thedrifter
05-28-07, 07:09 AM
Posted on Mon, May. 28, 2007
Florida war vets come home to a jungle of bureaucracy
BY JIM WYSS
When Tommy Pearce was evacuated from Camp Fallujah, Iraq, last September, it ended a nine-year career in the Marines. With red tape holding up his disability checks, the staff sergeant and father of two found himself with $25 in the bank and receiving unemployment compensation for the first time in his life.
Now back on his feet and living in Homestead, Pearce, 29, is part of the growing army of veterans trying to create a financial safety net for returning comrades.
Florida is home to 1.8 million veterans -- more than any other state except California. But some former soldiers like Pearce are worried that young veterans emerging from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are falling through the cracks.
Pearce's group, One Vet Ahead, is developing a program that would offer temporary housing and grocery money to disabled veterans during the first critical days of exiting the service.
''I was used to getting a paycheck on the first and fifteenth every month,'' said Pearce, who is traveling the country, raising funds for the fledgling organization. ``When that lifeline gets cut, you don't know what to do and you don't know who to lean on.''
Help is available. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Miami Vet Center offer counseling and rehabilitation to thousands each year; the Small Business Administration holds business and contracting workshops; and South Florida Workforce and various private groups try to match veterans with jobs.
But chasing those services down can be daunting.
``One of the dilemmas is there is a huge number of different organiza
tions, and each one will tell you what they do, but nobody tells you what the others do,'' said Scott Denniston, director of the Center for Veterans Enterprise at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a clearinghouse for such information in Washington, D.C.
Brigitte Walker-Echols, who lives in Riviera Beach, knows the aid maze well. Her 22-year career in the Army was cut short in 2004 when a mortar landed next to the mail truck she was unloading in Baghdad. The blast left her partially paralyzed and trying to survive on a disability check that represents about a quarter of her previous salary.
When she went looking for help to cover her mortgage last month, the former staff sergeant said she was shuffled to three different agencies before hitting a dead-end.
`NO BRIDGE'
''You have all these organizations that say they want to help on one side and all these veterans who need help on the other, but there's no bridge between them,'' she said.
Charles Cutler hopes to build that bridge. A Vietnam-era veteran and the chief executive officer of Veterans Employment Transition Services in Miami, Cutler held a summit last week at the Joseph Caleb Center to try to encourage agencies with veterans programs to coordinate efforts. He also wants to create a one-stop outreach center in Overtown or Liberty City that would be a clearinghouse for all veteran-related information.
The similarities between Gulf War veterans and those of his era are alarming, he said.
''What we are finding is that when Johnny comes marching home -- and he gets beyond the yellow ribbon -- he is often suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,'' Cutler said. Many are ill-prepared to take advantage of some of the business counseling and employment programs that might help them get on their feet, he said.
The nation's younger veterans appear particularly vulnerable. While unemployment among the veteran population overall mirrors the national average, the jobless rate for veterans 18 to 24 years old is 18.7 percent nationally -- about twice the rate of their civilian counterparts, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
HOMELESSNESS
Homelessness is also worrisome. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that there are 18,000 to 20,000 veterans -- most of them older -- on the streets of Florida.
Xavier Powell, 27, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, said it took him two years to find a job after returning home to Miami. Despite national and state programs intended to give veterans an advantage when applying for jobs, he said the only agency that would give him a chance was the Department of Corrections, and he didn't want the job.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
One way the government is trying to cover the employment gap is by encouraging entrepreneurship. In 2004, President Bush issued an executive order requiring 3 percent of all federal contracts -- or about $12 billion -- to go to companies owned by service-disabled veterans. In fiscal 2005, however, just 0.6 percent of contracting dollars went to disabled veterans.
Dario Gutierrez, 32, is one of 1,210 veteran business owners in Florida who are registered with the federal government.
A decorated interrogator in the Army, Gutierrez returned to Miami last July after he injured a knee and ankle jumping out of a helicopter under enemy fire in Iraq.
He credits the Miami Vet Center and the Small Business Development Center for helping him start his home-inspection company, Veteran Home Spectors.
For Walker-Echols, the problems with programs are becoming more pressing. Last month, her 19-year-old daughter was sent to Iraq.
''I don't want her to go through everything I went through'' when she comes home, she said. ``It's personal now.''
