Warrior Gateway by Joel Chaffee
Warrior Gateway
 by Joel Chaffee
 Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
 New York, NY
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Warrior Gateway, a website designed to help veterans access information and resources with greater ease, has just "partnered" with its first U.S. city: New York. The City Council announced the partnership, acknowledging the hundreds of thousands of veterans living in New York. The partnership means that the city makes available to Warrior Gateway a multitude of information and "services available to veterans" in all of the city.

        Presently, the website is in Beta, and only features "service providers (nonprofits, government programs)," but promises that a Career Exploration and Job Search sections are soon to follow. (Hopefully in that order.) Imagining myself a practical user of the site, I searched. A search for "employment" in Brooklyn returned three results. Promising. A search for "doctor" returned none. Ouch. For "hospital" the closest hit was the Fitzgerald House in Jamaica, Queens, a non-profit helping homeless vets. It is startling but blessedly frank that one of the most prominent links on the Warrior Gateway homepage is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. 

         The suicide rate among young veterans risen significantly in the last few years, an Army Times story reporting "950 suicide attempts each month" - and this only among those being treated by the Veterans Affairs Department (VA). Internal VA emails from 2008 wondered about the suicides, " Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" Um, yes? Council Speaker Christine Quinn said of the website, "[Veterans] are able to have online discussions about their experiences and hold each organization accountable for what they offer." This seems fine. But what is the larger picture? Why are veterans needing to seek this assistance in their private lives, on start up websites? The AP story on the Warrior website quotes site executive director Devin Holmes as saying, "Veterans transitioning out of the military are generally given a 'stack of paper, a binder, a book that says here are the organizations that can help you.'" It is wonderful that someone is stepping in to fill the need, but the echo keeps plaguing me again and again: why are these services so hard to consolidate for veterans? Is it because the most massive military might that has ever existed in the world cannot afford to take care of its own, after they have served? Or won't afford it? The AP story kept a straight face by admitting that the National Resource Directory "offers an extensive list of resources, but ... doesn't let users rate [services]." 

        The City Council's press release compared the site to Yelp and Citysearch. Perhaps in the future it will be comparable. For now, it's at the very least another resource for those who served, and are still without recourse.

LINKS:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/05/ap_vet_web_052310/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37302952/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/04/military_veterans_suicide_042210w/


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Last updated by Joel Chaffee - Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 -  New York, NY

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