Q.: How big of a problem is homelessness to military women and veterans?
Right now its the fastest growing homeless population in the US to the tune of about 55000 and that number is just counting the women, however over half of them ar single mothers. That doesn’t take into account their children, who are also affected by this epidemic of homeless women veterans.
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Q.: And what do you think is the reason for that?
Well, America as a country has created this … When they set up the supportive system for veterans they forgot about the women who have also served and sacrified. Most of the support programs now are set up for male veterans, And if they have (set up), they may be able to support women, but not to take children. It’s just an American issue. Overall it’s not an administration issue, it’s “hey we forgot to think about the women”, who have also been fighting, bleeding and dying alongside with their brothers.
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Q.: What was the reason of why you came up with “Final Salute”?
It stemmed from my own personal situation. Back in 2005, I was a single mother hitted to Iraq, I was a Reservist, currently stationed in New Orleans. When Hurrican Katrina hit in August, I lost everything that me and my son owned. And the very next month I got diagnosed with an aggressive head, neck and throat cancer. And so, you know, after six months, two surgeries and 30 radiation treatments, I was at my medical center, my cancer was in remission, but however what most people don’t realize is unlike active duty, reservists and guardsmen, when they come off a tour or when they are released at least from active duty, they don’t necessarily have a job or home to go back to. And that is the situation I found myself in.
So, I then went to look for resources for women Veterans and none existed, absolutely none, so they sent me where they send all the other women, you know, who don’t receive child support or receive resources, they sent me to the Welfare Office and basically offered me food stamps.
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Q.: And then you said you have to do something about it?
Well, you hadn’t heard about homeless women veterans at that point, I always thought about my situation as isolated, living off of food stamps was not an option for me and my son – I needed a job, I needed a place to live, but it was a huge slap in the face, because again - on the flip side – had I be a man, there were hundreds of transitional housing facilities, thousands of programs that I could have gone to, had I had the right anatomy. But since I was a woman, I was basically offered poverty in return for the service I had rendered to my nation.
In so luckily I had an aunt who lived in Missouri where my son was currently at, I got a job there with the Missouri National Guard and I was able to get back on my feet., get a place and get me and my son back into in our own space.
It wasn’t until I relocated to the DC Metro area that I again started to hear about homeless women Veterans. You hear so much when you are close to the flag pole , And so I certainly thought that things had gotten better, you know since 2005 and 2006, but to learn they had gotten worse – I was just disgusted by it.
And so, as a soldier, we have a set of principles within the so discrete hard wired ethos, my favorite principle was to never leave a fallen comrade. so, just because America wasn’t doing anything, didn’t mean that I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know where the money is going to come from, where the first house was gonna come from these were my sisters and I needed to do something and that’s when I decided to found “Final Salute”.
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Q.:When you said that the situation had gone worse, how did you notice, what was happening?
Well, I went to research .. hmm, ok “what exits now?”.. that was about three four, years ago.so let’s see if it has gotten better, and I still didn’t find anything. And when I started researching the numbers, at first there were 10000, there were 13000, the numbers just kept growing and the numbers were so skewed, because the government and public organizations were not tracking women veterans as part of the homeless population, they were just tracking women, and they were tracking male veterans. And so while they say that there may be 55000, it could be higher than that. But with looking at those numbers and trying to see what was available, there was still nothing and I was just complete shock and awe. By this time, you know, we had been doing ten years of war, you know, women are still dying or coming back with disabilities, whether they are physical or mental … and come back not being able to transition, but however 99% of the service is still pointed to male Veterans.
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Q.: And what do you think are things missing right now, what is the situation for female Veterans?
What is missing as a whole, as America does not equate the services and sacrifices the same, if they did, there would also be hundreds of transitional housing facilities, there would be thousands of programs to assist a women.
You know, when I used to start out and going to talk to people and the … how they thought about why men and women, who were homeless, were different.
So the typical male veteran, he is homeless, because he has been to war, he has seen horrible things, he has done terrible things on behalf of his country, so, America we failed him. It’s our fault that he is homeless.
When it comes to a woman, it is like …well, what did she do to get herself into that situation? Why did she get all these kids that she cant take care of? So, it’s, it’s what I call the rape-victim-mentality, you know, well if she hadn’t been over there at three o’clock in the morning, then, you know, nothing would have happened.
So, if it’s a male veteran it’s America’s fault, if its a women veteran its her fault. So, it’s that type of mentality that has kept us in a current state, you know, that were in - basically.
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Q.:What kind of environment do you want create with “Final Solute”?
