VA Releases New Study on Incidence of and Risk Factors for Homelessness among Veterans
May 15, 2012
VA recently released a report on entitled “Incidence of homelessness among Veterans and Risk Factors for Becoming Homeless in Veterans.” This report helps VA to identify which specific subpopulations of Veterans are at a particular high-risk for falling into homelessness in order to best target prevention efforts moving forward. VA studied roughly 500,000 men and women who separated from military service in 2005 and 2006, of which half were involved in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). This report most notably found that the presence of mental disorders is the strongest predictor for homelessness, and that military sexual trauma is an especially strong predictor for women Veterans who were involved in OEF/OIF. The report also details specific incidences for sub-populations in both OEF/OIF and non-OEF/OIF Veterans. This report is an important source of information on what types of issues are faced by Veterans in the most recent conflicts and informs the programs that work to prevent homelessness among Veterans.
