Veteran Homelessness: Department of Veterans Affairs Homeless Assessment Report to Congress

Karen DeBlasio and William Snow, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban . Veterans. Individuals with Chronic. Patterns of. Homelessness. PIT of homelessness services in a geographic area, Veteran refers to any person who served on . The Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress: Part 1. 9.
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Programs that seem to work best feature transitional housing with the camaraderie of living in structured, substance-free environments with fellow veterans who are succeeding at bettering themselves. Government money, while important, is limited, and available services are often at capacity. It is critical, therefore, that community groups reach out to help provide the support, resources and opportunities that most Americans take for granted: Veterans who participate in collaborative programs are afforded more services and have higher chances of becoming tax-paying, productive citizens again.


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The United States Code contains the official federal definition of homelessness, which is commonly used because it controls federal funding streams. In Title 42, Chapter , Subchapter 1, "homeless" is defined as follows:. For purposes of this chapter, the term "homeless" or "homeless individual or homeless person" includes——. In general, most organizations use U. Department of Veterans Affairs VA eligibility criteria to determine which veterans can access services.

Eligibility for VA benefits is based upon discharge from active military service under other than dishonorable conditions. Benefits vary according to factors connected with the type and length of military service. To see details of eligibility criteria for VA compensation and benefits, view the current benefits manual here.

In May , the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a special report on incarcerated veterans. How many homeless veterans are there? Why are veterans homeless? What services do veterans need? What seems to work best? What can I do? Determine the need in your community. Visit with homeless veteran service providers. If you are not already part of an organization, align yourself with a few other people who are interested in attacking this issue. Participate in local homeless coalitions.

Chances are, there is one in your community. If not, this could be the time to bring people together around this critical need. Make a donation to your local homeless veteran service provider. Contact your elected officials. Discuss what is being done in your community for homeless veterans. In Title 42, Chapter , Subchapter 1, "homeless" is defined as follows: There were an estimated , veterans held in state and federal prisons.

State prisons held , of these veterans, and federal prisons held 12, Male veterans were half as likely as other men to be held in prison prisoners per , veterans, compared to 1, prisoners per , non-veteran U. Results Veterans were overrepresented in the homeless population, compared with both the general and poverty populations, among both men RR, 1. Veteran status and black race significantly increased the risk for homelessness for both men and women.


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  • Men in the to year-old age group and women in the to year-old age group were at higher risk compared with other ages. Conclusion Our findings confirm previous research associating veteran status with higher risk for homelessness and imply that there will be specific health needs among the aging homeless population. This study is a basis for understanding variation in rates of, and risks for, homelessness in general population groups, and inclusion of health data from US Department of Veterans Affairs records can extend these results to identifying links between homelessness and health risks.

    Veterans are overrepresented among the homeless in the United States and are at greater risk than nonveterans of becoming homeless Homelessness is associated with chronic health conditions, either causing or preceding such conditions, becoming a consequence of such conditions, or complicating the treatment and care of such conditions Understanding the epidemiology of homelessness and the specific factors associated with increased risk of becoming homeless is prerequisite to both reducing homelessness and more effectively addressing the health needs of this population.

    The objective of this study was to provide a more detailed assessment of risk for homelessness among veterans than has been previously reported, in comparison with the nonveteran population and after controlling for various demographic characteristics.


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    • Specifically, we sought to answer 2 research questions: Homeless Management Information Systems HMIS and American Community Survey ACS data from 7 jurisdictions provided a basis for estimating the prevalence of veterans in the homeless, poverty, and overall populations; calculating risk ratios for veteran status in the homeless population compared with veteran status in the poverty and overall populations; determining if veteran status is associated with an increased risk of homelessness; and identifying whether risk of homelessness among veterans varies as a function of age, race, or sex.

