Employment of Veterans Locally, A Daunting Task!!!

As we discuss further how we can provide better employment opportunities towards our veterans during a time where the unemployment rate may top 10% across America, where people are taking out bill board signs requesting please hire my husband, to a time where stimulus monies are being decided upon where the most benefit to America might be; employment success of veterans outside of the Federal Government is even more challenging. On March 04, 2009 members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other auxiliaries testified to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity with respect to
H.R. 147, H.R. 228, H.R. 297, H.R. 466, H.R. 929, H.R. 942, H.R. 950, H.R. 1088, H.R. 1089, and H.R. 1171. A review of the testimony … http://tinyurl.com/csshd7. I will quote Justin Brown of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, “During this economic recession the number of unemployed veterans has increased to 841,474 as of January 2009.”

From the numerous programs that exist to hire veterans in the local economy, awareness to the general public is one of the essential elements to bring to light the skills that these people have to offer. H.R. 3681, Veterans Benefits Awareness Act of 2007 can be instrumental with a media relations campaign explaining how hiring a veteran can benefit not only the veteran but the business establishment can receive a tax benefit http://tinyurl.com/dxec78. I quote from Phil Landis, “Studies have demonstrated that the longer a person stays in a supportive environment, the greater the likelihood of long term success is.” (http://tinyurl.com/c95e5s)

The Veterans’ Administration does have the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program which does offer services but the objective of these programs should be to provide that “supportive environment” building upon a career outside of the military, ensuring that the goal is to combat homeless, avoiding the stigma associated with being in combat, and most importantly provide a productive future in society reducing the burden on tax payers, not solely focusing on college degrees but specific skill sets. Providing employment careers is the key term here. The
Veterans Benefits Awareness Act of 2007 can again bring the general public to understand more about how much veterans offer.

Knowing that approximately 150,000 veterans maybe homeless on a given day, looking nationwide and quoting from Forbes, “The 150,000 chronically homeless people in the United States cost $10.95 billion per year in public funds. If these individuals were all permanently housed, the expense would be expected to fall to $7.88 billion.” (http://tinyurl.com/dz5xgl) These are 2006 figures. Look at the savings we can provide the tax payers, look at the benefit we can provide the veteran, look at how we can even give the business a tax break and rebuild our economy.

It is very true the Honorable Shinseki has a daunting task of job creation for soldiers (http://tinyurl.com/8lcw7o) and in today’s recession the task is even more challenging with numerous businesses closing, unemployment lines growing, people with disabilities waiting 4 years to receive disability insurance from the Social Security Administration, discrimination workload of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission growing, more deployments with the possibility of more injured needing job placement in the future. The time to act is now!

As you continue to read my blogs, I was told once that you are not in race but a marathon. I am not a ticking time bomb; I am looking for solutions and policy development as to how we as America can solve some of these problems…..