New Orleans Is On Track To Eliminate Veterans’ Homelessness By The End Of The Year

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — While serving with the Army in Afghanistan, Donald C. recalls, he narrowly missed the explosion of a suicide bomb because his unit was running behind schedule. If he had been on time, the 28-year-old veteran said, he would have died. Instead, he and his unit helped to put Afghan nationals who were killed into body bags.

The experience compounded the post-traumatic stress disorder he was already suffering during his two deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2011, he made the difficult decision to leave the military and return to New Orleans, a city less than 25 miles from his hometown of Destrehan, Louisiana.

But the city he returned to was not as welcoming of an eight-year veteran as he had expected. Unable to hold a job or afford an apartment, Donald has spent the last three years rotating between sleeping outside the public library, under bridges and occasionally in the city’s small number of emergency shelters.

“You went from being a hero to being just like everybody else. Hell, worse in some ways because that hero stuff only flies for so long after you get back until it’s like ‘alright, get out of my way bum,’” Donald told ThinkProgress while sitting in the waiting area of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Community Resource and Referral Center, where he goes regularly to shower and meet with case workers. A camouflage backpack—once used to hold his military gear, but now carrying all of his possessions—sat at his feet.

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    AMERICA is home to 98% percent of people who will never serve their country. Additionally it’s always been that those...
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