CBS Discovers Problem of Iraq War Veterans Homeless in America

MRC ^ | Monday April 26, 2004 | BrentBaker

[fight_truth_decay]

Just in time for the fall campaign, CBS News has rediscovered homelessness in America, pairing it with the plight of veterans returning from Iraq. Saturday CBS Evening News anchor Mika Brzezinski connected the case of Pat Tillman, the NFL star turned Army Ranger killed in Afghanistan, with a woman who couldn't get along with her mother and so had to live elsewhere, as she teased the broadcast, "A tale of two soldiers: One honored in death, the other homeless in life."

Reporter Kelly Cobiella recounted the predicament of the not really homeless woman as she relayed, without any doubt, the claims of a self-interested advocate: "There is no federal shelter to care for veterans. The burden falls on cash-strapped cities like New York which struggles to provide shelter for hundreds of veterans from World War II to Iraq. It is a growing problem, says Mary Brosnahan Sullivan with the Coalition for the Homeless."

Sullivan helpfully explained: "Across the country, we have record homelessness and so veterans who are coming home are trying to compete in brutally tough housing markets."

Do reporters ever see any government agency as anything but "cash-strapped"?

Immediately after a story on reaction to Tillman's death, Brzezinski set up the next story on the April 24 CBS Evening News:

"The men and women fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq put their lives on hold to serve the country. Their families wait for months simply for word of when they may come home. But what if a soldier has no home to return to?"

Over video of soldiers being greeted by hugs, reporter Kelly Cobiella asserted: "It is a soldier's dream, coming home to the comfort of family. But for some the reality is very different."

Nicole Goodwin, Army veteran, on a park bench holding a small child: "I had to prepare myself for the heartbreak of homecoming."

Cobiella: "Twenty-three year old Nicole Goodwin came home to be a single mom. After three years with the Army, four months of it spent in Baghdad, she felt she had given to her country and needed to give to her daughter. But when her relationship with her own mother soured, Goodwin left home and landed on the streets."

Cobiella, over video of homeless lying on the streets: "There is no federal shelter to care for veterans. The burden falls on cash-strapped cities like New York which struggles to provide shelter for hundreds of veterans from World War II to Iraq. It is a growing problem, says Mary Brosnahan Sullivan with the Coalition for the Homeless."

Sullivan: "Across the country, we have record homelessness and so veterans who are coming home are trying to compete in brutally tough housing markets."

Cobiella basically acknowledged that Goodwin really isn't homeless: "Goodwin doesn't qualify for the city program because she has what the city calls 'a safe alternative' -- living with her mother. For now, her military family has stepped in to help. The Veterans affairs office has found a place for her to live with her daughter and will help her find a job."

Cobiella concluded: "The military does have a program for all soldiers leaving the service, telling them what help is available, from jobs to housing. But it is voluntary and soldiers like Goodwin, who are not aware of their options, still fall through the cracks."

And fall right into a tale of woe the media cannot resist.

[fight_truth_decay]

The New York Times did a story on Nicole Goodwin as well:

Home From Iraq, and Without a Home
By DAN BARRY Published: April 24, 2004
"THIS is how Nicole Goodwin travels these days:
with her 1-year-old daughter pressed to her chest in a Snugli,
a heavy backpack strapped across her shoulders ..."

Ting-Li Wang/The New York Times Nicole Goodwin,
a homeless Army veteran who served in Iraq,
and her 1-year-old daughter, Shylah.

The Times writes:
CUT
..."She pushed her stroller a few blocks to the Emergency Assistance Unit, the city's flawed point of entry for homeless families. She explained her situation to a staff member who, she says, yelled at her for not having the proper paperwork handy. "I killed her with kindness," she said. "I've been yelled at before by the best."I got that attitude from Iraq," Ms. Goodwin added. "If this isn't life and death, it's not that serious."

