A Call for Cities to Help Veterans through Homelessness and PTSD

Ron Littlefield, former mayor of Chatanooga and a senior fellow with the Governing Institute, details the ongoing challenge of housing and caring for the country's veterans.

"A number of the municipalities in the City Accelerator initiative identified homelessness among the short list of critical urban issues affecting their communities. It is unquestionably a major problem across the United States," writes Littlefield.

Littlefield goes on to cite recent coverage of efforts to aid homeless veterans, including a series on NPR that focused, among other programs, on San Diego's "Stand Down," a free event offering health, dental and personal care for veterans.

As for why veteran homelessness is an especially acute challenge for cities, Littlefield quotes the following: "The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reports that homeless veterans mostly live in cities and suffer from mental illness, substance abuse or the lingering effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The challenging statistics are presented in The Wall Street Journal article, 'Veterans Try New Approaches to Heal the Wounds of War,' which notes that in 2012, the VA spent more than $3 billion on PTSD treatment and the Pentagon spent about $294 million more."