Young Vet fights against homelessness

Bridgeport (WTNH) - One young solider says his life was going well until he signed up to serve his country. After surviving the danger of war, he came back to the states and found his real battle is surviving a new reality of homelessness.

It's estimated about 300,000 service members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 suffer from Post Traumatic Stress. And, a growing number of them are winding up on the street. One of them is named Joe Johnson.

It took a little more than a year. Johnson went from returning hero, greeted by Governor Jodi Rell when his National Guard Unit returned home, to down on his luck and out on the street.

"It's difficult coming back from that situation and never thinking you're going to be homeless at some point and there it happens," he said.

Johnson was a member of the Branford-based Delta Company, of the 102nd Infantry, spending a year in Afghanistan just steps from Pakistani border.

"A 107 rocket flew over my head 20 feet up in the air and exploded about 50 feet behind me," Johnson said. "That was a scary moment; the scariest moment of my life."

It was a year he had one foot on the battlefield and one foot at home.

"The phone calls were very difficult," Johnson said. "My three-year-old daughter over there, 'Daddy when are you coming home from Afghanistan? I want you home daddy.'"

Johnson came home. But like so many servicemen, he came home a changed man. "It was wonderful before I left," he said. "Me and my father were painters making good money."

Cohn: "What did you have when you came back?"
Johnson: "A lot of stress. It was very difficult for myself to re-adjust to being a father and husband, coming home to the so-called real world."

It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What followed was a series of arrests on domestic violence charges. Johnson lost his family and his house.

"I was sleeping in my truck for a while," he said.

Until he lost that too.

Today, Johnson at age 26, is the youngest resident of Homes For The Brave, the Bridgeport homeless shelter for veterans which, until now, has housed vets from Korea and Vietnam.

"Joe Johnson may be among the first veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan to show up at area homeless shelters but it's safe to say he won't be the last," Amanda LeClair, of Home for the Brave, said. "In fact experts says, this is just the beginning."

Amanda LeClair is a program developer at the shelter and says the trickle is quickly turning into a stream.

"Yes we expect in the next 5-10 years to see quite a few younger veterans from current conflicts and we have to be ready for that," she said/

Cohn: "Could anything have prevented this?"
Johnson: "To be honest with you I don't know. Maybe if I could go back and maybe not have joined...honestly I don't know."

It's not that the Army and the VA didn't offer help in terms of counseling. It's just, "I felt they just threw packets at us and here's these places if you need anything let us know," Johnson said.

Today, Joe Johnson finally knows what he's dealing with and he's getting the help he needed from the moment he returned home including help with tuition for college.

"My ultimate goal is to be a school teacher," he said. "I'm going to do everything in my power, the next 8-years in school, and the VA is going to pay for it."

The Connecticut National Guard wants to make it clear that it offers returning Vets and their families continued help and counseling. That help was offered many times and in many ways to Joe Johnson. It's only now he's beginning to take the government up on its offer.

One final note: because so many servicewomen are also being affected by these problems, Homes For the Brave will soon be opening a homeless shelter for women veterans.