Stop Prioritizing Veterans Over Other Homeless People
Stop Prioritizing Veterans Over Other Homeless People
Charity should be based on need, not merit.
Homelessness is on the rise. Certain demographic groups, such as military veterans and disabled people, are at least twice as likely to experience homelessness, through no fault of their own. They deserve better.
The more someone deserves help, the more help they usually get. Most people will favor a disabled veteran over a drug addict when choosing who to help, even though addicts face the highest mortality risk. The people who deserve help the least get the least amount of help — even though they are most in need of it.
Stop only helping the people who deserve it the most. Help the people who deserve it the least.
People tend to reward traits they admire, but charity isn’t a medal ceremony. Those traits often correlate with greater access to help already. The “undeserving” typically have less resources and are sicker, more isolated, and more likely to die.
A veteran may deserve help more than someone who never served, having earned it, but he doesn’t need it more. A sober person may deserve help more than an alcoholic, but the addict needs it more. Every freezing night that the addict survives is another chance for him to turn his life around the next day. The sober guy is less at risk.
I’m not attacking veterans, sick people, or sobriety. I’m challenging the moral gatekeeping of compassion. Charity shouldn’t be a prize for good behavior. People should not have to earn compassion by being sober and respectable or passing some moral litmus test.
The Moral Illusion of Helping the “Deserving”
It feels good to help someone who “deserves it.” But often you’re just helping the least desperate survive more comfortably. Charity isn’t about feeling good. It’s about doing the most good.
Veterans and disabled people already get institutional support. They often receive monthly disability payments and medical benefits, especially veterans. Some people get a pension if old enough to retire, but most have to rely on employment for any kind of income.
Working is already difficult when access to transportation and running water is limited. It’s even harder to hold down a job when you’re in active addiction or weathering withdrawal.
The “deserving” have public sympathy as a resource. They may be given priority at some shelters, and there are even housing facilities specifically for homeless veterans. People in general are more likely to offer help to homeless people who are veterans or disabled.
It’s easy to help the polite guy with the military jacket and the cardboard sign. It’s harder to hand $5 to the woman shaking in withdrawal and muttering to herself or the man who reeks of alcohol. They are still alive, still capable of change, still human.
Stop asking, “Who is the most worthy?” and start asking, “Who is hurting the most?”
Stop giving only where charity is most deserved. Give most where help is most needed. Favoritism kills.
Homeless drug addicts are 6× more likely to die on the streets than non-addicts. Unhoused people have 2.3× the risk of death compared to housed people, whereas substance abuse raises the risk to 13.6×, according to a study in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. When we wait for people to be perfect before we help them, they die waiting.
Heather Holmes is a broke, disabled single mom trying to balance motherhood, grad school, and chronic health conditions. She was a Navy brat for the first two decades of her life and an Air Force wife for most of the third. Both of her grandfathers each fought in both Korea and Vietnam. One lied about his age to fight in WWII and flew planes for the Army before the Air Force even existed. Her great uncle Ed stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and lived to tell the tale. She witch-cackles when people say that she’s ableist or doesn’t support the troops — and keeps advocating for the people no one else wants to help.
Written by Heather Holmes
Neurosparkly single mom from Charleston with Hashimoto's & an English degree, now pursing a Master’s in Digital Marketing. I write about motherhood & healing.
From Medium
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