As we wrap up our series on homelessness this week, we take a look at the impact of homelessness and adjacent circumstances on Upstate veterans.
The South Carolina Interagency Council on Homelessness’s 2022 State of Homelessness report found that, despite the increase in the need for homelessness services and increased total homeless population between fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the number of homeless veterans across the state actually decreased.
However, Alan Dabney, the Director of the Greenville County Veterans Affairs, said the homeless veterans population in the Upstate has seen a similar increase in need in recent years to that of the Upstate’s homeless population as a whole.
“The homeless veterans, it’s very identical to the population for homelessness,” Dabney said. “It’s people in the same line sometimes, it’s just from hard lessons learned, from difficulties in life, and sometimes there’s mental health issues too there if there’s mental health issues that are needed.
So it’s identical; these people just happened to have served in the military at some point.”
He also explained that mental health is concern affecting many veterans that can significantly impact their ability to be self-sufficient if left untreated.
