Homeless Veterans in a National Forest

This series of articles that I wrote in the National Edition of the Examiner in 2010 led directly to a series of laws such as the Helping Homeless Veterans Act and Ending Veterans Homelessness Act. You have probably heard some of the stories I told. Angry veterans sent the articles to their senators and representatives, who then quoted excerpts, which then got into the Congressional Record, which were then quoted by the national media, without knowing the original source.

At the time, approximately 35 million Americans in the construction-real estate industry were unemployed. Approximately, 25 million or more had lost their homes through no fault of their own . . . myself included. Several of my friends in architecture and civil engineering committed suicide. Even more died of heart attacks or sudden aggressive cancers. In fact, a reason that I am socially isolated today, is that most of my close friends and my Uncle Hal died during the Great Recession.

Congress bailed out the villains, who caused the economic collapse. It did next to nothing for their victims. In their 2010 platforms, neither major political party even mentioned the disaster that had fallen disproportionately on our segment of the population.

One note of irony, This series brought me huge readership. I received an email from the senior editor, praising me for my ingenuity in feigning being homeless, in order to do research on a very important issue. He said that it proved that I was one of the few real journalists on their staff. Of course, I really was homeless, but my bosses never knew it.

The Hidden World of Homeless Veterans – Part 1

by Richard L. Thornton – National Architecture Examiner

The retired vets with vehicles take care of the younger vets

Chattahoochee National Forest – Georgia (June 21, 2010) The startling statistics of homelessness in America, and among veterans in particular, were known when I intentionally sought out these vets. According to several veterans organizations, roughly 1/3 of the +/- 3 million homeless Americans are veterans. Initially, I assumed that the finger of blame would be pointed at a duplicitous Veterans Administration or an indifferent Congress. 

Local TV news teams, if they cover homelessness at all, will often go to a convenient inner city location, infer that the veterans are homeless due to alcoholism or addictive drugs then meet the other members of their staff for drinks and dinner.  The actual events which caused the veterans, interviewed, to be homeless had nothing to do with the federal government, alcoholism or illegal drugs.  The real villains will surprise most readers.

It is difficult to make generalized statements about homeless veterans because their current living locations are so dispersed.  National forests are attractive sites for homeless camps because the water is generally pure and the locations are hidden.   However, in most national forests, camp sites must be moved every two weeks.  In some states, the camp sites must be moved as far as ten miles. 

This distance completely eliminates homeless people, who are also carless – IF they abide by the two week rule.  There is no way for them to move their belongings ten miles. Thus, the homeless with personal transportation are faced with the options that include violating U. S. Forest Service rules (i.e. breaking the law,) living in abandoned structures in violation of local zoning ordinances, or moving to inner city areas where tent cities for the homeless are concentrated. 

I set up a tent camping site in a remote area of the Chattahoochee National Forest, then hiked or drove around the backwoods areas looking for homeless people.  Because of the increasingly hostile attitude of the U.S. Forest Service toward the homeless, their compounds are difficult to locate without inside information.  Homeless Viet Nam War veterans are often of retirement age these days and therefore more visible. They tend to live in small recreation trailers. 

I found several retired vets living in recreation trailers.  A convincing a vet named Jim, of my trustworthiness, Jim arranged a meeting with some younger veterans. Jim, one of the retired Viet Nam vets, said that he acted as a mother hen for the younger guys, since he had a truck. The majority of homeless vet camps are not visible from either roads or trails frequented by hikers.

Contact was made with some Desert Storm and Iraqi Occupation veterans near Suches, Georgia.  Only three agreed to show their faces and talk at all. They were in the process of moving to another camp site.  There was one Winnebago trailer pulled by an older model Ford pickup. I suspected that the older vet, who owned the truck, bought food and supplies for the others, but no one stated this.

The remainder of the men (and possibly women, I saw some women’s clothes) evidently lived in tents of varying sizes and condition.  I saw absolutely no evidence in the Chattahoochee National Forest of the excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages or any illegal drugs.  The men actually looked much healthier than the typical group of aging warriors.

Apparently, all the younger men were there because they were either unemployed, could not afford conventional housing or they were in arrears with their child support payments.  Like most states, Georgia severely penalizes fathers, who are tardy with their child support payments.  This will be discussed in more detail later.  Only one homeless vet in the camp whom we shall call Jack, was willing to discuss his personal life at all.

Jack was a Marine Lance Corporal in Desert Storm. After leaving the military in 2000, he had risen to being manager of a very successful sporting goods store franchise.  He formerly owned a house in the affluent Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta.  Then in 2005 disaster struck.

Jack severely cut his left thigh while sawing firewood in the backyard.  His job required considerable floor walking.  After his medical leave expired, he was fired by his employer.  While his wound was healing, his family sold their stock and used up most of their savings to maintain the same lifestyle as when he was the store manager.  He eventually found a job as a retail salesman at less than half of his former salary.  His wife had to go back to work. 

In 2008 the economy began collapsing in the Atlanta Area.  Jack was laid off again.  Between his wife’s salary and his unemployment, they were unable to simultaneously make payments on their two cars, house note and car insurance.  First, his car was repossessed because of no insurance (not because of being in default on the loan.)  The mortgage payments were falling behind, when he found another job, making even less money.  He thought that his family had just gotten “over the hump,” when his wife announced that she had fallen in love with a man at her office.  She had already pulled their remaining savings out to hire a lawyer.  He could not afford a lawyer.

Jack was saddled with a child support payment based on his income as a store manager the previous three years. The courts use “standard formulas” for every thing. Unless one has a good lawyer, court bureaucrats dictate judgments. He quickly defaulted on the child support payments, lost his drivers license as punishment from a judge for not making payments and ultimately went to jail several times because he didn’t have a car and couldn’t afford a taxi to take him to court. 

After his ex-wife’s lover got a divorce and married her, the new husband hired a lawyer to get Jack’s child support payments reduced to zero.   However, Jack has been unable to find another job and has been living in the woods since spring of 2009.

It was obvious to the interviewer, that emotionally, Jack was a broken man. His self-esteem is so crushed that it is unlikely that he will ever have a significant job again.  He has spent several months in the Fulton County Jail as if he was a real criminal.  His “crime” was not being able to afford an attorney in a divorce and child custody case.  One must also question the credentials of a judge, who would order $3000 a month child support from a man, who was only receiving $600 a month in State Unemployment benefits – AND who did not own a car.

In the next part of this article, we will interview a vet, who was able to say more about his personal life.