Ellie
Florida war vets come home to a jungle of bureaucracy
BY JIM WYSS
When Tommy Pearce was evacuated from Camp Fallujah, Iraq, last September, it ended a nine-year career in the Marines. With red tape holding up his disability checks, the staff sergeant and father of two found himself with $25 in the bank and receiving unemployment compensation for the first time in his life.
Now back on his feet and living in Homestead, Pearce, 29, is part of the growing army of veterans trying to create a financial safety net for returning comrades.
Florida is home to 1.8 million veterans -- more than any other state except California. But some former soldiers like Pearce are worried that young veterans emerging from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are falling through the cracks.
Pearce's group, One Vet Ahead, is developing a program that would offer temporary housing and grocery money to disabled veterans during the first critical days of exiting the service.
''I was used to getting a paycheck on the first and fifteenth every month,'' said Pearce, who is traveling the country, raising funds for the fledgling organization. ``When that lifeline gets cut, you don't know what to do and you don't know who to lean on.''
Help is available. The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Miami Vet Center offer counseling and rehabilitation to thousands each year; the Small Business Administration holds business and contracting workshops; and South Florida Workforce and various private groups try to match veterans with jobs.
But chasing those services down can be daunting.
``One of the dilemmas is there is a huge number of different organiza
tions, and each one will tell you what they do, but nobody tells you what the others do,'' said Scott Denniston, director of the Center for Veterans Enterprise at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a clearinghouse for such information in Washington, D.C.
Brigitte Walker-Echols, who lives in Riviera Beach, knows the aid maze well. Her 22-year career in the Army was cut short in 2004 when a mortar landed next to the mail truck she was unloading in Baghdad. The blast left her partially paralyzed and trying to survive on a disability check that represents about a quarter of her previous salary.
When she went looking for help to cover her mortgage last month, the former staff sergeant said she was shuffled to three different agencies before hitting a dead-end.
`NO BRIDGE'
''You have all these organizations that say they want to help on one side and all these veterans who need help on the other, but there's no bridge between them,'' she said.
Charles Cutler hopes to build that bridge. A Vietnam-era veteran and the chief executive officer of Veterans Employment Transition Services in Miami, Cutler held a summit last week at the Joseph Caleb Center to try to encourage agencies with veterans programs to coordinate efforts. He also wants to create a one-stop outreach center in Overtown or Liberty City that would be a clearinghouse for all veteran-related information.
The similarities between Gulf War veterans and those of his era are alarming, he said.
''What we are finding is that when Johnny comes marching home -- and he gets beyond the yellow ribbon -- he is often suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder,'' Cutler said. Many are ill-prepared to take advantage of some of the business counseling and employment programs that might help them get on their feet, he said.
The nation's younger veterans appear particularly vulnerable. While unemployment among the veteran population overall mirrors the national average, the jobless rate for veterans 18 to 24 years old is 18.7 percent nationally -- about twice the rate of their civilian counterparts, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
HOMELESSNESS
Homelessness is also worrisome. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that there are 18,000 to 20,000 veterans -- most of them older -- on the streets of Florida.
Xavier Powell, 27, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, said it took him two years to find a job after returning home to Miami. Despite national and state programs intended to give veterans an advantage when applying for jobs, he said the only agency that would give him a chance was the Department of Corrections, and he didn't want the job.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
One way the government is trying to cover the employment gap is by encouraging entrepreneurship. In 2004, President Bush issued an executive order requiring 3 percent of all federal contracts -- or about $12 billion -- to go to companies owned by service-disabled veterans. In fiscal 2005, however, just 0.6 percent of contracting dollars went to disabled veterans.
Dario Gutierrez, 32, is one of 1,210 veteran business owners in Florida who are registered with the federal government.
A decorated interrogator in the Army, Gutierrez returned to Miami last July after he injured a knee and ankle jumping out of a helicopter under enemy fire in Iraq.
He credits the Miami Vet Center and the Small Business Development Center for helping him start his home-inspection company, Veteran Home Spectors.
For Walker-Echols, the problems with programs are becoming more pressing. Last month, her 19-year-old daughter was sent to Iraq.
''I don't want her to go through everything I went through'' when she comes home, she said. ``It's personal now.''
Ellie