finding housing.

Works Cited

FAQs about homeless veterans. Website. Nchv.org. National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Washington D.C. http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/