Second of two parts
Re “Wallace Hopes to Rescue Veterans Whose Street Address Is the Street”
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Among volunteers helping last week to count Culver City’s homeless were City Councilman Jim Clarke and four persons from the Wende Museum, Justin Jampol, Mena Lovin Jampol, Patricia Bijvoet and Joes Segal.
After last week’s biennial count of Culver City’s homeless population, 33, the activist Deborah Wallace was aching with compassion about a finding she has made in recent months:
The high number of military veterans, young and old, forced, evidently, to live on the street.
“These men are killing themselves,” Ms. Wallace said.
After visiting a nearby veterans-help organization, U.S. Vets (www.usvetsinc.net), she said it is easier to believe the assertion of veterans affairs writer Robert L. Rosebrock that 20,000 go homeless every night.
“There are a lot of vets over there (at U.S. Vets), men and women,” Ms. Wallace said. “A lot that they have helped.”
She is not sure why the ex-military population is in the stratosphere – except that “these men and women have a lot of emotional issues that don’t seem to have been dealt with when they left.
“They get out of the military. They are trained to kill. So many issues are running through their heads, their minds. I don’t think families are ready to deal with it because they were dealing with a person who was different before going into the military. “
Ms. Wallace was stunned by the sight of deeply troubled ex-military women.
“When I was over at Upward Bound House, two women who are Afghan War vets were there with their children,” she said. “Women veterans with children and no place to go. So they are in a shelter. Unable to find jobs.”
Ms. Wallace hopes the portraits of veterans she has painted this week may bring the homeless problem to the attention of influential persons.
