Homeless Risk Among Post-9/11 Era Veterans

Media and advocacy outlets have expressed alarm about homelessness among post-9/11–era Veterans, with little systematic research available to evaluate these claims and to offer an empirically based profile of the nature and extent of homelessness. In this chapter, the authors draw on research, media, and advocacy accounts to identify the factors that are particular to homelessness among this most recent cohort of Veterans, with a particular focus on defining military-based factors of this era and broader systemic forces that were formative to Veterans’ experiences after returning to civilian life. These factors, the authors argue, interact to create a set of circumstances that do not appear to currently create substantially elevated rates of homelessness among post-9/11 Veterans but that potentially warrant policy attention and interventions in specific areas, as well as further monitoring of homelessness risk over the cohort’s collective life course.