The Nation's Hardest to House

According to reports, it took an average of nine years postdeployment for Vietnam vets to fall into homelessness. There’s concern that it’s happening much sooner for the recent vets, says Blecker.

Of Service Members and Veterans

Community Reintegration Summit on Service Members and Veterans Returning to Civilian Life
Washington, D.C.

Carnegie Institution

January 26-27, 2009

Survivor Corps, Booz Allen Hamilton, and The Veterans' Coalition are co-hosting a Summit to convene a community of leaders from the public, private, and civil sectors. Together we can collaboratively address the reintegration of service members and veterans as they return home to their families, communities, schools, and jobs.

The Challenge

Over one and a half million service members have deployed in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Over thirty thousand have been physically wounded, with many more experiencing less visible, psychological wounds. Many returning veterans are facing family, employment, and other community reintegration issues. Recent reports suggest an increase in rates of suicide

[1], alcohol and drug abuse

[2], homelessness

[3], and domestic violence

[4] These traumatic effects of war, left unaddressed, could have far-reaching negative consequences for the individuals affected, their families, and our nation.

Leaders of the public, private, and civil sectors have been doing substantial work to address the issues around reintegration-individually and through partnerships or coalitions. Clearly, the hard work of these organizations has improved the lives of returning service members and veterans, yet many challenges remain. Reintegration issues are complex, and the responsibility for dealing with them is shared among many organizations. Successful solutions to the issues may require a shift in leadership approach and a significant increase in collaborative action.

The Reintegration Summit

To continue the work accomplished at the Initiators Conference, Survivor Corps, Booz Allen Hamilton, and The Veterans' Coalition will host the Community Reintegration Summit on January 26-27, 2009, at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC. The goal is to convene a broader community of leaders from the public, private, and civil sectors to collaboratively address the issues of reintegration that affect how service members return to family, work, school, and community following their war time service.
There are four key objectives for the Summit:

* Review themes, issues, and challenges faced by service members and veterans returning to civilian life

* Develop a definition of successful community reintegration

* Develop action plans to address specific issues of community reintegration that reach across sectors

* Launch megacommunity workgroups to address specific issues of community reintegration

At the Summit, attendees will confront the toughest issues of community reintegration by participating in a dynamic simulation. Participants will be divided into various teams, whose assumptions, actions, and agreements will drive the simulation. Teams will work together, share information, and develop coordinated decisions and actions. As the simulation advances in time, participants will see the consequences and long-term impacts of their decisions on service members and veterans.

The issues of community reintegration are complex and will likely take years to solve. Participants will leave the Summit with a greater understanding of these issues as informed by the perspectives of leaders from all sectors. They will also have the opportunity to engage in action-oriented workgroups to facilitate leader-to-leader collaboration between organizations moving beyond the Summit. We believe that by gaining commitments to action, developing measurable goals, and routinely checking our progress against them, together we can sustain progress toward helping service members make a healthy return to their families and communities.