(Bio: Goodwin, 23, graduated early from Morris High School in the Bronx. January 2001, she entered an Army recruiting station.. basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C.; classes in supply support at Fort Lee, Va.; and then a flight to Germany, where she was attached to Company B of the 501st Forward Support Battalion at a post in Friedberg. A relationship with another soldier ended after she became pregnant, and in early 2003 she flew to the California home of some friends from the military - the Bronx was not an option, she says - to give birth in March of that year. A few weeks later, she did the hardest thing she has ever had to do: she left Shylah with her California friends and returned to Germany to complete her service. Four months after giving birth, Ms. Goodwin was sent to Iraq. She served food rations at Baghdad International Airport for several weeks, then spent a few more weeks at the sports arena known as the Olympic Stadium, helping to supply soldiers with things like toilet paper and small armaments. After nearly four months in Iraq, Ms. Goodwin returned to Germany to finish the tail end of her three-year hitch. "I wanted to get back to my daughter," she said, "but I didn't want to leave Iraq.")

[Khurkris]

Old military expression - "Garbage in - Garbage out." Just another anti-military, woe is me me, GWB is bad BS piece. This person has a support group. She choses to get her 15 minutes. My only sympathy is with the child.

[onedoug]

Force schizophrenics into tax supported treatment programs, whose redemptive value will issue when it's patients go back to work and repay those taxes.

Then there will be no doubt that the rest of the so-called homeless are bums.

[NativeNewYorker]

CBS Evening News anchor Mika Brzezinski

...is the daughter of Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbig.

No agenda or pattern in hiring, no sir.

[Kozak]

Where were they? Normally the "record homeless" stories start the day a Republican is inaugurated.

[fight_truth_decay]

For those that do not want to register with the Times..."Ms. Goodwin and her daughter moved in with a good friend's mother, and she began planning her next step in life, one that would provide more than the $250 a week she was receiving in unemployment benefits. But a heated argument abruptly ended the living arrangement."

CUT

"On April 17, the Department of Homeless Services denied housing to the Iraqi war veteran on the grounds that she could live with her mother. Beyond the overcrowding that such a return would create (four women and two small children in a two-bedroom apartment), she says that the decision ignored the untenable situation between mother and daughter.

MS. GOODWIN immediately reapplied, thus entering a limbo world known as fast track, in which families who have already been denied housing return within 48 hours to the Emergency Assistance Unit to apply again, and to wait, again, for that late-night bus to somewhere."

"City officials say that under the fast-track process, the applications of the recently rejected are expedited to see whether any new information might make them eligible. But according to Ms. Goodwin, fast track seems designed to generate so much frustration that the applicant gives up and goes away."

"Two days into her fast-track odyssey, Ms. Goodwin got a four-hour pass from the Emergency Assistance Unit - keeping her application active - and made her way to the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not have housing for homeless veterans, but it does have a comprehensive plan for homelessness that includes assistance with employment and counseling."

"Jim Connell, a spokesman for the Bronx center, said staff members tried to find housing for the Goodwins. "They started calling alternative shelters, but a lot of them don't take women," he said. "One was full, another wouldn't take a child." He added: "They were not particularly successful."

"Before the staff at the medical center could help Ms. Goodwin further, Mr. Connell said, she had to leave "because her pass was running out." But someone in Veterans Affairs managed to call her cellphone and refer her to the Coalition for the Homeless for legal help."

"By last evening, officials in Veterans Affairs were vowing to make sure that Nicole Goodwin receives the assistance she needs, and Jim Anderson, a spokesman for Homeless Services, was delivering the official city explanation." (the press got some results?)

(Damage control)"It is a disgrace that soldiers experience instability as they return home and, sadly, hundreds of homeless vets today call municipal shelters their home," Mr. Anderson said.

She chooses to get her 15 minutes...as you say. I bash the Times just like the rest of the Freepers but there is a real problem..that a vet can serve his or her country and then come back to a pile of bureaucratic bs paperwork pushed by "garbarge in garbage out" employees to coin your phrase, and be next to homeless. The system doesn't work now nor has it ever; government gets bigger and bigger and squeezes the taxpayer more and more no matter what party comes to office. Sadly neither candidate will ever address this problem. Talk is cheap.

[martin gibson]

Ms. Brzezinski is the pig...

