If you asked the average American this Veterans Day to describe a homeless veteran, you’d probably get a description like this: older white male, Vietnam-era, probably single, often with a drug or alcohol problem.
What you might be surprised to learn is that there’s a new face of veteran homelessness, and it is increasingly young, black and female.
Women today represent roughly 15 percent of the U.S. armed forces and about 19 percent of post-9/11 veterans — a population that is projected to grow. While the number of male veterans has been declining over the past few decades, the number of female veterans has doubled since the 1980s. The Department of Veterans Affairs expects female veterans to number more than 2 million, or close to 10 percent of the veteran population, by 2020.
Researchers have known for years that veterans make up a disproportionate share of the homeless population — as many as one in four. But they’ve never been able to identify a clear link between military service and...
To read the rest of this story by Lily Casura, go to: http://tribtalk.org/2014/11/10...eteran-homelessness/
Comments (0)