Homelessness, physical and mental health struggles, barriers to transportation. Those are among the biggest challenges facing many U.S. military veterans, according to organizers of a regional summit held Wednesday at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.
“I think the community is very much involved with wanting to help veterans,” said Steve Bridges, the Central Illinois Region’s education, outreach and engagement specialist for Illinois Joining Forces [IJF], a statewide nonprofit that works to connect service members and their families with needed resources.
“Just about everywhere I travel within the Central Illinois region, I find that the people that I engage with want to know what they can do, what, how they can do more to help vets and get them connected with services.”
IJF’s Central Illinois Regional Summit provided an opportunity for organizations and leaders to connect and share strategies and initiatives for assisting veterans. The daytime gathering was followed by IJF’s Military and Veterans’ Night Out resource fair.
“Right now, some veterans are doing just great. But there are some issues, some problems that are occurring, particularly areas like Central Illinois where there’s sometimes lack of services,” said IJF executive director Megan Everett.
“Behavioral health service providers are lacking," she said. "There’s issues with homelessness. There’s still issues with lack of mental health services, and particularly now with some federal cuts that are happening with VA [U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs], resources that are lessening. So what we really need is community services that are coming together locally, here on the ground.”
According to IJF figures, 6.6% of Illinois’ nearly 560,000 military veterans live in poverty, and the state’s unemployment rate for veterans is 21.5% higher than the national average.
Ret. U.S. Army Sgt. Garrett Anderson, who lost his right arm and suffered a traumatic brain injury in a 2005 roadside bombing in Iraq, was the summit’s keynote speaker. He’s now the outreach coordinator and student recruiter for the Chez Veterans Center at the University of Illinois.
Anderson said helping veterans pursue college degrees is one key to helping them find success after their service.
“Most veterans that are entering higher education are probably first-generation students, so they don’t know what they don’t know,” said Anderson. “So we try to help them navigate higher ed and increase that graduation rate for them, so they can be more so they can improve themselves and their families long term.”
Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs Director Terry Prince said he sees many challenges heading to a crisis point — from homelessness to changes at the VA and adjustments to SNAP benefits. One issue that particularly draws his attention is the rate of suicide among veterans.
“We keep looking at suicide from the picture of, ‘Wow, that’s a horrible thing,’ and it is,” said Prince. “I look at it from, ‘Where are we missing? What things did we miss along the way that might have prevented them from happening?’ So we’re here to help all of us change lives, one life at a time, 100 lives at a time to help connect [and] knock down those silos and barriers that sometimes exist.”
IJF uses resources from the Staff Sgt. Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program to offer support and early intervention outreach in promoting wellness and providing referrals. Veterans can contact support by calling 1-833-INFO-IJF (463-6453).
Everett told the attendees that IJF’s “Operation Connect Illinois” seeks to bring together local providers, government agencies and community organizations.
“We’re not here to replace anything. We’re here to help amplify what already exists, and help providers work in sync with each other,” said Everett.
“This region is large, it’s diverse, and it can often be under resourced. It also makes partnerships like this more essential. We want to help learn who’s out there; we want to help understand who’s doing what, and we want to help refer and support one another.”