[cake_crumb]

Replace every instance of the word "Iraq" with "Vietnam" and you have the same hype that gave all Vietnam veterans the reputation for being unstable, drug addicted, drunken, muttering homeless people. Why am I not surprised, considering who's running for president and that CBS has been campaigning openly for a Democrat president from the beginning?

[cake_crumb]

"Where were they? Normally the 'record homeless' stories start the day a Republican is inaugurated."

Exactly. And they did, but were overshadowed by those inconvenient (for Democrats) terrorist attacks on 9/11/01. This is so transparent.

[wbill]

There wasn't any homelessness before Bush. Except during the Reagin years.

[wbill]

There wasn't any homelessness before Bush. Except during the Reagan years.

[cake_crumb]

"Ms. Goodwin and her daughter moved in with a good friend's mother, and she began planning her next step in life, one that would provide more than the $250 a week she was receiving in unemployment benefits. But a heated argument abruptly ended the living arrangement."

Hmmm....so what was the scheme to get more than her unemployment benefit provided? Was she planning on getting off unemployment before implimenting it?

The story is strangely lacking in detailed facts, and the facts provided just don't add up.

[fight_truth_decay]

I agree the majority of networks as well as the Times push their partisan agenda and the homeless issue will always be raised. History shows this as so. But, comes down to the fact that vets are still made to sit in the back of the bus.

[verity]

At least this deflects the emphasis on homeless Civil War Vets. :~(

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

"The homeless is increasing faster than right-wingers to a KKK rally."

[cake_crumb]

"But, comes down to the fact that vets are still made to sit in the back of the bus."

An attitude toward vets aided by the propaganda of the left.

[ravingnutter]

Yes, talk is cheap...that is why the DoL in conjunction with the VA has set up programs for the homeless veterans. HUD is also participating. The Bush Administration alloted 75 Million Dollars in Oct of 2003 for agencies dealing with homelessness. Another 1.27 Billion was announced in Dec 2003. The VA got a record $64 billion for the current fiscal year, up $4.2 billion from 2003.

I would venture to say she'd rather have her 15 minutes of fame than work within the system.

[fight_truth_decay]

I would venture to say she'd rather have her 15 minutes of fame than work within the system

Massive and historical amounts of our money is alloted to education as well..shows the system even when funded in figures that out of the realm of reason still lacks adequate implementation right down into the State levels.

[SZonian]

"The military does have a program for all soldiers leaving the service, telling them what help is available, from jobs to housing. But it is voluntary and soldiers like Goodwin, who are not aware of their options, still fall through the cracks."

This whole story stinks of BS. Having just retired from the military, I can tell you with out a shred of doubt that the Transition Assistance Program (name of federally mandated program) is MANDATORY not voluntary! By Federal Law, every separating/retiring member of the military must attend no later than 90 days prior to separation/retirement. There are numerous agencies and departments both federal and state that attend to inform folks of their opportunities and options. Even then it's not too late to change one's mind and stay in the military.

Also, she is homeless by choice. The military would have provided quarters for her and her child if she had so chosen. There are countless hundreds if not thousands of single parents in the military, male and female, and John Q Public picks up the dime for that as well.

If she had only gone down to the military clinic or hospital on base she could have been put on all the free birth control she needed to avoid now being a drain on society because of her premarital sex resulting in an out of wedlock child.

I agree with another post here about the child being the victim here, not the mother!

I am so sick and tired of people misrepresenting the military and claiming these misrepresentations as fact because the average civilian has no clue as to what lengths the military will go to provide for their members!

Rant off!

Cheers!

[fight_truth_decay]

Also, she is homeless by choice. The military would have provided quarters for her and her child if she had so chosen.

Jim Connell, a spokesman for the Bronx center, said staff members tried to find housing for the Goodwins. "They started calling alternative shelters, but a lot of them don't take women," he said. "One was full, another wouldn't take a child." He added: "They were not particularly successful."

I don't think from reading these quotes she is homeless by choice. What a perfect world this would be if the money we dish out constantly would go to where it was intended. Our military should have the best of everything..on and off the battlefield...they do not! Thank God for our patriotism ..helps block out the ugliness of it all!