When military veterans return home from battle, reentry into society is not always easy. Just visit a homeless shelter for evidence: The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates one in five homeless are former military personnel. Local and federal agencies are providing housing, job training, counseling and medical care. Despite these efforts, the number of homeless vets in Chicago is holding steady. And former Iraq and Afghanistan warriors are just beginning to show up among the homeless. Some service providers worry these vets will eventually flood the system.

VOLUNTEER: Six, seven, eight, nine…

A long line of homeless military veterans snakes its way toward tents in this West Side parking lot. In the line stands a 33-year-old former Marine from Wisconsin. It’s 10 in the morning, but he already has alcohol on his breath. Tape holds together the floppies on his feet. Safety pins fasten his jeans.

JASON: I need pants, but they don’t have any for me.

His first name is Jason. He asks us not to use his last name.

He and some 500 other veterans are here for free meals, health screenings and clothes. It’s part of an event called a Stand Down. The name comes from the military command to take a break. Government agencies, community groups and businesses hold Stand Downs like these once or twice a year in dozens of U.S. cities. Most of the vets served during the Vietnam era.

But Jason says his service ended with tours in Iraq. And it doesn’t take long before he bumps into another Marine back from that war.

ambi: Marines introduce themselves

VOLUNTEER: The only shirt I have, I have a large shirt here. You want it?

Jason never expected to find himself living out of a backpack in his own country.

JASON: If it’s not going to rain at night I go to the dog park, right across the street from Greektown, across from St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. And then when it does rains, there’s an abandoned bank in Greektown, and the drive-through has a roof over it. And I go in there and I sleep under there.

Jason says he’s been living like this for four years. After his discharge, he says he wasn’t mentally prepared to work. With both his parents gone and his marriage ruined, he says, he had no safety net.

JASON: I’m on food stamps, man. I have to live out of soup kitchens. I have to panhandle. I have to ask people for leftovers to eat.

MILLER: Go into the command tent and, once that’s done, they’ll…

A Vietnam vet named Samuel Miller helps guide Jason and the others from one tent to another. Miller helps run an agency that connects former service members to employment and housing.

MILLER: This is also about fellowship. Most of us veterans understand the plight of other veterans, and it makes sense for us to help them.

After the clothing tent, Jason makes his way to a medic inside a gymnasium.

JASON: Sit down here?
MEDIC: Yeah, you can just have a seat right there.
JASON: They’re taking my blood, testing me for HIV and Hep. C.

Jason says Department of Veterans Affairs physicians have diagnosed him with a variety of mental illnesses, including PTSD, short for post-traumatic stress disorder. But the medications made him feel like a zombie, he says, so he quit them.

The VA estimates that on any given night 154,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.

A major factor is untreated mental illness. Some experts say Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are more likely than Vietnam vets to suffer mental illness because more of them have seen combat. A Rand Corporation study finds that only half of those returning from today’s wars have sought treatment, and only half of them have received treatment that researchers consider adequate.

A shortage of affordable housing compounds the problem.

JONES: If you’re making minimum wage [or] $7.50 an hour, it’s kind of hard to support yourself and pay $650-$700 a month in rent.

Horace Jones works with vets for a local agency called Inner Voice. In the Chicago area, the VA helps provide about 300 housing units for former service members.

JONES: And they all have waiting lists. And so you can imagine if I’m out there on the street, even though I pull myself together enough to go and try to get into a program, they tell me that, ‘Well, we’ll put you on the waiting list.’ So what am I to do but return to what I’ve been doing, which is most likely drugs and alcohol and just living on the street.

But the VA’s Pete Doherty says, if vets seek help, they’ll get what they need. Doherty directs the VA’s national homeless program.

DOHERTY: If you have a substance abuse problem, we try to help you with that. If you have a mental health problem, we try to help you with that. We support 500 and some community groups and organizations that provide transitional housing and other services. We offer residential treatment programs on our own. And we are now going to extensively expand the ability to have a permanent place to stay. We’re on exactly the right track.

VOLUNTEER: Got your wrist bands on, guys?

At the Stand Down, Jason devours a plate of fried chicken. He says more vets back from Iraq and Afghanistan need this help.

JASON: A lot of them aren’t coming out. They’re probably ashamed to come here. They psychologically shut down and preserve their appearance as if there’s nothing wrong. But that isn’t right. That isn’t true. They got head issues.

HERSKOVIC: It takes time to burn your bridges, use up your resources.

Chicago-area VA homeless director Eugene Herskovic says that means it’ll take time for the latest generation of warriors to show up in the homeless population.

HERSKOVIC: It’s a looming issue.

Homeless advocates predict there won’t be enough resources to meet this need.