First lady Michelle Obama on Wednesday announced an initiative involving mayors, governors and citizens to any country veteran homeless is when you begin 2016, to consider "a moral aberration" that there are still 58,000 homeless veterans spread across the nation.
"One homeless veteran is too much. Any reading above zero is too. And the fact that we still have 58,000 is a moral aberration. We should all be appalled, "said Michelle Obama in a ceremony at the White House to present the initiative.
The 58,000 homeless veterans, a figure that is extracted from recent federal data available, provided in January 2013, represent 0.3 percent of veterans in the country, and according to the first lady meet this challenge is easier to local level, where mayors have to deal with just "a few hundred".
Therefore, Michelle Obama announced the "challenge of mayors to end homelessness among veterans," an initiative that seeks to reduce the number to zero before the end of 2015 and which have already committed 77 mayors, four governors and 4 county officials.
"It's an ambitious goal, but it can get," said the first lady, who recalled that between 2010 and 2013, the rate of homeless veterans fell 24 percent.
Among those who have joined the initiative is the governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro J. García-Padilla, and the mayors of Dallas and Houston (Texas); Fresno, Oakland and San Diego (California); Tucson (Arizona); Denver (Colorado); Atlanta (Georgia); Boston (Massachusetts), and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), among other cities.
"We have the opportunity to change lives," Michelle Obama insisted, recalling that two cities have reduced to zero the number of homeless veterans: Phoenix (Arizona) and Salt Lake City (Utah).
Responsible for introducing the first lady at the event was Chris Fuentes, an ex Hispanic fighter 25 who fought in Iraq and that when he returned to his city, Philadelphia, "lost" his apartment and his job.
"I knew that if I could have a roof, everything else would fit," said Fuentes, and explained that thanks to the advice of other veterans met the HUD-VASH program of the Department of Housing and other initiatives that allowed access to an apartment and furnish .
"These programs give a second chance for life for veterans," said Fuentes, mother of a three year old girl and he could go back to college once managed an apartment.
"When a veteran comes back and kissing the soil of this country, it is unacceptable to have ever sleep on it," he said Michelle.
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