End Veteran Debt's inaugural summit at New York City’s Fordham University on 9-9-2025 debuted a most unusual approach to finding and implementing solutions to one of the most intractable healthcare problems that exists in American society today: the suicide rate of its veterans and civilians.

In 2022, the CDC placed America’s age-adjusted suicide rate at 14.4 per 100,000, but certain demographic groups face disproportionately higher rates. In 2023, the highest age-adjusted suicide rates were among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native people (23.8 per 100,000), followed by non-Hispanic White people (17.6 per 100,000). 

Veterans face a significantly higher risk of suicide compared to the non-veteran population. In 2022, the age-and sex-adjusted suicide rate among veterans was 57.3% higher than among non-veteran U.S. adults. Male veterans had a 44% higher rate than non-veteran men, and female veterans had a 92% higher rate than non-veteran women. 

This has to change. Fresh solutions must be found and implemented. The Summit was convened to do just that – this time inviting veteran, military, and civilian organizations to pool their knowledge and resources to stoke a national “End Veteran Debt and Suicide Awareness” campaign.

The breadth and depth of the subject matter experts who spoke and/or led panels provided the foundation. 

Army Brigadier Michael Eastman, Executive Director of Onward Ops was the lunch keynote speaker. Candyce Bravo, Executive Director NYC Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Dr. Emily Edwards for Justice-Involved Veterans Program, and Director of Clinical Core VISN 2 MIRECC-VA, and Salvina Barresi, LCSW, VA Community Engagement and Partnership Coordinator/Suicide Prevention Team paneled a discussion on current approaches. 

This was led by Michael Matthews, LCSW, Performing Provider Systemand End Veteran Debt (EVD), as they partner in a Staten Island/NYC community fundraiser to raise $50,000, and erase $1,000,000 in veteran debt locally and across the U.S.

And then there were the others…

…seemingly outside the conversation, yet essential to it. 

There were the artists. Mike Williams, Army battlefield medic and songwriter, Kerra Renee, President of African-American Women in Cinema, Army (ret.) multi-discipline artist, and famed Hip-Hop photographer, Ernie Paniccioli. All were in the panel led by artist, philanthropist, and veteran booster Steve Alpert. Each embodied in their careers the importance of art in both picturing and healing the pains and trauma leading to self-harm.

There were the bill collectors. If you are going to address debt, it may be useful to learn from those who deal with it on a professional basis. My fellow debt industry executive and co-founder of RIP Medical Debt (since renamed Undue Medical Debt), Craig Antico, and I outlined the steps by which charitable donations can be processed by Craig’s public benefit corporation, ForgiveCo, to become “erased.” Gone. Credit Marks disappeared. 

There were the journalists, such as Russell Midori, co-founder of Military Veterans in Journalism (MVJ) who led a panel on the importance of having more veterans employed by print and broadcast media, and the even greater importance of Independent journalism as a powerful alternative to mainstream media in getting out non-spin stories.

There were the outsiders, best exemplified by Dr. Owen Muir of Radial who introduced a solution less known to the VA, “transcranial magnetic stimulation, which the FDA just approved. There were businessmen, exemplified by Richard Bennett of Epicured, a company deeply engaged in bringing healthy meals to offset the food deserts found in veteran and civilian communities.

What is the role of debt as a “social determinant” affecting veterans? Subscribe to our newsletter here and take a look at the deep-dive we are doing in awareness raising. 

(Did we mention the national veteran debt and suicide prevention summit coming up in November? And the float we will have the following day, November 11, in the famed NYC Veterans Day Parade? Need more details? SUBSCRIBE!)