Making conversation with the homeless is easy. Start with a simple “how’s it going?” and you end up to with an hour of childhood memories and war stories.
Last Saturday, I served coffee to three generations of homeless men at the Village Temple soup kitchen. More than two thirds of the men that come in every week are veterans. The older men served in World War II, the baby boomers were drafted for Viet Nam and the thirty somethings were in Desert Storm. There are over 6,000 homeless vetrans in the five boroughs according to the statistics buried in New York City’s daily newspapers last week. Sandwiched in between advertisements for Vetran’s Day coat sales and sports scores this news item was as easily over looked and forgotten as the homeless themselves.
Its no wonder that the suicide rate is so high in this population. According to research from SPAN USA, veterans are twice as likely to take their own lives as men who have never served in the military. SPAN volunteers launched a letter writing campaign to help two survivors, Randy and Ellen Omvig gain support for the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill. President Bush signed the bill into law on November 5th. One small victory for the men who won the wars.
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