Obama tackles veteran homelessness

[babylonsister]

Obama tackles veteran homelessness
By Klaus Marre | Posted: 11/12/07 2:13 p.m.
November 12, 2007

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) used a campaign stop in New Hampshire Monday to tout a program aimed at helping homeless veterans.

“Our commitment to those who serve begins at enlistment and it must never end,” Obama said on Veterans Day at a transitional housing facility in Nashua. “That is a sacred trust. It is a trust we must keep. But every night that a veteran sleeps on the street, we are not keeping that trust.”

Last week, the National Alliance to End Homelessness released a study showing that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night. The group also stated that veterans represent 26 percent of homeless people, even though they only make up 11 percent of the adult civilian population.

“Our veterans are a part of an unbroken line of Americans who have borne the greatest burden for our freedom,” Obama said, adding, “Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism.”

The senator has introduced legislation that would help homeless veterans and their families find a place to live while also helping them find work and providing them with counseling and other services.

more...

http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/obama-tackles-veteran-homelessness-2007-11-12.html

[sss1977]

1. If he really wants to help veterans, he should be against making them

I read a figure recently that said 1 in 4 homeless people are US vets. How screwed up is that? The people in power use them and then toss them away like so much garbage, that is if they don't die in battle first.

The solution is to stop war as being a solution.

I think we could use an amendment like the Japanese Constitution's Article 9:

"ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

Adding such a thing to our own Constitution would be the ultimate means of supporting veterans of foreign wars.