What are the typical demographics of homeless veterans?

What are the typical demographics of homeless veterans?

Homeless veterans tend to be male (91 percent), single (98 percent), live in a city (76 percent), and have a mental and/or physical disability (54 percent). Black veterans are substantially over represented among homeless veterans, comprising 39 percent of the total homeless veteran population but only 11 percent of the total veteran population.
As troops return from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the face of veteran homelessness has changed: homeless veterans are increasingly younger, female, and heads of households. Despite this, homeless veterans are still most likely to be males between the ages of 51 and 61 (43 percent) and to have served in the Vietnam War.
And, in the next 10 to 15 years, it is projected that the number of homeless veterans over the age of 55 could increase drastically.

VA staff helps homeless Veteran reunite with family after 22 years - VAntage Point

VA staff helps homeless Veteran reunite with family after 22 years

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German A. Leon was born in Panama. He moved to the U.S. as a teenager with his mother and two sisters, and enlisted in the Army at the age of 18. According to Leon, much of his life following military service is hazy, and he can’t recall details other than he had lived with his mother and sisters as a young adult.
Patrice Green, a social worker at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, took an interest in Leon’s case.

Veteran German Leon at the Gateway facility in Atlanta, which provides temporary shelter for homeless Veterans.

“I asked him how long he had been wandering around homeless, and he replied ‘years and years’,” Green said.
Now 53, Leon had been homeless for nearly half his life and for 10 years in the Atlanta area. He’d been living in parks, wooded areas, under highway overpasses or in temporary homeless shelters. He had no identification of his own, which was needed to apply for benefits, housing or for him to receive assistance of any kind.
Leon had not had contact with his family for at least 22 years, and couldn’t begin to guess where they might be. He knew their names, which he shared with Green. It was a start.
A group of VA social workers from Atlanta began the search for Leon’s family using sites like People Search and through contact with the U.S. Immigration office. When they hit a dead end, one of them suggested turning to social media — in this case, Facebook — as a resource.
With Leon’s permission, they used fragments of information from People Search to craft a Facebook post, including the names of Leon’s two sisters.
The next day, Green received a phone call from one of the sisters. She’d seen the post and asked Green if it was a joke. Green assured her that it was not; her brother was being cared for by VA. The sister said that the family had been looking for Leon, and expressed that she wanted to come pick him up so they could be together.
“I’ve been a social worker for 30 years and I’ve never experienced a case like this,” Green explained, saying it reminded her of “why I do what I do and why I choose to work for the VA.”
With help from the sisters, VA staff was able to collection missing information about Leon, including his original immigration documents and reunite him with his sister. Unfortunately Leon’s mother passed away earlier in the year.

Veteran German Leon with his sister Marta Judge Sallie.

The sisters say their mother “never gave up hope” that Leon would come home someday.
Leon now resides with his sisters in Charleston, South Carolina.
The care VA provided Leon was arranged through the Healthcare for Homeless Veterans program (HCHV), which aims to provide temporary shelter for homeless Veterans. The goal of the program is to reduce homelessness among Veterans by conducting outreach to those who are the most vulnerable and not currently receiving services and engaging them in treatment and rehabilitative programs.
If you know a homeless Veteran in need of help, dial 1-877-4AID-VET to reach the National Homeless Veterans Call Center.

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Editor’s note: Eric A. Brown, public affairs specialist at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, contributed to this story.

Cuts to or flatlining of existing programs: The Budget proposes significant disinvestments in homeless programs administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Housing and Urban Development. The budget proposes that for Fiscal Year 2016:

• The Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program be funded at $300 million, a flat funding from the previous year and $75 million less than had previously been appropriated in advance for this year,
• The HUD-VA Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program receive no additional funding for new vouchers or VA case management this year, and
• The Grant and Per Diem (GPD) program be funded at $201 million, a decrease of $49 million from the previous year.
• The Homeless Veteran Reintegration Program (HVRP), administered through the Department of Labor, receive a flat funding allocation of $38.109 million
• These disinvestments would significantly impact the ability of communities to serve homeless veterans in need. NCHV is actively working to ensure that you have all of the resources that you need to do your job and end veteran homelessness in this country.

Please keep your eye on your email inbox in the coming days and weeks as we will be reaching out to you in order to follow up on these budgetary developments. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to us via email or phone with your concerns, comments, or questions.

Ensuring Veteran Retention and Positive Attrition

7.  Ensuring Veteran Retention and Positive Attrition

"The first version of this document focuses mainly on activities that help streamline and expedite the HUD VASH leasing process. In future versions, an equal if not stronger focus should also be placed on retention and making sure that Veterans, if and when they exit the program, do so for positive reasons. We will not be able to realize our goal of ending Veterans homelessness by 2015 if the Veterans we serve do not achieve and sustain housing stability. Therefore, to expand this section, HUD will continue researching and soliciting contributions on retention and helping Veterans become more self sufficient. 

A preliminary practice that should be highlighted under this section is the linking of HUD VASH with HUD‟s Family Self- Sufficiency program."

REMARK:

I can't speak for everyone's experience with HUD VASH but this is not the experience I've encountered through the program. The 'Housing Specialist' have done everything conceivable, primarily being incompetent and indifference.  I could have never conceived the level of damage can or will be done under the guise of a program created to solve homelessness.  From both sides; HUD and VASH, there has been a willful intent to direct a process of attrition on veterans with the knowledge that there's thousand more dire idiots to utilize.