Well, the top environment I wanted to create and the first question I asked myself was: What kind of environment would I like for me and my children to live in. So, I looked at the neighborhoods, I looked at typical women shelters, they were in crime-infested neighborhoods, there was a liquor store on the corner, there were a bunch of people were hanging out, you walk out in front of the home or the shelter and you are right on the busy street, that’s not a safe or suitable location for a child or a woman and so that’s was my main reason for structuring these homes, where would I want my brain and imaginary junior to be, to grow up. I want them to have a yard to be able to play in, I want them to be safe in their environment, not worried, you know, about to getting shot or getting harmed, they just able to be happy children, grow up where a woman can feel comfortable, go to work and know that her children gonna be ok when they got home.
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Q.:Who is supporting you?
Our biggest sponsors: we get the most -- from individual givings, we do have some sponsors like the house of.. right now, Wells Fargo gave us 35000 dollars to remodel the home to put it in living condition. we also received 50000 dollars from Clark Constructions to help the home, HBO has been a sponsor, but our biggest sponsor are Veterans and the American people, who have answered the call. We just passed our three year milestone as an organization, it is very hard to get large corporate donations, when you are in your infancy, but I think that we have shown what we can do in three years without federal and state local fundings and that’s gonna open the doors for us in 2014 to be able to bring on full time staff and more sustainment kind of funding to help us grow as an organization.
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Q.: So it is all private sponsors, right? And how many women have been in this house?
I am not sure about this house directly. We have two programs, we are assisting 150 women and children since opening.
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Q.:Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful work you are doing here, but wouldn’t that be a responsibility of the VA or the Government?
No. And I say that the VA gets a lot of the responsibility , because the are Veterans Affairs, but the uniform that I wore said US Army, it didn’t say VA Army, so it is the responsibility of the US as a country to help and support its veterans. You know, you look at every major national disaster that strikes every place else, you know now it’s the Philippines, you know we are texting and donating like crazy, we are, you know, sending checks over there, because we cant bare to see the images of the displaced women and children.
But we don’t have the same sense of urgency when it comes to our women Veterans.
So, whenever you say, hey, there are tens of thousands of women homeless on American soil and their response is: “Well the VA should do something about that” - that is 100% unacceptable.
We have the means, the wealth and the influence as a country to take every veteran off the street regardless of its gender, but I don’t know, maybe if we would declare Veteran homelessness an epidemic or a natural disaster then may be Americans would give in droves they do give for other countries in despair.
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Q.: So, you think it’s written not the responsibility of the Military, the Department of Defense or any …?
The issue is, once you leave the military, you are no longer a soldier, airman, marine, sailor, coasty. So they have no further responsibility. There is a lot of talk about,you know, the tax training and things like that to teach you how to transition into civilian life. It wasn’t the Army’s responsibility to teach me how to be a civilian, it was the Army’s responsibility to teach me how to be a soldier and that they did well.
So, what’s lacking is that carrying on the torch on America’s behalf. They (the military) are not, America as a country is getting it wrong, it’s not the Military.
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Q.:What are the specific challenges that experienced women that come home from war and deployment and how suitable are the services offered to them for their needs?
I would say that the issues for women are no different from the issues that men face, however our main challenge is that we have children and most of the supportive services that now are trying to help women do not take into account that they need to be able to help children as well.
You know, with 60 % o the grant per diem programs that were surveyed for the 2011 GAO report, reported that they didn’t take in children because there was no financial incentive to do so. You know, that’s why women are now...they will sleep in their cars, they will see domestic violent situations. But i would say that the biggest issue is just life happening.
There is nothing set up for life happening. You don’t plan to come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and get divorced. You don’t plan to come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and get beaten by your spouse, or lose a job, or any of those things that happened that are not out of your control. You don’t plan to get raped in the military and come back from the military with sexual trauma. so there are things that are out of our control, but however when we are asking for help on the flipside, programs do not exist.
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Q.:So, basically in all of your answers you have said that for women it is a huge burden for women in the military to have children?
I am not going to say … it’s not a burden to have children, but the issue is that the programs that are saying that they support women are not taking into account the children. As a mother I had to not only to make sure that my needs are met, I had to make sure that the needs of my children are met. So that's the biggest issue, you can come and talk programs, but can't take your children, or we can only accommodate a number of children, or we can only accommodate certain amount of ages of children.
So any program that doesn't take in children of women should never receive one dollar of federal government funding, because its no secret or its no surprise that women have children. That's what God has led our bodies to do. So if you are having a program that is structured for women, you have automatically be able to accommodate children for the women that have them.
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Q.:What made you decide to take your friends daughter with you. It's a huge offer, to take in. Not everybody would do that.
She asked me and I don't think if she wouldn't need the support that she wouldn't have asked me. And also I have been deployed and have had to be separated from my oldest child. So I have the experience that she is going into and I pretty much know the environment that I would have liked to have and did have for my child.
You know I also have a small child, I have a 3 year old, and so I guess from what she is looking at, she is keeping her daughter in a family environment, she is keeping her daughter in a family I already have experience with and I think because of everything that I have done for her and all of the other women, she just trusts me as a mother.
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