Come to the Home Coming in Austin on May 18

It all started in 2013, when the Board of Directors of House the Homeless happened to be talking about how good art can start conversations. Co-founder and President Richard R. Troxell had an idea about how to put a positive face on homelessness — with a sculpture of...

Women and Veterans in the News

In The Home Coming sculpture group, the male figure also represents veterans (and of course there are female veterans too). Then, there is a woman who also represents the elderly and people of color; and a young girl who also stands in for boy children, equally...

Community First! Village — Austin’s Jewel

Austin, Texas, is an exceptional city for many reasons, one of them being the existence of Community First! Village (CF!V). It is the creation of Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF), the social outreach ministry that has been making a difference locally since 1998. Since...

Veteran Suicides. Again.

Unfortunately, more still needs to be said about military servicemembers and suicide. The whole subject is fraught with political and emotional minefields. We discussed the “won’t accept help” trope, and the terrible barrier created by “bad paper” discharges that...

The Vietnam War Legacy

In the previous post, we learned that the servicemember suicide rate is not quite as high as what people go around saying. Forget about the frequently and erroneously cited 22 suicides per day — it’s “only” 20.6 per day. That is also an upsetting statistic, especially...