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Panel at PI Week lays out problems facing returning veterans

February 26, 2016

The discussion included Denny Shupe L'89, member of the executive committee of Schnader Attorneys at Law and representative for veterans'...
The discussion included Denny Shupe L’89, member of the executive committee of Schnader Attorneys at Law and representative for veterans’ legal cases; Ryan Peters, associate at Pepper Hamilton LLP and Board Member of Liberty USO; and Tim Williams, Executive Director of the Veterans Multi-Service Center. Shupe, Peters, and Williams are all military veterans.
Penn Law hosted a discussion on problems facing veterans as part of the Law School’s Eighth Annual Public Interest Week.

By Maria Biery C’18

On February 25, Penn Law hosted a discussion on problems facing veterans as part of the Law School’s Public Interest Week. The discussion included Denny Shupe L’89, member of the executive committee of Schnader Attorneys at Law and representative for veterans’ legal cases; Ryan Peters, associate at Pepper Hamilton LLP and Board Member of Liberty USO; and Tim Williams, Executive Director of the Veterans Multi-Service Center. Shupe, Peters, and Williams are all military veterans. The event was sponsored by the Servicemembers and Veterans Legal Assistance Program.

Peters described what he thought of as the biggest problem facing veterans by saying, “I think, one, it starts with the pride. You get a certain mindset in the military, and then you come out, and the civilian world is not like that. There’s a resistance to adapt, which then leads to a lack of understanding of what everyone is doing, and that, then, leads to homelessness.”

Peters also said that many veterans feel as though they have accomplished what they wanted to in life after coming back from combat, which leads them to having a sense of, “Well, what am I living for now?” It’s not depression, according to Peters, it’s a feeling of life being already complete.

Shupe added that “When you come into the civilian world, it’s not that it’s worse, it’s different […] What you’ve done before has given you a great skill set, but you have to apply it in an entirely different context, and that is something that veterans, quite often, have to struggle with.”

Williams’s organization helps tackle the homelessness problem in Philadelphia that many veterans face.

“The Philly Vets Home Coalition’s goal was to end homelessness by 2015,” said Williams. “The goal was not to say that there will never be another homeless veteran. In fact, there are 15 that we know of today on the streets of Philadelphia, 15 that refuse to come in or be housed. There’s another 150 in the shelter system and transitional housing facilities, but they’re on a path to permanent housing.”

Largely, Williams sees the Philly Vets Home Coalition as a success in reducing the homelessness rate among veterans in Philadelphia.

Peters went on to say that, in order to help veterans, organizations need to approach them the right way. He made the point that veterans don’t want anything for free. They want to work for their housing and income.

To end the panel, the panelists talked about the growth of the bureaucracy in the VA that has made it so, according to Shupe, “You can’t break through the backlog.”

The largeness of the bureaucracy deters veterans from going through the necessary processes to get help, according to the panelists, leading to things such as self-medication and addiction.

Shupe, Williams, and Peters encouraged the audience to contact a veterans group, find out the needs of veterans, and help in anyway that they could.

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