Homeless Veterans Research Paper

Introduction

The exercise to establish the number of homeless people in the United States is of critical significance. Homelessness poses immense challenges to efforts aimed at controlling infectious diseases and renders the homeless at immense risk of serious mental and physical health effects. This subject is particularly becomes sensitive on considering the significant number of homeless veterans in the US. Especially in the recent past, homelessness has emerged as a costly problem. In his seminal article in the New Yorker recounting a story of a homeless alcoholic man, Gladwell (2006) observed that homelessness costs the taxpayers considerably and focus ought to be given to housing provision and supportive care. According to Gladwell (2006),

According to National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), the likely persistence of this problem is evident on considering that the homeless veterans are identified to be younger on average in comparison to the entire veteran population. Among these, 9 percent is made up of those aged between 18 and 30, while 41 percent are in the 31-50 years bracket. Nevertheless, veterans in the 18-30 age bracket make up only 5 percent while those aged 31 to 50 make less than 23 percent. Notably, the exact figure of the homeless veterans may be impossible to establish considering the difficulty posed by the transient nature of such populations. However, estimates by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development indicate that there are 49,933 homeless veterans at any given night. Apart from those who are already homeless, around 1.4 million more veterans are at risk of homelessness because of lacking support networks, poverty and miserable living conditions in substandard or overcrowded housing. The situation is compounded by the difficulty to transfer some of the military training and occupations to civilian workforce (NCHV, 2015). This places some of the veterans at a disadvantage in the search of employment in the competitive job

The purpose of their study was to establish a better understanding of the characteristics of the mentally-ill homeless adults. Upon the collection of data through a review of the archived shelter medical records of the 74 subjects included in the study, the researchers aggregated and analyzed the data, calculating the medication adherence rates for the previous 30days. Mental illness and substance use disorders in the study were identified in 67.6 percent and 44.6 percent of the participants respectively. These findings prompted the acknowledgement that homeless individuals suffering from mental illness that specialized transitional shelters serve constitutes of population whose psychiatric, social and mental needs are complex. Thus, the characteristics of homeless populations are complicated by the numerous needs that need systematic assessment and thoughtful addressing to enhance the likelihood of successful outcomes (Viron, Bello, Freudenreich, & Shtasel, 2014). Importantly, it is evident that mental illness and addiction that can be attributed to substance abuse are common phenomena among the homeless populations. These prompt the study to recommend integrated and patient-centered treatment services with emphasis being given to addiction