SERVICE CENTER
The Los Angeles Veterans Service Center, now
beginning its third year of operation, occupies three floors in the
heart of the city at Third and Broadway. It is efficiently
arranged and staffed. Its reception room is large, comfortably
furnished and homey in atmosphere. The director is Arthur H. Tryon,
former chief of unemployment relief for the city. The vast
concentration of 18 public and private agencies is designed to provide
complete service to enable the veteran to take his rightful place in
the community. The present average load is 425 men per day.
But since the beginning of the year the veteran
problems have become too heavy, even for this enterprising, cooperative
city to solve. "We should put up a sign in every major railroad
center,": said Director Tryon, "reading, 'Veterans, don't come to Los
Angeles. We can't give you a job or an education or a roof over your
head.' "
PLACEMENTS FALLING
In
Los Angeles, as in most other parts of the country, the average citizen
is unaware of the acute unemployment problem, especially among
veterans. In September 1946, the local office of the State Employment
Service reported 43,684 veterans out of work compared with 27,247 other
civilians. During the last three months, placements have dropped
45 percent. It is due to the efficiency of the Veterans Center that out
of the present unemployment figure of 124,407, only 47,712 are
veterans.
"Carrying out the conception of total warfare, we
are mobilizing every resource to meet continuing veterans' unemployment
and work problems," Said Robert H. Craig, retired merchant, who is
president of the Citizens Committee of the Los Angeles Veterans Center.
"But it is practically impossible to place unskilled men, especially
the large unskilled Negro population which we acquired during the war.
"The Negro community in Los Angeles has grown from
67,000 in 1940 to 150,0 in the city proper and 50,000 more in the
outlying areas. A job-development committee of leading businessmen is
now being organized to tackle the problem.
WASHINGTON BRUSH-OFF
"But we were very disappointed when we went to
Washington to discuss the overall veterans' situation, only to have
Congressmen tell us: 'Don't talk to us about veterans. We have more
important things to do.' For in reality, the problems of the veteran
today are more complex, more challenging and more difficult than they
ever have been.
"And if we look ahead, what is going to happen to
the 4,000,000 boys now in training. Los Angeles alone has 65,000
veterans in college and junior college, and 45,00 more in trade
schools, high schools, etc."
HOUSING SHORTAGE
What makes this situation all the more
dangerous is the acute housing shortage in Los Angeles. It is known
that 502 families are without shelter of any kind. How many more there
are is anybody's guess.
The Los Angeles housing Authority estimates that
162,000 families are in need of homes of whom 6,000 are veterans. "But
what can we do," said city officials, "when plasterers now get from $50
to $55 a day and don't do a decent day's work?" Some officials also
confessed that Los Angeles would have to limit construction of
public housing since it would only swell the immigration of
destitute people from every section of the country.
PSYCHIATRIC LOAD
Does our country realize the agony to which our
veterans are exposed when they have neither a job nor a home? In Los
Angeles, the non-service-connected mental cases are so numerous that
the situation is tragic.
In the psychiatric division of the Los Angeles
Superior Court, through which the majority of institutional commitments
are handled, 57 percent of the men had no local Veterans Administration
records, indicating that at least that many came from other states.
Approximately 24,000 veterans in the Los Angeles area are receiving
compensation for neuropsychiatric disabilities.
Although the Veterans administration has 1,884
psychiatric beds and the second-largest mental hygiene clinic in the
country, there are not enough beds or services to handle the load of
non-service-connected mental cases. As a result, the city is obliged to
commit borderline cases to the state insane asylums, which are already
28 percent overcrowded. The Veterans Administration is obliged to
dismiss mild cases to make room for more serious ones.
Frequently these men, after returning to civilian
life, break down. One of them had just blown his head off. Trained
personnel is sorely lacking because in none of the local medical
schools are there any psychiatric training courses.
The situation would undoubtedly be worse were it not
for the efficient guidance and counseling program for veterans set up
by the local Board of Education in cooperation with the Veterans
Service Center.
The main office at the City College
campus has a staff of 14 psychologists, 28 counselors, 10 Veterans
Administration advisers and 21 clerical assistants to keep detailed
records.
The staff works in two shifts from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.
on a comprehensive program of service to the veteran. Thirty-three
thousand men have used the service since it opened in August 1945.
The acid test of the service rendered by this
guidance program is its remarkable success in placements of men both in
positions of all kinds and in educational institutions.
IT WILL CONTINUE
The only limitation upon the work is the lack of
jobs and of educational outlets. Although Los Angeles has the
second-largest number of educational facilities of any city in our
country, they all have waiting lists ranging from 100 to 2,000.
As vocational and educational guidance is one of the
most important new developments in our efforts to strengthen the social
structure, it would be a tragedy not to incorporate the skills,
techniques and trained personnel of this remarkable counseling agency
into the Los Angeles school system as a permanent service.
Because the people of Los Angeles have reason to
feel that the Veterans Center and the counseling service have done a
job of fundamental and enduring value, they have decided to continue
the Veterans Service Center, probably as a permanent institution.
"The Veterans Centers throughout the country
shouldn't close up," said Lynn Mowatt, executive secretary of the
Welfare Federation of Los Angeles. "They are a demonstration of
community organization for service to all the people by all the people.
COST OF CENTER
"Our center costs the Community Chest $300,000
a year, but I have yet to get a letter from anyone, anonymous or
otherwise, criticizing this expenditure.
"Our 18 affiliated service centers in the local
areas of Los Angeles County already combine civilian and veteran
service. Since they are nearer to the people, perhaps the future is
there rather than at this main office. But there is plenty of time to
decide that before the veteran load eases up.
"Interest in the veteran is beginning to wane even
here where we have one of the most acute situations in the whole
country. 'The boys are home and the war is over' is a dangerous state
of mind. In our case this indifference to a fundamental civic
responsibility may be due to the fact that our Service Center has done
such a magnificent job. Up to this time, things have moved almost too
smoothly. But our people would soon wake up to the harsh realities with
which a high percentage of veterans are still contending if the work of
the Los Angeles Service Centers should be discontinued."