A recent Georgia Senate study committee focused on veterans’ mental health and housing issues. According to a point in time count by the U.S. Department of Veterans affairs, there are more than 70,000 homeless vets in the nation and more than 2,000 in Georgia. Attorney and Public Policy Advocate Elizabeth Appley says mental health and substance abuse problems contribute to the situation.

“But we are housing them, quote unquote, in the most expensive and least effective way possible,” according to Appley. “Because they’re in our jails, they’re in our prisons, they’re in our emergency rooms they’re in our hospitals. But they don’t have the housing that they need in order to leave homelessness and to return to their communities in health.”

Read More at The University of Georgia.