CENTURY CITY >> First lady Michelle Obama made a passionate call to local business, community and government leaders to help eradicate veteran homelessness and joblessness at a high-profile summit Wednesday in Century City.
While a small percentage of veterans end up homeless after serving their country and a majority transition into successful careers, there are still far too many who can’t find and keep a decent job and have no place to call home, she said.
“After everything they’ve done for us, the idea that any of our veterans are spending months or even years struggling to find a job is unacceptable,” Obama, a keynote speaker, said at the United Way of Greater Los Angeles’ Unite for Veterans Summit. “The image of even one of these heroes sleeping out in the cold huddled up next to an overpass, that should horrify all of us because that’s not who we are.”
The federal government is cutting red tape across agencies, starting new programs and strengthening old ones to support veterans, and the rate of homeless veterans in the country has fallen by 24 percent under President Barack Obama’s tenure, she said. But government officials need help, she said.
In Los Angeles County, about one in three post-9/11 veterans is unemployed or underemployed, or not making a sustainable income, according to the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.
“If we’re going to make a difference on this issue, issues like employment and homelessness, we’ve got to get communities across the country involved at every level — that means business, government, foundations, nonprofits,” the first lady said. “It means our schools, our hospitals, it means neighbors from down the street … That’s exactly what you’re doing right here in Los Angeles.”
Obama praised Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s “10,000 Strong” veterans hiring initiative, which has secured commitments from more than 100 businesses and public sector organizations to hire 10,000 veterans by 2017. This effort is important not only for its focus on hiring veterans but retaining them in good jobs, including in the fields of health care, entertainment and engineering, she said.
Garcetti also drew praise from the first lady for his pledge this week to end veteran homelessness in the city of Los Angeles by the end of 2015. Garcetti, who said he’s calling the initiative “Homefront L.A.,” said there are more homeless veterans living in L.A. than anywhere else in the country. “As more troops come home, (out of) those 24,000, we expect to come back to Los Angeles in the next three years, we will see about 3,000 become homeless,” Garcetti said at the summit, noting that’s more than 1 out of 10 veterans on the city’s streets. “As your mayor, as a former Navy reservist, as a grandson of a World War II hero, I will not accept that veterans will live in our city without a place of their own. Not anymore.”
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On the summit’s sidelines, veterans Angel Ruilova, 40, of Glendale, and Joseph DeJulia, 49, of Baldwin Park, talked about the hurdles they and others have faced in accessing their benefits, such as paid education through the GI Bill. DeJulia was told after he served that he could not qualify for the GI Bill since he signed two consecutive three-year contracts in the U.S. Navy Reserve instead of one six-year contract.
DeJulia, who served a total of 10 years in the U.S. Navy at two different times, almost gave up on education, he said, until he was able to find federal funding through another program.
“We don’t ask for charity, but we feel that serving our country and doing what we felt we needed to do and willingly doing it … there should be a compensation for it that should be easy for us,” DeJulia said.
Ruilova said there should be better monitoring, oversight and assistance since many veterans have difficulty accessing government programs for veterans already in place.
“When we come back, there is no support,” Ruilova said. “Everywhere we have to call and ask. It feels like we’re pulling teeth.”