      Service providers use HMIS to record data on client characteristics and use of services in homeless populations across a local area known as a continuum of care CoC. In a CoC, stakeholders and service providers coordinate resources and provide services eg, shelter, housing, food to address homelessness The data fields collected include identifying information, veteran status, demographics, the presence of disabling conditions, and dates of program entry and exit.

      A convenience sample of 11 urban CoCs from geographic regions throughout the country initially provided HMIS data for this study. These HMIS datasets consisted of unduplicated, de-identified, individual records for adults who used emergency shelter or transitional housing within their CoC during We estimated data missing because of nonresponse to an item in the dataset 17 ie, missing 1 or more data elements from these CoCs by using single imputation techniques and SOLAS version 3.

      Background & Statistics

      To compute rates of homelessness, we used ACS data to estimate the total veteran and nonveteran populations in each CoC. The ACS is an annual survey administered by the US Census Bureau that collects social, economic, and demographic information from samples of housing units in all counties in the United States We selected 3-year estimates for this study because they are based on a larger sample size than the 1-year estimates and offer better precision, especially in examining smaller populations such as veterans, and smaller geographic areas.

      Government working to end homelessness among veterans

      For each geographic area, we aggregated ACS data by age, sex, race, veteran status, and poverty status. Homelessness status was our outcome of interest. In addition, ACS data were stratified by poverty status, that is, whether household income was below the federal poverty threshold. All people in the HMIS database were considered as living in poverty on the basis of their homeless status.

      ACS, which collects data from group quarters in addition to private housing units, included both homeless and housed members of the population but did not differentiate the population on this basis. Two phases of analysis used pooled data from the 7 CoCs. All analyses were weighted by CoC size, were conducted separately for men and women as well as for the total population and for the population living in poverty from the ACS , and were conducted using the R language and environment for statistical computing, version 2.

      In the first phase, we estimated the prevalence of veterans in the homeless, poverty, and overall populations and calculated corresponding risk ratios RR.

      Prevalence and Risk of Homelessness Among US Veterans

      This process provided a simple measure of whether veterans were overrepresented in the homeless population. We computed prevalence and risk ratios for each age, race, and sex subgroup. Risk ratios for men and women were age- and race-adjusted. In the second phase, we conducted binomial generalized estimating equation GEE analyses in which homeless status was the outcome, and age, race, and veteran status were potential predictors.

      Because we were modeling frequencies, the outcome was a ratio of homeless from HMIS data to total general or poverty population from ACS data people for each subpopulation, as defined by the frequency within each subgroup, weighted by that same frequency GEE modeling adjusted for dependence because of clustering within individual CoCs. The phase 2 analysis consisted of main-effects-only multivariate models. Three interaction effects were selected a priori and tested but were later discarded because they were found to be nonsignificant: An estimated , adults received homelessness services in the 7 CoCs in this study; 10, of these adults 8.

      Preventing Chronic Disease | Prevalence and Risk of Homelessness Among US Veterans - CDC

      Veterans were overrepresented in the homeless population for both sexes Table 2. These rates yielded age- and race-adjusted RRs of 2. RRs for demographic subgroups were generally consistent with the overall RRs. The age- and race-adjusted RRs for homelessness among both men and women were higher for veterans than for nonveterans in both the poverty RR, 2. Rates of homelessness were consistently higher in veteran populations than in nonveteran populations, and among both veterans and nonveterans, black adults, especially in the younger age groups, had higher rates of homelessness.

      Veteran status, older age, and black race were significantly and independently associated with risk of homelessness among both men and women. Similarly, the patterns of results found in the general population were consistent with those found in the poverty population; however, in the latter, veteran status was associated with a greater risk for homelessness. Among the population in poverty, male veterans were more than twice as likely AOR, 2. Among the control variables, increased age was significantly associated with homelessness, but its effect differed between sexes.

      Among men, risk for homelessness generally increased as a function of age up to the to year-old age range, but declined thereafter. This was so among both veterans and nonveterans and in both the general and poverty populations.