The number of homeless veterans nationwide dropped dramatically past year, but advocates say the USA remains far from the White House’s stated goal of completely ending the problem.
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The drop in veterans homelessness is expected to be a touchstone in Obama’s speech Monday afternoon before the annual convention of Disabled American Veterans, where the president will stress the nation’s “steadfast commitment” to serve its veterans as a “national responsibility and a promise that can not be broken”.
Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, have addressed the importance and urges of veteran’s care, health and protection.
Mr Obama said Veterans Affairs has hired more doctors and clinicians since the scandal over long wait times for VA services.
Services are reaching more veterans, including those who live in rural areas through telemedicine.
“As commander-in-chief, I’m pretty exhausted of some folks trash-talking America’s military and troops”, Obama told a Disabled American Veterans convention in Atlanta, Georgia.
Obama says there are still too many suicides among veterans.
While a backlog of disability claims that neared 610,000 in 2013 has been whittled to below 80,000, more than 450,000 appeals are pending.
Castro described the success at cutting veteran homelessness almost in half as “amazing and. actually an example of how Washington should work”.
The White House points to statistics that show veteran homelessness declined by 17 percent in 2015 to under 40,000 veterans, based on results of the 2016 Point-in-Time Count of homelessness across the country conducted in January.
Trump has repeatedly blasted the VA under Obama, although Clinton has been less harsh. Clinton would make changes to the existing system.
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Despite the problems, demand for VA health care grew 13 percent in the past year, said DAV Executive Director Garry Augustine.
“We know that even though the access is a problem, health care in the VA is very good”, Augustine said in an interview. He asked Congress to provide more funds for mental health care.
“When all of us signed up, we signed up with the belief and an obligation that we were going to put our lives on the line, and in exchange for that the country was going to help support us”, McDonald said.
Augustine said he’d like to see VA establish an approved network of private doctors who know how to treat veterans.
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President Barack Obama tore into those “trash-talking” the United States military and disrespecting the families of fallen soldiers Monday, in a thinly veiled attack on Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump. News stories displayed here appear in our category for Business and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.com and The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization. For the protection of AP and its licensors, content may not be copied, altered or redistributed in any form.
