Veterans seek help at homeless shelter

Some veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are among the Seattle-area homeless who seek the help of the Compass Center, which offers transitional housing.

Within the past year, five have been served by the center in a two-year program that offers shelter and counseling as they return to work or school, said Tracy Jones, a center program manager who spoke Tuesday at a town-hall meeting organized by U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle.

"They have been out a year or so, and they've been doing drugs and alcohol, or their PTSD [post traumatic stress disorder] is so bad that their families don't want to deal with them," Jones said.

Jones said the Compass Center was able to help these veterans so they didn't end up on the streets. Other speakers at the town-hall meeting represented the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which has clinics treating the expanding number of veterans suffering from brain injuries and PTSD.

McDermott, at the meeting, said the illness is often underreported and that suicide and depression rates among Army personnel last year were at a 26-year high.

Soldiers with PTSD or other war-related injuries are entitled to VA compensation based on disability rating. The VA is trying to speed up processing the claims.

Wounded veteran Nick Wright, of Everett, said he was told as he left the service last fall that it would take four to six weeks to process the VA claim. But, Wright — who survived three bomb explosions in a nine-month tour in Iraq — said he was still waiting.