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Hiring Heroes Act of 2011 aimed at assisting veterans
YOUNGSTOWN
The Hiring Heroes Act of 2011 is a bill aimed at reducing the 27 percent unemployment rate among military veterans by 20 to 24 percent.
The bill, which recently cleared the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs and awaits action of the full Senate, would help close the disconnect between the Department of Defense and organizations that help veterans get training and jobs when they leave the military and return to civilian life, said U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, D-Avon.
Brown, a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, called the unemployment rate “staggering” and “unacceptable,” and in calling for passage of the bill said: “That means that more than one in four of these young veterans can’t find a job to support their family or to ease the transition to civilian life.”
The senator spoke on the issue Monday at Youngstown State University, which he said, along with Cleveland State University in northeast Ohio, has taken very seriously the role of integrating military personnel into the university with its Office of Veterans Affairs.
The Hiring Heroes Act of 2011 would ensure broad job-skills training for service members returning home and help ensure that more jobs are available for veterans as they transition to civilian life, Brown said.
Also, the bill, which is supported by major veterans organizations, aims to reduce unemployment among veterans as they transition to civilian life by ensuring that each separating service member attends a transition-assistance program. It would also create new direct federal hiring authority so that more service members have jobs waiting for them the day they leave the military, and will improve veteran-mentor programs in the working world, Brown said.
The senator said he was astounded when he learned how little contact there was between county veterans service commissions and military personnel returning to the community, which he said is not the fault of the veterans service commissions.
He said it is necessary that the Department of Defense and the military communicate with not just the Department of Veterans Affairs, but with other organizations, such as the veterans service commissions and veterans service organizations, to inform them when soldiers return to the community.
Brown was joined at Monday’s press conference by YSU President Cynthia Anderson and Paul Hageman, a YSU student-veteran, who discussed the need to improve career pathways for returning service members; and Mary Ann Pacelli of the Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network, which recently announced a pilot project designed to help returning veterans obtain meaningful manufacturing jobs in Northeast Ohio.
“Their battles should have ended when they returned to American soil,” Anderson said of veterans. “Instead in many cases their battles continued because we have made it difficult for our veterans to enjoy the very freedoms, which they protected for all of us.”
That is why YSU re-initiated its Office of Veterans Affairs and Veterans Affairs Advisory Council, the goals of which are to help veterans with the transition from military life to college life, including assistance with admissions, financial aid, registration, academic advising and tutoring, Anderson said.
Another goal of the Hiring Heroes Act is to have the military assess what skills the soldiers have while they are still in the military and how those skills will translate to civilian life and work, Brown said.
“It is time for us to deliver for those who delivered for us,” he said.