Asset Building for Veterans: We Should do More
I was just a child during the Vietnam War. It didn’t really register for me. When I moved to San Francisco as a young adult and did advocacy work with homeless people, I was upset to learn that a third of the folks on the city’s street were military veterans and most had served in Vietnam. They were soldiers who returned from the trauma of war, to a country ambivalent (at best) about their service and shamefully unprepared to help them make their way back to a stable civilian life.
Fast-forward thirty years. America is again engaged in a protracted, potentially futile, certainly unpopular war. But now I’m a grown up; this war is happening on my generation’s watch. The people fighting are our peers, and some are even our children. Regardless of what we think about the current war, it is imperative that we not neglect our soldiers, as this country did after Vietnam. We must remember that for the soldiers, the struggle isn’t over when the war ends.
Already more than one third of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (or both), and these numbers are certain to grow. Forty percent of our soldiers are Reservists and National Guard members.
They tend to be older and have left behind families, financial responsibilities and jobs. After serving multiple tours, they are too often returning to find their jobs gone and their families in economic distress.
Unemployment among young veterans (ages 20-24) is currently 15%, three times the national average for this age group. And preliminary research shows extremely high rates of sexual trauma for women in the service (20%-40%), making them particularly vulnerable to PTSD.
Some of our policymakers are waking up to this reality, recognizing that many veterans and their families will need substantial services and opportunities to successfully transition back to civilian life. In its November e-newsletter, APIC highlights recent legislation including the proposed Twenty-First Century GI Bill of Rights Act (SB1409), which would expand education benefits, business development assistance and favorable homeownership financing for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
These are critical initiatives. But those of us devoted to helping low-income people build wealth and achieve lasting economic advancement also need to take a fresh look at this issue: How can we tailor asset-building strategies to ensure they reach and are of value to veterans and their families? It is a challenge well-worth grappling with and I look forward to your thoughts.
Amanda Feinstein is the Program Officer for Economic Security at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund in San Francisco.
As a Navy Reservist (9 years active duty), and practicing CFP, I have been working on bringing financial planning resources to military families. The challenges include distrust of financial services professionals, which is now codified in DOD policy which limits who can provide services. This is a reaction to the policies of the 1990\’s, when commanders let predatory practitioners come onto bases in a misguided effort to get some financial education for their troops. The pendulum has swung, and now you need to be a 501(c)3 organization specifically approved by the service secretary to provide services on base, even pro bono.
Veterans hospitals are a good way to reach out to returning warriors. There is a great VA facility in Palo Alto with a PTSD program that has had amazing results for sailors I know. I also met a woman who works at the Palo Alto VA, and she said returnees often need help if they are disabled, about to receive a stipend and/or lump sum and have no idea how to manage it, or fail to grasp that they will need resources to provide them with special housing and transportation etc. Coordinating delivery of services through the hospital makes a lot of sense in that there is a specific need for education under those circumstances. The PTSD sufferers especially benefit from education that helps them in developing goals and focus.
The good news is that the military has initiated some programs to help, starting with active duty and now it looks like they are reaching out to deploying reservists, but less focus at this point on returning vets. It seems likely what systems are in place will become a bit overwhelmed with so many severely injured veterans returning, and some of them will have been financially damaged by the problems in the housing market. I think the VA hospitals would be a good place to start helping.
Comment by Peggy Stephan — November 15, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
Very interesting and informative. It\’s clear that we\’ll be living with the repercussions of this war for many, many years.
Comment by Maria Thayer — November 17, 2007 @ 1:01 pm