Today, Friday November 11, 2011 Occupy Atlanta will host a Veteran’s Day Brunch at 12pm in Troy Davis/Woodruff Park. United States veterans will be sharing their stories and experiences about how their military service has shaped their lives. At 4 pm, there will be a march to Bank of America where Occupy Atlanta will symbolically foreclose on the bank and gathered veterans will foreclose on the war.
It is estimated that 26% of the homeless population in the United States are US military veterans – nearly half served in the Vietnam war. About 89% of these veterans received an honorable discharge from military service. Among the 743, 000 veterans in Georgia,
8% are unemployed. Male and female veterans are 1.3 and 3.6 times more likely to become homeless than non-veterans. For many, complications arise upon returning home injured or disabled
due to combat. Often, veterans have difficulty receiving healthcare, affordable living or disability services. Many veterans have difficulty finding work due to lack of transferable skills, mental and physical disabilities, and difficulty transitioning from military to civilian
life.
Every year the United States dedicates a single day to remind the public to honor those who bravely fought and served for every American citizen. However it is every day that so many of these men and women suffer unnecessarily both on and off the streets for
that service. The US government spends over half of the federal budget on the military every year, however little, if any, of those funds goes to rehabilitating and stabilizing its members before and after their return to civilian life. They are asked to put their lives
at risk, to be separated from civilian friends and family, yet once they can no longer serve their country, they are twice as likely as non-veterans to end up on the streets.
