TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay area is home to one of the largest veteran populations in the entire country.
Some military families face a number of struggles, ranging from separation stress during a deployment to finance. Life after the military can be hard for some veterans, sometimes facing mental health issues or finding a new career path.
Fortunately, there's a lot of organizations that focus on providing help to veterans and their families in the Tampa Bay area.
If you, or someone you know, needs some help, you can turn to some of these resources:
- Metropolitan Ministries is currently open for holiday help registration if you need meal support or food items.
- The Supportive Services for Veterans Families can help homeless veterans move into permanent housing and help veterans at risk of becoming homeless get more stable housing.
- The Tampa Hillsborough Homeless Initiative also can provide housing assistance.
- You can call 211 for help finding housing, child care, veterans benefits programs and health and wellness services.
- CareerSource Tampa Bay can help veterans find new career paths with job matching services, job training and career management.
- The Steven A. Cohen Military Family Clinic can provide same-day mental health appointments for veterans, their families and their caretakers.
If you want to help veterans and their families, reach out to the organizations above, as well as some other programs to see how you can make a difference:
- You can volunteer or donate to the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital.
- Hillsborough County Veterans Helping Veterans has a veterans outreach program and can always use volunteers or donations.
- Habitat for Humanity has a veterans initiative, aimed at providing affordable homes or home repairs to those who have served.
- Operation Gratitude sends care packages to deployed service members.
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