Swords to Plowshares

Shelters take many vets of Iraq, Afghan wars

This reflects only a fraction of the total number of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, said Amy Fairweather, who works with Iraq war veterans at Swords to Plowshares, a private organization based in San Francisco that assists veterans. Last year, her agency’s five shelters in California helped 250 such veterans, she said.

She said it is impossible to know how many veterans have not asked for help and are “crashing on their friends’ couch, in a car, in a park . . . [or are] people who live in a church.”

“It’s a major problem that’s not going away anytime soon,” said Cheryl Beversdorf, director of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans in Washington, who estimates that hundreds, perhaps thousands of troops who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan are living in shelters.Kevin’s story illustrates the lagging response of overburdened government agencies to the needs of troops returning from wars, said Jack Downing, who runs the shelter where Kevin and four other veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are staying.