Homelessness is up for the seventh year in a row, according to the latest federal homelessness data, with a total increase of 12 percent from 2022 to 2023. That is a situation that no one in this nation should find acceptable.
Signal the predictable chorus of opinions about what's causing homelessness and how to respond. Many critics will focus on the most visible manifestations of homelessness: people who are unsheltered and those with chronic patterns of homelessness.
But to truly understand what is driving the homelessness crisis, consider a population that may be overlooked in this dialogue: U.S. military veterans, who—despite a rich legacy of targeted benefits and homelessness programs available to them—increasingly feel the pain of homelessness. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2023 data showed a 7.4 percent increase between 2022 and 2023, the largest increase in 12 years.
If the social safety protections afforded our veterans are not sufficient to prevent their homelessness, imagine the challenges facing millions of Americans who lack such protections.
Some will insist that this is proof that the federal government's homelessness programs are failing. But the historic data says otherwise, particularly when it comes to veteran programs.
In fact, the federal government's veteran homelessness programs have a sterling track record. Veteran homelessness has been on the decline for nine of the past 12 Point in Time counts, including a steep 11 percent decrease during the pandemic. Thanks largely to bipartisan congressional will to generously invest in and adapt veteran homelessness programs each year, veterans have seen a greater benefit than any other subpopulation experiencing homelessness.
If we know that these programs work, what explains rising veteran homelessness?
It's not because veterans aren't being rehoused. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs connected 40,000 unhoused veterans with permanent housing in 2022, and housed more than 38,800 in 2023.
Rather, it is because veterans are being forced into homelessness faster than programs can rehouse them.
Nationwide, rents skyrocketed between 2020 and 2022, as evictions climbed. Critical COVID-19 relief measures that kept people, including veterans, housed are expiring or already expired. And the inventory of affordable housing units is at crisis level; the National Low Income Housing Coalition said that no state in this nation currently has an adequate supply of affordable housing for the lowest income renters.
As a result, each week of 2022, an average of nearly 17,000 people entered into homeless systems for the first time. Veterans are not immune to these economic pressures, with veterans of color facing a disproportionate risk. These forces threaten to overwhelm the capacity of veteran-servicing organizations.
To address this crisis, we first must fully fund and expand veteran homelessness programs. This includes robust funding for popular, bipartisan programs (like the VA Supportive Services for Veteran Families and HUD-VA Supportive Housing programs) and other Housing First-oriented programs that rapidly connect veterans with permanent housing and voluntary supportive services, including the flexibility to access mental health and substance use treatment services before they enter housing.
Next, Congress should pass pending legislation to restore and strengthen vital services to homeless veterans that were made available during the pandemic but have since expired. These bills enjoy strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate, and leaders should move them forward with urgency.
Each of these measures would greatly enhance our nation's ability to help veterans who are experiencing homelessness. But beyond rehousing, we also must make the investments that will prevent veterans—and in fact, all Americans—from becoming homeless in the first place.
That includes recommitting to COVID-era protections that were so critical to keeping people housed during the pandemic. It also means a refunding of emergency rental assistance programs, and a major investment in the Housing Choice Voucher program, also known as Section 8 Housing. This program currently only is funded to serve an estimated 25 percent of eligible households in America, leaving other low-income households precariously housed and at risk of homelessness.
Outrage at rising homelessness, especially among veterans, is both reasonable and appropriate. But given what we know about the economic pressures that drive this crisis, it is wholly unreasonable and inappropriate not to invest in resources that would protect veterans and the citizens on whose behalf they served.
Tom Murphy is senior director of communications for the National Alliance to End
Homelessness, and is a Public Voices Fellow of the OpEd Project, in partnership with the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative.
Kathryn Monet is CEO of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
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