Across the Lifespan: Homelessness Prevalence and Risk Factors Before, During, and After Military Service
Abstract
For the nearly 40,000 veterans living on the nations streets, chronic, debilitating, and often untreated medical conditions significantly impede quality of life and longevity. This widespread homelessness threatens public health and safety. Veterans experiencing homelessness overwhelm local health systems and place a disproportionate strain on emergency services. Among active duty servicemembers, homelessness can potentially collapse the stability essential to readiness and impede a smooth transition from DoD to VA health systems. In an attempt to explain homelessness, several early studies of veteran homelessness conflated risk factors with causation. This was particularly the case with substance use disorders and mental health conditions, which were explanatory variables in the personal responsibility narrative that has plagued homelessness programs for generations. Early researchers also offhandedly dismissed the complicated relationship between race and homelessness, including the disproportionate numbers of black veterans among the homeless veteran population. Understanding, ending, and preventing veteran homelessness is complex. To unpack this process, the next chapter reviews how rising tensions between homelessness and health initiatives developed over the last 40 years. It examines the relationship between homelessness and health within the framework of social determinants of health. We outline a model for understanding the complex experience of homelessness, including commonly accepted definitions of homelessness and their relationship to rapid rehousing and prevention efforts.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 11, 2022
- Accession Number
- AD1212215
Entities
People
- Baylee C. Crone
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences