Number of Homelessness Veteran Women Doubles

Interesting report on the rise of homelessness among Veteran Women. The lack of housing for women with children seems to be a significant barrier to accessing veteran housing. Also there are financial disincentives for providers, as VA does not have the statutory authority to reimburse them for costs of housing veterans’ children.

http://pschousing.org/news/number-homeless-veteran-women-doubles

A U.S Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, seeking to assess the feasibility of eliminating veteran homelessness by 2015, finds a disturbing rise in homelessness among female veterans. The GAO evaluated data from the US Dept of Veteran Affairs (VA) and found that the number of homeless women veterans more than doubled from 1,380 in 2006 to 3,328 in 2010. Given that the number of women serving in the military has increased substantially since the 20th century, this trend is somewhat unsurprising.

The data analyzed was limited and is not generalizable to the entire homeless female veteran population. However, a few general characteristics were noticed in the data:

• Two-thirds of the women were between 40 and 59 years old.
• Many of the women had children under the age of 18 with them.
• Many of the women were not aware of the veteran housing services available to them.

The report exposed the need for better tracking of this population and the need for more outreach to homeless women veterans. For a summary of the report, click here. The full report can be found here.