newsobserver.com projects - Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets - Comments

Re: Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

ryanteaguebeckwith — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:00:45 -0500

The post has been corrected.

— RTB

Re: Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

mickiep — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:44:37 -0500

You question the current Administration's concern for Vets...
Wasn't Bill & Hillary President in 1996??????

Re: Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

KPeddi — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 18:25:20 -0500

Thanks for the clarification...

For the record, O'Reilly's still an idiot...

Re: Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

ryanteaguebeckwith — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:36:51 -0500

Actually, Rob wrote the item and he was just noting what the alliance said.

From my reporting on the Wake County beat, many of the men at the Raleigh shelter are veterans.

— RTB

Re: Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

KPeddi — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 17:19:05 -0500

If this number is from 1996, chances are the number of homeless veterans is astronomically higher... with record foreclosure rates, PSTS syndrome tripling since 2001, the current economic downturn, then the 200,000 number could be just the tip of the iceberg...

I think we've seen just how much this Administration cares about our Vets...

Ryan, just wondering. Are you trying to marginalize the Edwards claim by stating the numbers supposedly come from 1996? Or am I just reading too much into this?

Edwards v. O'Reilly on homeless vets

ryanteaguebeckwith — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:10:12 -0500

John Edwards and Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly are mixing it up again.

O’Reilly, host of "The O'Reilly Factor," questioned Edwards' assertion that 200,000 veterans "will go to sleep under and bridges and on grates" because they are homeless tonight, Rob Christensen reports.

"They may be out there, but there's not many of them out there. Okay," O'Reilly said. "If you know where's a veteran, sleeping under a bridge, you call me immediately, and we will make sure that man does not do it."

Edwards responded with a statement: "For someone who spends a lot of time shouting about patriotism, you would think he would be outraged by the treatment of our homeless veterans. How many more will it take before we wake up and solve this crisis?"

The Edwards campaign cited a November study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. A spokeswoman for the alliance said they got their information from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the year 2006.

The VA report said "about one-third of the adult homeless population have served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 195,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year."

The report said about 45 percent of the homeless vets suffer from mental illness and slightly more than 70 percent suffer from alcohol or other drug abuse problems.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the year.