Homeless Bound?

By Julie Rawe Jeffrey Ressner; Amanda Bower

At the age of 23, James Brown has already spent four years in the Marines and two months in a homeless shelter. After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan before being honorably discharged last summer, he moved from Dayton, Ohio, to Los Angeles seeking work but soon wound up in a 515-bed facility run by the public-private organization U.S. VETS. Brown's plight is not unique. The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans is releasing a nationwide survey this week that counted 67 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan in homeless shelters at some point last year. "A lot of guys I met in the service were loners," says Brown. "And when they get out, their support system is pretty small."

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has confirmed that there are 38 homeless vets from the Iraq campaign alone, and although this is a tiny fraction of the 168,000-plus soldiers discharged after serving there, experts are surprised to see them show up in shelters so soon. "A lot of Vietnam vets didn't start to experience problems until eight, 10, 12 years later," says Ed Lowry, executive director of the Philadelphia Veterans Multi-Service and Education Center. The VA says it is better prepared than it was 30 years ago to catch people before they fall through the cracks. Brown, for instance, never slept on the streets, and U.S. VETS is helping him with job interviews. But with so many deployed in a war that could be psychologically scarring, homeless shelters are bracing for an influx of returning soldiers. And advocates fret that if the problem grows, resources may not: the federal budget has cut funds for veterans' housing two years in a row. --By Julie Rawe. Reported by Jeffrey Ressner and Amanda Bower