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BYALEX MILLER
@oneheart1cityPeriscope
in 2006, i served as a u.s. navy
IT specialist aiding my ship’s
mission of finding and neutralizing
pirates off the coast of Somalia. Two
years later, I was homeless, stand-
ing in a line in Gainesville, Florida,
that twisted around the block so I
could donate blood in exchange for
20 bucks.
Many of the men waiting with
me looked almost as bad as I did—
all of us homeless and hungry. My
hair was matted, crusted from dan-
druff, and my eyes were bloodshot.
My fi ngers tingled because of with-drawal from the anti-anxiety med-
ications I wasn’t getting from the
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Between childhood trauma and my
four years in the service, I relied on
medications such as clonazepam for
anxiety and Zoloft for PTSD, but the
VA delivered my medication through
the mail, and I hadn’t had a stable
home for some time—I was couch
surfi ng, car snoozing or sleeping in
the back of the restaurant where I
worked. With no permanent address,
my meds never found me.
Sadly, my situation was far fromunique. On a single night in January
2020, 37,252 veterans were victims of
homelessness. And the VA processes
about 80 percent of veteran prescrip-
tions by mail, so when a veteran loses
their home, they often lose access to
the medications their life depends on.
Veterans bear the physical and
mental scars of military service, yet
when they return home,
many of us face a soci-
ety ill-equipped to offer
proper care. Instead,
once a year, our country
celebrates Veterans DayHow I Became One of
37,000 Homeless Veterans
Service in the Navy was supposed to guarantee a good civilian
job later and access to needed medical care. It didn’tOPINION