TV Show Highlights that Treatment Works

Did you see the TV show America’s Got Talent on Tuesday night? If you didn’t, you missed, as host Nick Cannon said, the most emotional moment in the program’s history.

A dozen or so adults took the stage to perform. The choir, calling itself New Direction, was entirely comprised of veterans – sailors, marines, soldiers. All of them had been homeless at some point after their discharge. One man told the audience that he had been homeless for 25 years, but, one day, he loaded up his shopping cart and walked several miles to a treatment facility. It was, he said, the beginning of his life.

Let me paraphrase what the spokesman of the group said: “In the past, you might not have wanted to see us, but our being here shows that people can change.”

People can change – with the right kind of help. Too many vets are afraid to ask for help – they were in the military, for heaven’s sake, you think, and nothing should scare them! – but they’re afraid to ask for help. More and more vets are returning from horrific conditions in the Middle East, and many of them, for one reason or another, will end up on the streets.

If you know a vet, let him or her know that you’re there for them. If they appear to be struggling, encourage them to seek help and let them know that asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness. If you see a homeless individual on the street, you can be relatively certain that he or she has a mental illness (in the case of veterans, possibly post traumatic stress) and is likely abusing alcohol or drugs. Many homeless individuals were in the military; they helped protect our country. They were there when we needed them. They deserve better than this.

There needs to be more money available for treatment. But more than that, there’s a bias against the homeless. You see someone who is tattered, talking to himself, weaving along the sidewalk or asleep on a park bench, and you think “homeless bum”. You don’t think about what brought him to this point, to this place. You don’t wonder if he’s a veteran of this country. You just think about him being a bum.

And the group New Direction? How’d they do last night in their audition? They got a standing ovation from the audience. They deserved it. They were good.

People can change. Treatment works.