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According to (Veteran homelessness: a supplemental report to the annual homeless assessment report to Congress, US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 2009) Veterans are more likely than the general civilian population to become homeless. While veterans represent 8% of the US population, in 2010, 

17% of the homeless were veterans. Nearly 50% of homeless veterans experience mental illness, and two-thirds meet the criteria for substance use disorders. Although those numbers have fluctuated over the past several years, the constant has remained that the number of homeless veterans in the U.S. is disproportionate to the population.  

From the May/June 2013 Issue of Social Work Today, Homelessness affects approximately 140,000 veterans annually, according to Dennis P. Culhane, PhD, director of research at the National Center on Homelessness Among  Veterans for the VA and the Dana and Andrew Stone Professor of Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. On any given night, he adds, roughly 60,000 veterans are  without a home. But for many veterans, mental health issues, including those related to PTSD, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and other disorders are the obstacles to finding and  keeping secure housing—in addition to a lack of affordable options and social and economic disadvantage. 

Mental health issues complicate and contribute to the problem of homelessness in multiple ways. “They often result in the inability to acquire the skills, supports,  and opportunities for economic advancement, for housing, or good family and social relationships,” says Gary Shaheen, MPA, director of employment policy at the  Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families. All of this, he says, “can shut down a person’s ability to cope and hope.”  

One of the major obstacles to seeking help for the mental health issues that contributes to homelessness is stigma, according to Shaheen. Issues of military identity and culture as well  as fear of discrimination may stand in the way of veterans seeking available help or being receptive to outreach efforts. 

Compounding the problem, Shaheen says, is the cyclical nature  of mental illness and its treatment. “You just don’t take care of it like a cold. You deal with it, and it can come back. So what might prevent a veteran from admitting or seeking  treatment could be fear of loss of a job, and that’s why veteran peer support can be so effective in providing motivation to seek help.”  

All branches of the military and the VA, Shaheen observes, have been trying to turn that around by supporting the idea that having a mental illness is not a sign of weakness. The VA,  for it’s part, “is doing a lot of outreach, a lot of messaging to returning soldiers that there’s nothing negative about seeking mental health treatment, that they needn’t suffer in  silence alone,” Culhane says. Still, according to Shaheen, “There are tremendous forces that run counter to an individual’s comfort with being disclosed.” 

According the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, veterans who experienced homelessness after military separation were younger, enlisted with lower pay grades, and were more likely to be diagnosed with mental disorders and /or traumatic brain injury (TBI) at the time of separation from active duty. At discharge from active duty, 79–84 percent of homeless veterans were under age 35, in contrast to 64–74 percent of domiciled veterans. 

Most (70–78 percent) of the homeless veterans were enlisted and in the lower pay grades of E1–E4, compared with 39–51 percent of the domiciled veterans. Nearly half or more (from 48 percent for OEF/OIF men to 67 percent for non-OEF/OIF women) of homeless veterans were diagnosed with some mental disorders, about double their domiciled counterparts (from 21 percent for OEF/OIF men to 34 percent for non-OEF/OIF women). The percent of homeless veterans diagnosed with TBI was nearly 2–3 times higher than their domiciled counterparts.