Help our homeless veterans

Published 1:26 pm Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Editor:

As we celebrate this holiday season, let’s all think about our veterans — especially our homeless veterans — and most of all, our homeless female veterans.

I am a Longwood student, a senior majoring in communications studies, and for an interactive media project, I focused on homeless veterans and I was disturbed by the large number of female veterans we have and the more complicated issues they face.

Email newsletter signup

Through contacts at Farmville’s VFW Post 7059, I learned more about this unacceptable situation and then I visited the Hunter Holmes McGuire Veterans Hospital in Richmond.

My heart sank as I heard about the continuing problem of homeless veterans. When I was told by officials with McGuire’s Health Care for Homeless Veterans program about the extra needs for homeless female veterans, I had to take a step back. We are, after all, talking about women. The center has a constant need for, I was told, everything from A to Z for women. To make the situation even worse, some of these women have kids and/or are pregnant.

For more information on donating the much-needed items for homeless female veterans, please contact Brooke Pendelton, HCHV coordinator, at (804) 675-5000, extension 2438, or email brooke.pendleton@va.gov.

Tom Lanigan

Keysville