Drafter
Clerk 04/10/2014
Title
A MOTION requiring the executive to develop and submit for council review and approval a report on improving programs and services for incarcerated veterans in department of adult and juvenile detention jail facilities.
Body
WHEREAS, King County is home to more than one hundred twenty-seven thousand current or former members of the United States military, reserves and National Guard who have served active duty. This population of veterans represents almost seven percent of the total county population, and
WHEREAS, the population of veterans in the state is growing and Washington State ranks twelfth nationwide for the total number of veterans, and King County is home to twenty-four percent of the state's population of veterans ranging from young adults to centenarians, male and female, and identify with a variety of races and backgrounds, all with equally varied needs, and
WHEREAS, the end of the United States military draft and conversion to an all-volunteer military in the 1970s substantially changed the demographic makeup of the military leading to the fact that there is a greater proportion of women and increased proportions of veterans of color than ever before in the history of the United States, and
WHEREAS, the local unemployment rate for veterans is estimated at over four percent for veterans in the job market, and
WHEREAS, approximately five percent of King County veterans live below poverty level and another over nine percent live between one hundred and two hundred percent of poverty level resulting in fourteen percent of all King County veterans fall below two hundred percent of poverty level. A disproportionate number of veterans of color are poor, and
WHEREAS, data collected in the Safe Harbors Homeless Management Information System suggest that sixteen to eighteen percent of homeless single adults are veterans. A review of the records for calendar year 2012-2013 from Safe Harbors identified one t...

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