Homeless Veterans | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I'm I gotta say something about this that nobody ever brings up, but this is well documented. I don't know why. This is one of those things that nobody ever brings up, and I don't know why, but I like to say this whenever the subject comes up for people who don't know. There is a large percentage. I mean, estimates vary, but there is a large percentage of homeless people in this country. And wherever you're watching or listening to this, in your city or here in Manchester where we are, there's a percentage of homeless people who are veterans.

0:32 Speaker 1: Why do I mention that because the Veterans Administration, while it does very well for some people, a lot of people fall through the cracks. A lot of people end up homeless because they have to take pain medication that they get through the VA because of what happened to them during their military service serving our country. And then one day they get cut off and after resort to street drugs and it becomes you know, and they just fall down the whole and then they wind up homeless.

1:03 Speaker 2: And add to that the fact that they've also recently cut veteran services on mental health and they've literally taken mental health clinicians and put them in a telemarketing like room right where they're all talking to clients openly in this room.

1:19 Speaker 1: Right. But I'm bringing this up for a very specific reason because there's a particular look people who like to bash homeless people, who like to make fun of them, who like to talk about them as though they're trash that just needs to be swept away somewhere.

1:38 Speaker 2: Uh.

1:38 Speaker 1: They tend to be of a certain political ideology, right. You know, you don't hear liberals talk in that way. But the same people who are the cruelest in their condemnation of people who are homeless are typically the same people who like to wrap themselves in the flag, who like to act like they're more patriotic than the rest of us, and who love to talk about how important it is to honor and support and take care of veterans. So I want the people who do that. I want the people who think it's cool to kick, hopefully not literally but figuratively, or perhaps they fantasize about kicking them literally homeless people when they're down.

2:25 Speaker 1: Just understand something you might be talking about a veteran when you do that. So anyone who thinks it's cool to be assholes to homeless people, just understand you might be assholes to people who served their country. And then, because we have a long history of discarding people when they leave the military and not giving them the help and support that they need, and that is well documented. You can trace out all the way back to World War One when our veterans were not given things and support help that they were promised.

3:02 Speaker 1: So just understand if you're a conservative who loves to wrap yourself in the flag and talk about how veterans are so important because the military is so important and we need honor our veterans, and you would also just as soon spit on a homeless person as even acknowledge their existence or give them any sort of dignity. Understand that you've got a conflict happening there, because that might be that might very well be a veteran that you're doing that too. And I will say this every single time this subject comes up, because nobody ever says it, and I don't know why, but a lot of homeless people are veterans who fell through the cracks.

3:40 Speaker 1: So you know, people who just mistreat them, you know, I understand if you don't want to give them money. I don't give them money, Okay, I don't have a lot of extra money to just be given out to people. But I would never I would never disrespect a homeless person. I would never talk down to them. I would never be mean to them and nothing like that, you know, I mean, unless they came at me. Be right, They're a human beings, child number one. They're a human beings and you don't know their story. You don't know how they got there, you don't know what happened to them.

4:13 Speaker 1: But part of that too is also just so you know, conservatives who think it's cool to go around shitting on homeless people. That homeless person that you think is a piece of shit, they might be a veteran who fell through the cracks. And we all know veterans who fell through the cracks, so just something to consider. Yeah.

4:30 Speaker 2: And then when I was an EMT, I can tell you I responded to a number of veterans who needed help and who fell through the cracks, and the VA didn't take care of And they should have never ended up with me because they weren't being taken care of right by the VA.