Homelessness in the U.S. is up for the seventh year in a row, with a 12 percent (about 70,650 additional homeless people) year-over-year increase from 2022 to 2023, according to federal homelessness data issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs (VA).
On a single night in 2023, roughly 653,100 people were experiencing homelessness, including four in 10 Americans who were experiencing unsheltered homelessness described as living "in places not meant for human habitation."
The number of homeless veterans increased 7.4 percent in the same period, the largest in 12 years. The 35,574 homeless veterans in 2023, equating to 22 of every 10,000 vets, included a 14 percent rise in the number of unsheltered veterans (1,943 more veterans) and a 3 percent increase in veterans experiencing sheltered homelessness (502 more veterans).
Between 2022 and 2023 alone, that number grew by 2,445 vets and the most in a year since veteran homelessness started a years-long downward trajectory between 2010 and 2016.
Kate Monroe is a 100 percent disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Vetcomm, a publicly traded company that works to provide veterans with disability compensation and operates as a conduit between veterans and the VA.
She told Newsweek via phone that numbers are "reverting back to a bad place" because of multiple factors, including data being worse than reported as a result of the conditions in which veterans find themselves.
"There's the number of people that they consider to be homeless, and by homeless they mean they're homeless, like in a tent on the street," Monroe said. "What isn't counted in the homeless numbers is of people sleeping in cars and people sleeping in shelters, and people sleeping on someone's couch.
"There's actually a million-and-a-half veterans that are at the brink of homelessness, included in that brink is someone living in their car....So, the number is actually much larger than the number we count."
The VA said that despite the increases, the estimated number of veterans experiencing homelessness in the U.S. has declined 52 percent since 2010, and about 4 percent in the past three years.
A VA spokesperson declined to comment to Newsweek, instead referencing the data and grant funding programs aimed to curb veteran homelessness.
One program called Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) will award hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to organizations that will help rapidly rehouse veterans and their families, prevent the imminent loss of a veteran's home, or identify new and more suitable housing situations. The exact funding amount will be determined by the VA's budget.
Another program, Legal Services for Homeless Veterans and Veterans At-Risk for Homelessness Grants, will award more than $26 million in funds this year to organizations that help homeless veterans with legal representation, assistance with court proceedings, and defense in criminal cases related to homelessness.
"One veteran experiencing homelessness will always be one too many — and we will do everything in our power to ensure that Veterans get the safe, stable housing they deserve," VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in a statement. "These new grants are a critical part of that effort, empowering VA and our partners to provide more housing and wraparound services to more homeless and at-risk veterans than ever before."
But Monroe said the money to alleviate veteran homelessness is part of the problem because of where the money actually goes, which she said is not actually helping the population in need but contributing toward it.
There's a misconception, she said, between the dollars allocated by the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program and the third-party organizations that end up managing the funds. She said a lot of dollars have been reallocated to house migrants as part of the ongoing crisis at the southern border.
"I'm in San Diego. At any given time there's over 1,000 to 1,500 veterans homeless on the streets, where you would think infrastructurally as a military town that there shouldn't be so many and there's so many resources while this HUD VASH program got dispersed," Monroe said. "We had that influx of 40,000 migrants here. Money has to come from somewhere, right? There's only such a big pot of money."
Another consequence is related to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Military members who refused and were let out of the service, she said, often resulted in people with no funds or resources left to essentially fend for themselves.
"If they're young, you know, they're 18, 19, 20 years old, they're don't necessarily have their budget skills together," Monroe said. "So, they might have got out of service with $0 in their account and skills that don't necessarily pour over to a job.
"Like, if I was a tank mechanic, there's not necessarily a tank mechanic job on this on the civilian side of the world. So, they run out of money and they live in their car and the car gets repurposed, and they end up being homeless."
David Higgins, spokesperson for the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), told Newsweek via email that the "figures underscore a well-established reality: we are grappling with a housing affordability crisis."
He said that NCHV, national members and partners have emphasized the need for affordable housing and more substantial federal investments, adding that when the issue is viewed as a public health emergency it will result in resource mobilization and record lows in veteran homelessness.
Higgins pointed to the decrease in the number of veterans without permanent housing, down from 37,252 in 2020 to now 33,136. It equates to an 11 percent decrease, "marking the most significant reduction in five years."
"Historical PIT [point-in-time] count results have illuminated effective strategies for veterans, emphasizing the importance of consistent investment in housing supports, subsidies and production," Higgins said. "This, coupled with a housing first-oriented system of care and robust national and local leadership, has proven successful.
"Conversely, the findings from the 2023 PIT Count underscore what doesn't work—an intentional disinvestment from the social safety net, policies that criminalize homelessness, and a reversal of years of progress. These choices disproportionately harm Black, Latinx and indigenous veterans and their communities, contributing to the current crisis we face."
Monroe's solutions include federal mandates that specifically detail where money goes because, as she said, a lot of money has already been thrown at the problem—in California and elsewhere—yet the issue persists.
She also encourages "base camps" to be formed, complete with showers, a town hall and a commissary, that could help veterans gain traction while working on skilled trades that could pay financial dividends. They can then get salary or commission or wage jobs to gain traction.
Monroe said the amount of service members that become homeless because of financial circumstances is higher than any other segment of the homeless population. Once homeless, veterans may lose it all by developing drug addictions, for example, exacerbated by their financial situations, depression or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
"We've got to do a better job with their exit from service, giving them runway and giving them traction so that they can segue into being a civilian," she said.
Update 01/05/24, 1:55 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Higgins.
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