On Saturday, September 17, at 8 a.m., the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMAVA) and North New Jersey Stand Down committee, Inc., will co-host Stand Down 2005 at the Essex County College, West Market St. and Martin Luther King Blvd., Newark.

      According to Department representatives, Stand Down is designed to provide homeless veterans and their family members with access to healthcare, medical screening, counseling on veterans benefits, substance abuse counseling, legal and employment services, social services, vocational rehabilitation services, religious counseling, a hot meal, a haircut, and winter clothing.  The goal of the program is to bring a wide range of resources together in one location so the veteran can access the various available services and be able to recognize that the community is concerned and committed to bring these services to them.

      Official U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs statistic state that on any given day as many as 200,000 veterans are living on the streets or in shelters and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year.  At this time, the number of homeless male and female Vietnam era veterans is greater that the number of service persons who dies during that war.  Approximately one-third of the homeless population in the United States served in the Armed Forces.

      “Stand Down” derives its name from the military term referring to the temporary removal of exhausted combat troops from the battlefield to a safe place, behind the lines, for rest and recovery.  Stand Down's are grass roots, community-based intervention programs to help homeless veterans survive life on the streets.  The program's philosophy is to give homeless veterans a ‘hand up … not a hand out'.