Last week employees with the City of Phoenix, Mayor Stanton and others patted themselves on their back for a job well down alleging that they had ended chronic homelessness in the Veteran community. An accomplishment that the City of Phoenix claimed to be the first of its kind in the nation. Sadly, this goal has yet to be accomplished.
I am a Phoenix-area resident and veteran advocate. As you drive around the valley it does not take long to run into a homeless veterans still living on the streets or the yet-to-be-developed desert patches found throughout the Phoenix-area.
Through my work with the Military Rape Crisis Center I spoken to many of these homeless veterans suffering from Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and chronic homelessness. Because of the uniqueness of the needs of an MST survivor many would not seek services in the male-dominant Department of Veterans Affairs or Central Arizona Shelter Services. Instead, many MST veterans receive services from the Military Rape Crisis Center and through non-Veteran organizations that are sensitive to the needs of victims of sexual violence. Several of the non-Veteran organizations do not screen their clients for veterans status nor were they contacted by the City of Phoenix to locate any possible homeless veterans.
There are certainly Veterans that are homeless in Phoenix. By claiming mission accomplished it does injustice to those veterans in Phoenix that are still homeless.
The job is not yet done. Our Phoenix-area Veterans (and all Americans!) deserve to have a place to call home.